Piston Slap: Of barcodes and gated communities?
James writes:
I live in South Florida with an ever-growing elderly population. My question relates to the giant barcode stickers on the sides of many cars. Why do so many of these people leave these stuck to their back windows (almost always on the passenger side). Good luck? Fear? Ignorance? I notice this on a variety of makes/models.
Speaking of ignorance, I assume this is an inventory-related decal for transport?
Sajeev answers:
That’s a fair assumption. I also assumed those were inventory tags for rental agencies and loaner fleets that are part of luxury car dealerships. Those tags make life easier for employees and expedite the check out process for customers. But this is different, because you wrote, “giant barcode.” And thanks to the magic of Google, I learned there are 564 gated communities in Florida. Guess how they make those gates open/close at scale for all those residents?
I suspect you live close to several of these communities, and they all use barcodes to automatically open/close those gates. This feature, while hideous on a vehicle, ensures people willingly pay their HOA fees. Not all of your fellow motorists are enthusiasts, at least not with their daily driver. Slapping an ugly barcode on their ride is worth the time savings. It’s a huge benefit for residents of bougee communities on Halloween night, when Trick-or-Treaters would likely descend on said community of fancy decorations and an endless supply of candy.
Speaking of the wealthy locations, one such community avoids the tacky barcodes via interfacing with the local toll road authority’s RFID sticker transponder. I assume that costs more, and that some HOA’s are unwilling to pay for (monthly?) access to such a database when they could own the whole system instead. But the fancy places with more Land Rovers than Chevy trucks will demand the inconspicuous nature of the toll road interface. Nobody with a new AMG Mercedes-Benz wants a bar code on their window that makes it look like a hardware store purchase.
No matter how you slice it, a lot of Americans live in these suburban communities, and an efficient way to let people in and out is mandatory at this point. Ain’t technology grand?
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Ain’t advertising “I’m fairly well off as I live in an exclusive gated community, so why not follow me to somewhere that you can attack me, make off with my valuables, and maybe stick a knife in my chest while you’re at it” grand? ‘Cause I just see those things as VERY noticeable billboards for crooks.
Yes and that happens a lot down here. If they really like what they see, they will not rob you at your driveway, instead they will break into your house later with a team of robbers with big guns and big threats. Ethnic communities known for keeping a lot of jewelry are usually victims of this.
Not making this up, as I once lived in a gated community. I jokingly called them the “false sense of security gates”.
I have said it before, better say it again: check your review mirror frequently and if you’re being followed, drive to a police station.
I’m sure glad I live in a “normal”, low-crime area. I have never lived in fear of being attacked, robbed, or being the victim of a home invasion. I realize that’s a privilege not all can afford. Perhaps there’s something to be said for being in the sweet spot of having enough wealth to afford a good, safe place to live yet not so wealthy that one is not a target of perceived high wealth.
You indeed seem to have hit a sweet spot, that’s for sure!
Back before the age of EZ-PASS, SUNPASS, etc., that’s how you used to get on to toll roads without paying at the booth
Aren’t these barcodes easily counterfeited? A camera and a printer would be all that was necessary.
If they do it right, there’d be a camera as a backstop with a license plate scanner. They can easily match the plate to the sticker.It wouldn’t stop them from getting access, but it’d at least stop them from repeat access (change the sticker when its been duplicated).
Why not just use the plate then? Or RFID? or any of a dozen technologies out there that are better than 90s era barcode stickers?
That’s a good question, but from what little I know about these commercially available systems (i.e. very little), the plate scan doesn’t work very quickly, because the camera isn’t connected to the gate and lacks the processing power to do everything in real time. The barcode is pretty much instantaneous, and unlike RFID, it’s super cheap.
I am sure there are license plate scanners that would do the job for any big community with long lines at the gate (the police have plate scanners that work real quick) but I betcha nobody wants to pay more in HOA fees to get it.
Around my area where there are gated communities (not that I visit many, but my old tax person lived in one, so I had to go there a couple of times per year), the driver pulls up to a keypad and punches in a code. I realize that that necessitates pushing a button to lower the window of your Lexus or Escalade, and then physically putting your arm out into the elements, but is it really so bad that one must have a scanner to automatically save you from all that exertion?
The bigger communities will have a line at the gate, which of course would be unacceptable. Because you’re already fighting traffic in a suburbanite sprawling hellscape with aggressive drivers everywhere and no alternate forms of transport, so the last thing you want is a line to get home.
My mother had a storage unit that I had to get into once. I didn’t know the gate code, and randomly punched in 4 digit numbers until the gate opened. If you have more than a hundred customers or so (not counting past codes still in the system) the odds of randomly cracking the code improve significantly
There have been times when I wondered if I’d like to spend more time “in a big city” just to see what life is like there. This is definitely NOT one of those times, and reading Sajeev’s two responses to my previous comments/questions have convinced me that there should NEVER be another one of those times…
DUB6 go to a city (in Europe, or maybe London) with good mass transit and lots of interesting things to do at those stops. Those are a lot of fun, and make for a stress free vacation. As much as I love Houston, there’s too much congestion and aggressiveness on the roads these days. You have to plan your day around traffic if you want to enjoy your day, and that takes a lot of fun out of it.
Well I’ve been to more than a few of the largest cities in the world, but I’d argue that sitting on mass transit and visiting “vacation” sites isn’t really “seeing what life is like” there. 😃
The issues you described about everyday traffic, congestion, aggression and crime – the stuff that residents have to contend with on a day-in-day-out basis – THAT’S what LIFE is like in the city. Stress-free vacations aren’t life: they are (hopefully) an escape from real life for a short period!
That’s true, but some places have a nice mix of transit options. But in some places that is impossible to implement. When gridlock happens, I’d rather not be driving…which means I’m not interested in driving for several hours every day!
Gridlock at my place is when the dog herds the milk cow into the corner of the active pasture where the access gate to the fallow field is, and I can’t get them to move so I can open the gate to get the tractor pulling the manure spreader through!
No amount of technology is gonna allow that gate to open until that dog is darned good and ready to let that cow out of that corner…
That’s a type frustration that I would be down for. Love it!
I get the fake sense of security vibe, in the late 80s my parents lived in a condo complex in New York and the guard worked days and there was no gate so it was security theater. We just had a decal with the development logo, rather like the local mega churches who apparently use them for parking.
Off topic, I used to drive past a mid century apartment complex in Portland called Colony Park, which raised the question which came first, the apartments or the Mercury station wagon?
There was security and a gate at John Lennon’s NYC condo and apparently neither kept him from being killed.
What a “DUMB” question!!!!!
No such thing.
This.
None of the gated communities that I have been from Orlando to Daytona to Jacksonville (approx 50) use these hideous bar codes. They have mostly used a transponder type device similar to Sun Pass that you can carry in your visor or mount behind the grill. It does not have to be affixed to the windshield. A couple of places still use garage door type transmitters. A call to Sun Pass verified that they do not share their technology with private entities for access purposes. “Our system is for payments only and cannot be used for security or to allow or deny entry into an area.”
We have a toll bridge in out area that uses it own bar code, a small sticker on the passenger side backseat window that is manually scanned. When asked about using Sun Pass they laughed and explained that even with 30,000 daily transits, they could not charge enough to break even on the Sun Pass fees.
This is good info, thanks for sharing! Kinda surprised Sun Pass won’t play ball, the Houston EZ-TAG interface works well down here for gated communities.
No barcodes for me.
Isn’t it easier to tailgate into these areas? I’ve worked at several “secure” facilities and if I didn’t have the code or transponder I just followed the next vehicle in.
A lot of places have a gate and an arm .
Gates slides open , then the arm goes up .
The arm only allows one car in and it drops rapidly .
Trying to tailgate in gets the arm into your fender .
I’ve worked at secure facilities and it was drilled into your head that you proceed through the gate just far enough for the gate to close , and stop until the gate closes , preventing any tailgating .
If you got caught allowing a tailgater to get in , you got written up .
You also had to have your ID visible at all times .
Any person without a visible ID got challenged by other employees .
The plainclothes security people would walk around without their ID showing and the first employee who challenged them got $1000 bonus in their next paycheck .
But this was slightly more secure than a gated community.
Gates cut the crime rate significantly.
My parents live in a beachfront condo complex in Florida ,
They started having a noticeable increase in car burglaries in their parking lot .
They installed gates and have not had a car burglary since .
As does just having a single road in and out , without a gate .
Criminals do not like having to use the same road out .
Now with the LPR cameras (license image reader ) and the Flock cameras everywhere , criminals have to use a stolen plate or a stolen vehicle .
I’ve seen a lot of neighborhoods with the Flock cameras
The image where my wife works uses a RFID
It’s a clear sticker that goes on the windshield , or the headlight .
Not affiliated with the ez pass . Which we also have on the car for the “Lexus Lane “
Local gated aviation community has retired east German border guards in booths at entrance. “Your paperss pliss?” Name, rank serial number, license plate, driver’s license, note from mother, who you are visiting and why (checks by phone), und zen, chust MAYBE ve might let you in.
I’m an FAA Aviation Safety Counselor so I put the credential (with the *BIG* FAA logo on it) on a retractable string tag and showed it to the guard. He practically saluted me, clicked his heels together, and waved me through – no further questions . . .