Would Sonny Corleone Have Survived If He Had EZ Pass?
Bear with me, because this is where organized crime meets organized data.
Let’s set the scene.
It’s 1945. You’re Sonny Corleone, the volcanic heir to the most powerful crime family in New York. Your sister’s being abused (again), your blood pressure’s on the moon, and you just got a call that sends you screeching down the highway in a rage-fueled Italian sports car.
You hit the tollbooth.
You get Swiss-cheesed by about 900 bullets.
Cut to black.
It's one of the most iconic death scenes in movie history. But here's the question no one’s asking:
Would Sonny have survived… if he’d had EZ Pass?
Tollbooths: Then and Now
Back in Sonny’s day, tollbooths were quaint little boxes where you’d flip a coin, get a ticket, maybe exchange a grim nod with a chain-smoking guy in a paper hat. And, if you were really unlucky, get murdered by a dozen guys hiding in a fruit stand.
Fast forward to now, and tollbooths are high-speed data exchanges masquerading as concrete arches. With EZ Pass, you don’t stop. You don’t slow down. You just whoosh through as a scanner silently reads a small transponder stuck to your windshield and logs your location, time, and vehicle ID into a sprawling government database. Which sounds a lot like something the Corleones would’ve had strong opinions about.
The Technology Sonny Never Knew He Needed
Let’s break this down.
EZ Pass uses radio-frequency identification (RFID), which is just a fancy way of saying “the toll plaza is talking to your car with invisible walkie-talkies.”
When your car zooms past, a roadside reader zaps a signal to your EZ Pass tag. That tag responds with a unique ID number that’s tied to your bank account, license plate, social security number, probably your Netflix password—who knows.
The whole exchange takes less than 300 milliseconds, which is faster than it took Sonny to realize “Hey, something feels off here.”
Could It Have Saved Him?
Let’s explore this from a mob strategy perspective.
With EZ Pass, Sonny’s route would’ve been trackable in real time. As soon as he passed the Verrazzano, someone in the Corleone compound (maybe Tom Hagen, maybe Clemenza, maybe the guy who just polishes the Tommy guns) would get a ping:
“Sonny just passed through Exit 31A. ETA to Jones Beach: 4 minutes.”
At that point, someone might’ve noticed the pattern, checked the route, and asked:
“Why’s Sonny going that way? Nobody ever uses that toll lane unless they’re going to get whacked or buy clams.”
Boom. Intervention launched. Barzini’s men foiled. Sonny lives to yell at people another day.
Or… Could It Have Helped the Killers?
Of course, there’s a darker side to all this tech. If Barzini’s crew had sniffed out Sonny’s tag number, they could’ve set up a toll-tracking system of their own.
They wouldn’t even need binoculars. Just a couple of antennae, a laptop, and maybe someone with a CompTIA Security+ certification. They’d know Sonny’s car the second it passed under the scanner.
They could time the ambush with military precision.
EZ Pass: convenient, but also a snitch.
This Is About More Than Tollbooths
Look, Sonny Corleone is fictional. His death is cinematic. But the implications are real.
Data moves. It tracks. It remembers.
The same system that lets you breeze through a toll on the Garden State Parkway is part of a much bigger network of location data, behavioral analytics, and invisible breadcrumbs we leave everywhere we go.
Businesses rely on it. Governments regulate it. Hackers love it.
And us? We usually just shrug and say, “Cool, it saved me 15 seconds.”
The Final Drive
So would EZ Pass have saved Sonny?
Maybe. Maybe not. But it definitely would’ve changed the game.
The moment he rolled up to that toll plaza, someone—good guys, bad guys, or third-party ad vendors—would’ve known he was there. And that means decisions get made faster. Reactions get sharper. And endings get… different.
Moral of the Story?
Whether you're running a family business or a Family business, know what’s tracking you, and how fast it’s moving.
And maybe, just maybe… take a different route.
Preferably one without tollbooths. Or fruit stands.