Before you get carried away by the prospect of doing away with the tollbooths on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the newest proposal for the structure doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

First of all, just because there aren’t booths doesn’t mean there isn’t a toll.

And if you’re among the 80 percent of bridge commuters who currently have a transponder on your windshield, the change — if it happens — wouldn’t affect you anyway.

According to those advocating the new system, the technology now exists to replace the tollbooths with high-speed cameras that would record the license plate numbers of every car crossing the bridge, run them through the Department of Motor Vehicles, and send a bill to its owner.

Presumably this would also apply to out-of-state plates.

On the plus side — again according to its supporters — such a system would be cheaper to operate than paying human beings to sit in toll booths making change all day long.

On the other hand — and this is just us talking — one wonders whether it could live up to that promise.

Yes, computers can be operated more cheaply than state employees. But at least when a tollbooth employee takes your money, the transaction is finished and off the books.

By contrast, imagine the difficulty of trying to collect a $4 toll two weeks after the fact from a driver in Nebraska who may or may not have understood there was one.

Sending out a bill is one thing. Actually collecting it is something else entirely, as any business owner can tell you.

The default rate could jump from zero to 50 percent overnight, creating the need for a huge and expensive collections apparatus that doesn’t currently exist.

Make no mistake, we’re for anything that would reduce the burden on commuters forced to pay for a bridge few of them wanted to begin with. But before we actually believe this scheme will save money, we’ll want something more reassuring than WSDOT’s word.