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Follow TURFHoosiers to pay big for toll violations
NOTE: The problem of unpaid tolls is at epidemic proportions. Drivers cannot afford to pay extra to get around. Rather than government using our transportation taxes wisely and building public roads freely accessible to all, we're fracturing our road system into one for the "haves" and one for the "have nots." Also, governments are making a killing off toll violations, more than the tolls themselves. It's a racket. Especially since the advent of electronic toll collections (fraught with problems and mistakes in billing), innocent people are the target of punitive fines than can ill afford.
Tollway to go after Hoosiers for unpaid tolls, fines
August 25, 2010
The Illinois Tollway has targeted about 116,000 Indiana motorists who owe an estimated $7 million in unpaid tolls and fines due to a two-year lapse in issuing violation notices.
The problem is prompting tollway directors Thursday to hire an outside auditor to review the agency's electronic toll collection system.
The problem started in May 2008 when the tollway and its contractor, Texas-based Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp., turned off the system for issuing violation notices to Indiana motorists, officials said Tuesday.
The shutdown was intended to reprogram equipment to better differentiate between multiple types of license plates with the same numbers.
But when the system was restarted two months later, "filters" were left in place that kept some notices from being sent out, a mistake not caught until June, officials said.
The result was that some Hoosiers didn't get notices for racking up about 1.9 million violations.
Tollway Executive Director Kristi Lafleur said she is recommending the audit to ensure that other violators aren't being missed. It was only fair to toll-paying motorists that the agency go after all those unpaid tolls and fines, she said.
Tollway Director Bill Morris said administrators were "frustrated" that the mistake had occurred and that officials hoped to put checks in place to prevent more problems.
The tollway incurred a similar backlog of tolls and fines during a 13-month period ending in 2007 when no toll violations were sent out during a change in contractors.
Hundreds of thousands of drivers were shocked to get steep fines for violations that allegedly occurred at least a year earlier.
Tollway policy is to send notices to all violators accumulating three or more toll violations within a two-year period. Violation notices require payment of all missed tolls, and $20 fines are assessed for every unpaid toll.
-- Richard Wronski