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Follow TURFTxDOT tries public shame to get toll violators to pay-up, but some are charged erroneously
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Man shocked to find name on list of top toll violators
16 drivers owe more than $100,000 state said
By Kevin Schwaller
KXAN.com
Friday, October 18, 2013
AUSTIN (KXAN) - The names of the top 25 violators of toll roads operated by the Texas Department of Transportation were released Thursday by the state agency, and 16 of them owe more than $100,000.
And all 25 are from the Austin area.
The top delinquent drivers had 14,358 unpaid transactions that totaled $236,026.32. Number 2 had more than 10,000 unpaid transactions totaling more than $127,600.
Roger Brooks, of Round Rock, is on that list.
Brooks tells KXAN News, he hasn't been neglecting his tolls. Brooks showed us his TxTag and says it is set up to auto-withdrawal from his bank account.
"So I go online, I take a look. Sure enough my name is on that list," said Brooks. "Apparently it's tied to a motorcycle I sold a year ago."
TxDOT lists Brooks as having 4,462 unpaid transactions totaling $111,596.74.
"Surprising how it can stack up so quickly," said Brooks. "And I sold the motorcycle about a year ago. So, I don't know how somebody can just go on the toll all day everyday."
TxDOT confirms it would be possible for someone else to rack up those fees if a TxTag wasn't deactivated or the proper license plate changes were not made through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.
"The day started with a phone call from a neighbor who said 'hey, you can't be driving my daughter around because you're going to go to jail for not paying your toll tags,'" said Brooks. "To come up in this surprising situation is kind of hard to swallow because it's a personal situation."
Brooks says he called TxDOT and has set up an appointment to meet about his case.
KXAN News also went to an address listed online for Amee Geren, who is shown as owing $145,341.08.
However, Geren didn't live in the home.
"Not sure that this is the best way to go about trying to punish people or getting people to pay their bills," said Allisa Latham, who lived at an address listed for one of the violators. "I haven't heard them do this with anything else before."
“Effectively, these people have been stealing form the state and fellow citizens of Texas," TxDOT spokeswoman Veronica Beyer said. "It’s not fair that people have been driving around not paying their tolls to the thousands of other people who have been doing the right thing and paying their tolls.”
A new state law gives the TxDOT the authority to report the names of toll violators in an effort to collect more than $27 million in unpaid tolls owed across the state.
"The tolls collected will be used to pay debt and fund operations of state-maintained toll roads," the TXDOT website says.
In addition to publishing the list of top violators, TxDOT also has the authority to:
• Ban vehicles from using TxDOT toll roads with Texas Transportation Commission approval. If stopped by law enforcement, vehicles in violation of the ban can be ticketed and impounded.
• Report the habitual violators to county tax assessor-collectors to potentially block the renewal of the vehicle’s registration.
• Motorists with unpaid toll violations should immediately contact the TxTag Customer Service Center at (888) 468-9824 between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays. A negotiated settlement amount may be offered as well as a payment plan, if needed.
TxDOT operates several toll roads in the Austin area, Laredo and one in Houston. Regional authorities operate the other toll roads.
Beyer said the agency is willing to negotiate payments and and establish payment plans for drivers who owe. The main focus is just getting the offenders to step forward, she said. The department has been receiving calls all day since the list went up, but Beyer said she didn’t know if it was anyone owning up to the fines. The main goal is to get people calling in; they’ll negotiate with people from there.
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Link to article here.
Even some not on Top 25 list say they want to pay
By John Moritz
Friday, October 18, 2013
KXAN.com
AUSTIN (KXAN) - Publicity, it seem, takes a toll.
Literally. Since the Texas Department of Public Safety on Thursday released the names of the top 25 delinquent payers on the toll roads it operates, at least six of those came forward to work out repayment plans before lunchtime on Friday.
And numerous others not on the Top 25 list but still in arrears with the state have contacted the agency saying they, too, are ready to make good.
TxDOT is taking advantage of new state law allowing it to publicize toll scofflaws as it tries to recoup as much as $27 million in unpaid tolls and penalty payments, Two people on the list are said to owe more than $200,000 and 14 others are said to owe more than $100,000.
Some of the list have said they are being mistakenly billed. And a TxDOT spokeswoman has said the state will work with the late-payers to make payments easier to manage.
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Link to Tribune article here.
TxDOT Releases Names of Top Toll Scofflaws
By David Maly
Texas Tribune
October 17, 2013
With $27 million in unpaid tolls, the Texas Department of Transportation has taken advantage of new state legislation that allows it to publicly release the names of toll violators, posting the names of the top 25 toll scofflaws on its website Thursday morning.
“Allowing these drivers to get away with not paying their tolls is not fair to the tens of thousands of law-abiding taxpayers who pay their toll bills on time,” TxDOT spokeswoman Veronica Beyer said. “These toll violators are effectively stealing from the state and the citizens of Texas. We at TxDOT have an obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, so we are grateful to the Legislature for giving us this new authority.”
Among the top 25 toll offenders, amounts owed range from $236,026.32 to $82,297.26, and the number of unpaid tolls varied from 14,358 to 3,604.
Beyer said TxDOT plans to maintain a list of at least the top 25 offenders on its website, though that could increase to 50. She said violators' names can be removed from the list if they pay their tolls immediately or contact TxDOT to arrange a payment plan.
A 50-cent toll can jump to $448.50 if it is unpaid for 202 days, over which time the toll violator would receive at least two bills and a violation notice. If the toll remains unpaid, the case would be submitted to collections and the court system during that period.
Beyer said additional notices are often sent and efforts are made to contact violators via telephone. She said the top violator received 44 invoices and 142 violation notices, along with a recent “heads up” letter informing the driver that their name would be published on the list if they did not pay by noon on Wednesday.
Judy Blundell, of Taylor, owes $141,755.21 on 5,952 toll violations, according to the list. She said the violations stemmed from her son’s car, which is in her name. She said he drove it to high school in Austin for from 2009 and 2011, racking up the toll violations.
Blundell said she tried to work with a debt collector hired by TxDOT in 2011 and found inaccuracies in what the agency said she owed.
“They had so many false tolls on my son’s Jeep, and this is going back several years,” Blundell said. “When I went in to try to pay them, they showed me images of flash photos that were not of any car that we own.”
Blundell said she worked out the inaccuracies and established a payment plan that she handed off to her son when he turned 18, about two years ago. She said she hasn’t heard from TxDOT since then.
“It just seems to me that there is a lot of disorganization,” Blundell said. “I mean, if TxDOT has a big bill for me, they ought to send it to me, because the ones that I get just sort of are monthlies for my personal car, and those I take care of. Before they put my name on the list, they should probably verify that their facts are right.”
TxDOT received permission to make the names of violators public with the passage of Senate Bill 1792 in June. The bill also allows TxDOT to ban certain vehicles from using toll roads with Texas Transportation Commission approval and to report habitual violators to county tax assessor-collectors to potentially block the renewal of the vehicles’ registration.
Beyer said TxDOT plans to use all of its new authority.
“Publishing names, banning drivers from TxDOT toll roads and working with the tax assessor’s office to possibly block a driver’s vehicle registration should get top toll violators to pay up,” Beyer said. “If not, they won’t be able to drive their car legally.”
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who authored the bill, said it allows transportation agencies to enforce the law in a reasonable way.
“We can't create a situation where the rest of us have to cover the costs that others run up on our roads,” Watson said in a statement. "My legislation simply allows transportation agencies to enforce the law in a reasonable way when people are repeatedly, habitually and intentionally violating it by passing their costs onto the rest of us."