Comments on: Virginia to Actually Ticket, Fine Toll Dodgers

By: Mik

Mik — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:20:29 +0000

I had the same issue on the Dulles Toll road when I first moved to Nova and received the same response. I was never charged, nor fined.

By: Sweet

Sweet — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:19:30 +0000

When I heard this while driving in today I thought, ‘Damn! If only I’d known they didn’t charge ya!’

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:12:27 +0000

Actually, if you are an EZPass customer and your license plates are in the system, your account will be charged the toll, end of story. If your plates are not in the system, then you will recieve notice of fines as well as the toll, probably within a month of the infraction.

By: Mik

Mik — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:42:02 +0000

My EZ-Pass/Fastlane/Whatever it’s called in YOUR state failed to work whilst travelling this weekend. No bells and whistles went off at the tolls. When I called the toll collection center to pay my fine, they had no record of it and told met to send them a check with the date, time and place of missed tolls….

By: Evil Moo

Evil Moo — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:21:21 +0000

I think people running red lights presents much more of a safety hazard than people (questionably) dodging tolls. How many people have been injured or killed by toll dodgers? Not to mention that I’ve had more than one occasion where the toll refused to recognize that I had put the right amount of money in.

By: Tom Bridge

Tom Bridge — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:07:16 +0000

You brought up a great point, DCeiver, which is why I went and looked at the article again. Virginia is estimating they lost $1.2M in revenue from the toll dodgers. If we assume the fewest number of tolls in that $1.2M, we’re looking at 1.6M unpaid tolls, or $40M in fines. The camera system only runs $7.6M, though, so as long as they catch 30% of tolldodgers, they’re still way ahead.

By: DCeiver

DCeiver — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:54:53 +0000

You answered your own question. With such a tiny percentage of toll scofflaws, it’s likely that the cost of unpaid tolls only recently reached whatever magic number was necessary to trigger tax monies being spent on camera installation and upkeep.