2980 Toll Trouble

Monday, June 7, 2010

"Actions lie louder than words."
--Carolyn Wells--

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It rained yesterday. That means I did nothing yesterday. Seriously - I turn off when it rains, like some expensive piece of electronic equipment avoiding a short circuit. I think I read a lot, or something. I don't even remember.

On my last trip to NJ I took Hal, and the EZ-Pass, down the Garden State Parkway. I went through EZ-Pass lanes, and at two of them, Bergen on the way down, and "ESS" (whatever that stands for) on the way home the next day, instead of getting the "Toll Paid" signal, I got "Toll Not Paid - GO", which I'd never seen before.

The notice of fines arrived in the mail. I owe $1 for each of the two tolls (Wow! When did that happen? Remember when GSP tolls were 30 cents?), and $25 "administrative fee" for each.

I'm going to dispute them.

My EZ-Pass worked fine in the toll plazas before and after each of them, so they must have had some bad readers. In fact, I noticed that the car in front of me on the southbound trip got exactly the same message.

Now, I'm not accusing New Jersey of anything, just kind of letting my mind wander, but what do you suppose would happen if a pass reader were turned off for a while? It costs a certain amount to send out the fine notices, let's say $4 each. Many of those people will dispute the $25 fine, but many will just shrug and pay it rather than go through the fuss. If anything more than, say, one in 6 pay the fine, then NJ comes out ahead.

I hear the explanation on a dispute is almost always accepted, so they're pretty good about it, but still, it's not exactly incentive to fix broken readers, is it?
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