Out of cash at a toll booth, what does your state do for that

[hotdogPi]

And in a related experience, I was recently at a MalWart getting groceries and the electricity went off.  Manager said there was NO WAY to handle cash for even the purchase of a single item, like a gallon of milk I needed, as he didn't have any kind of paper backup system in place.  It says on my money it's legal tender for all debts, but not at MalWart when the power is off.

Even though it's legal tender for all debts, that situation wasn't a debt.

Also, "MalWart"?

[jeffandnicole]

...It says on my money it's legal tender for all debts, but not at MalWart when the power is off.

Once someone starts with the "it's legal tender for all debts" crap, they start losing credibility.  That statement has nothing to do with a store mandating that they accept cash.

And 1 is right...you aren't paying a debt.  You're making a purchase.  You don't owe anyone anything until you accept it.  And since they didn't give it to you yet, it's not a debt.

Walmart...and many, many stores...maintain their inventory via those registers, along with normal daily accounting.  If the person took your money, they would have no accounting for that money or that milk.  If you're upset at Walmart, shop someplace else.  Kinda funny someone mocks a store name...then shops there anyway...especially a store that requires you to go a long way to the back to get a gallon of milk.  Guess you didn't want to pay the 20 cents additional at a convenience store.

[SP Cook]

A person who wanders onto a toll road without cash is just not paying attention.  People that do not pay attention to signage are dangerous drivers, because the signage is often about far more important matters.

Within the last 18 months or so the ends of the WV Turnpike have been signed "Credit Cards Not Accepted at Toll Plazas" so I guess it was a big enough issue to deserve a sign. 

When I travel locally, first I have EZ Pass.  Second, I never have less than $200 cash, including bills smaller than $20s.  Third, I keep at least $20 in quarters and an assortment of other coins, including several dollar coins, in the car at all times.  Fourth, I keep  5 $100 bills in one of my gun lock boxes.  Fifth, I will always carry one blank check in my wallet and another in the car.  When I travel outside my local area, I will generally carry more cash, and a couple of backup credit cards other than the ones I normally use.

[jeffandnicole]

I would bet that an incredible number of people don't look at signage.  They look at signage that's important to them, and ignore the rest.  It takes driving or riding with people without as much interest in this stuff to really understand it.  I've had people in my carpool point out signs to me that they think are new...even though they've been up for weeks.  There's one guy that, when stuck in traffic, I ask if he saw the VMS sign stating the accident up ahead.  Almost always, it's a 'No'.  One other guy, when he hears a traffic report saying there's an accident near Exit #xx, he asks if that will affect us.

We've been doing this commute over 15 years now.  Every one of these statements has held true the entire time.  If they don't care about something, or don't see something, they take absolutely no care to try to learn about it.

Multiply that times the many people on the road, and you have a whole host of people that simply don't pay attention.

As for me, I rarely carry much cash, and quite often have no cash.  If I'm going to be in an unusual area (on a trip, etc), then I try to take a bit more cash with me, and will still use credit when I can to hold onto the cash just in case.  I can't actually recall being around an area where they accept no cards whatsoever.   If I find myself in a position to need something at that moment, I simply go into a store that accepts credit cards.

[SP Cook]

I would bet that an incredible number of people don't look at signage.  They look at signage that's important to them, and ignore the rest.

How does one determine which signage is important to oneself without reading it?

[formulanone]

Only once was I out of cash, and that was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I only had $5 for an $8-9 toll; the rental car transponder was missing (although the cover was there). They waved me by, and took the loss.

To not get too political here, John Tesh brings up on his radio show how we should pay cash and never charge.  Also to note that when we started relying on our cards to do the work of reaching into our pockets or waiting in long lines in the bank lobby to cash the old check we used to get, we never had a debt problem.

Debt has always been a thing; it was even tantamount to theft until about 100 years ago.

Tesh points out that when you see the money in your hand its easier to control your spending.  When you assume that you are not spending that much cause you are only charging a few bucks here and there, it adds up little by little.  Remember who writes down in a ledger what they charge on their cards when they use them.  Yes you can guess and maybe be right, but still having cash in the hands is still the way to go.

Not to mention that marketers see where you spend your money and then decide what to sell you and before you know you have spam.  If you hang out at Millers Ale House everyday charging 10 bucks on beer, everybody knows that you like to spend money at that particular establishment.  If you pay cash everyday you go there, no one knows that you are there each day from looking in a data base.

It's all well and good until your wallet goes missing:

A) Call the credit card company, my card is missing...[call, push some buttons, wait, and they'll help out]
B) Call the bank, my money is missing...[laughter ensues]

The benefits of a credit card are numerous...but try buying an emergency item/service without a credit card. [more laughter]

Those of us with a 3rd-grade education know that you shouldn't spend more than you make, or you run into those pesky negative numbers, and if you need a celebrity to remind one that, I think there's nothing else I can do.

Don't really care about the marketing; while it certainly exists, it still seems to be a bit off.

[jeffandnicole]

I would bet that an incredible number of people don't look at signage.  They look at signage that's important to them, and ignore the rest.

How does one determine which signage is important to oneself without reading it?

Many a cop and meter maid has probably been asked that question.  "What do you mean there was a sign?  I didn't see a sign!  There wasn't a sign. That sign's stupid.  That sign wasn't there 20 seconds ago.  I can't read that sign.  That tree's blocking the sign, etc, etc, etc."

[hotdogPi]

I would bet that an incredible number of people don't look at signage.  They look at signage that's important to them, and ignore the rest.

How does one determine which signage is important to oneself without reading it?

It's faster to determine what type of sign something is than to read everything in it. Examples include food/lodging/attraction signs, height/weight restrictions, mile markers, and parking restrictions. If these signs are irrelevant in the current situation, recognizing the type of sign is enough.

[vdeane]

...It says on my money it's legal tender for all debts, but not at MalWart when the power is off.

Once someone starts with the "it's legal tender for all debts" crap, they start losing credibility.  That statement has nothing to do with a store mandating that they accept cash.

And 1 is right...you aren't paying a debt.  You're making a purchase.  You don't owe anyone anything until you accept it.  And since they didn't give it to you yet, it's not a debt.

Walmart...and many, many stores...maintain their inventory via those registers, along with normal daily accounting.  If the person took your money, they would have no accounting for that money or that milk.  If you're upset at Walmart, shop someplace else.  Kinda funny someone mocks a store name...then shops there anyway...especially a store that requires you to go a long way to the back to get a gallon of milk.  Guess you didn't want to pay the 20 cents additional at a convenience store.

Couldn't they have written down the item and amount on a piece of paper and then run the transaction when power was restored?  I'm sure someone in the store has to have a note pad or something, or you could even rip off some of the receipt paper.

[jeffandnicole]

...It says on my money it's legal tender for all debts, but not at MalWart when the power is off.

Once someone starts with the "it's legal tender for all debts" crap, they start losing credibility.  That statement has nothing to do with a store mandating that they accept cash.

And 1 is right...you aren't paying a debt.  You're making a purchase.  You don't owe anyone anything until you accept it.  And since they didn't give it to you yet, it's not a debt.

Walmart...and many, many stores...maintain their inventory via those registers, along with normal daily accounting.  If the person took your money, they would have no accounting for that money or that milk.  If you're upset at Walmart, shop someplace else.  Kinda funny someone mocks a store name...then shops there anyway...especially a store that requires you to go a long way to the back to get a gallon of milk.  Guess you didn't want to pay the 20 cents additional at a convenience store.

Couldn't they have written down the item and amount on a piece of paper and then run the transaction when power was restored?  I'm sure someone in the store has to have a note pad or something, or you could even rip off some of the receipt paper.

I would think corporate would say No to that idea.  No doubt they have their policies regarding what happens when the electric goes out.  Most cashiers probably don't even have the ability to open their own drawer manually.

Besides...how much does that gallon of milk cost?  And who's going to run back to check?  And then do this over and over again for everyone who wants that same treatment.

Mom & Pop stores may be willing to do it.  But in today's era of everything being highly computerized and tracked, there aren't too many companies that empower their employees to just sell something when the computers are down.  Management is probably skittish about doing it as well.

[hotdogPi]

There are two topics going on here.

Replies #25, 26, 33, and 34 are on one subject.

Replies #27, 28, 29, 31, and 32 are on another subject.

Reply #30 is part one topic and part the other topic.

Time for a split?

[SP Cook]

It's faster to determine what type of sign something is than to read everything in it.

"Last Exit Before Toll Road" (MUTCD W16-16P) is a yellow sign with black letters.  Which is a warning sign.  While I will grant you that it is certainly might be OK to skip the blue signs and the brown signs, and even the green signs if one knows where one is going, I would still say that a person who does not read the yellow or the red signs and even the white ones is dangerously unaware of what is going on on the highway.

[noelbotevera]

What PA does is that if you have no cash or accidentally go into an EZPass lane, you're mailed your toll and have 7 days to pay the toll.

[kphoger]

Having just returned from a nine-day mission trip to Mexico...

I'm the one who plans and budgets for these trips every year. The only item I've routinely paid on a credit card is Mexican car insurance, because I prefer to do so online ahead of time rather than stopping at the border and shopping for it.

However, I've gone into cashless tolling kicking and screaming. In 2010, the Camino Colombia stopped taking cash, so I reluctantly opened a day-pass account and did my best (not always successfully) to keep vehicle info updated on the account. Two years ago, for the first time I did pay-by-mail, because there are toll booths on TX-130 that don't take cash and I was sick of the Austin-San Antonio corridor. Last year, the other two vehicles had K-Tag or Pike-Pass and so they kept passing me up at toll booths in Oklahoma. This year was the first year I've actually driven with my own toll tag.

I don't know if the international border bridges accept credit cards, and there's usually not a place to turn around immediately after the booth, so I'm not sure what would happen if you couldn't pay.

I did find myself in a MalWart-type situation on Saturday, though. The nine of us had just finished ordering our lunch at the Burger King in Monclova (Coahuila), the clerk told me the total due, I got the cash out, and then the computer system went down. They prepared our lunch from memory, on the expectation that I could pay later once the system came back up. It eventually did as we were finishing up, and then I had to remind them exactly what we'd ordered so they could ring me up and I could pay. Everyone who had come in in the meantime, however, had been told they couldn't order lunch.

The one time I had no cash for a toll was in the early 2000s in Chicago. We were entering the East-West Toll Road at an unmanned booth somewhere near Oakbrook, and I didn't realize there were no coins in the car. Fortunately for us, at least in those days, there was only a front-side camera, and our car had no front license plate (it was from Kansas), so there was no way to register who we were. Fortunately as well, there was no gate.

[kkt]

Cash will solve problems nothing else will.

Yep.  I found out the hard way that taxis in Rome do NOT take credit cards.  Arrived in Rome with only USD and found our airport driver before finding an ATM to get Euros out.

[Brandon]

The one time I had no cash for a toll was in the early 2000s in Chicago. We were entering the East-West Toll Road at an unmanned booth somewhere near Oakbrook, and I didn't realize there were no coins in the car. Fortunately for us, at least in those days, there was only a front-side camera, and our car had no front license plate (it was from Kansas), so there was no way to register who we were. Fortunately as well, there was no gate.

There are cameras for the rear plates as well.  ISTHA really doesn't care much if it's a one time violation.  They're not going to go nuts trying to pursue you for one toll missed.  They have much bigger and much more local flagrant violators to go after who owe thousands of dollars worth of missed tolls.

[kphoger]

I know they have rear cameras NOW. But I didn't see one at that entry THEN.

[epzik8]

This is a bit off-topic, but I was eastbound on the I-276 portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike the other day headed into New Jersey, and I had plenty of money with me, which was good because I had entered at Harrisburg West, and at the big toll plaza at Neshaminy Falls, I accidentally started to go into the Express E-ZPass, and I actually backed my car up all the way back to the regular lanes. People kept honking at me because I was being an idiot. I finally got in the regular toll lanes and drove up to a cash lane, gave the toll collector my ticket and told him what had happened. He told me, "I didn't even see that at all." Hey, it was either that or I would have been fined for running the express lanes and my parents would have demanded to know what I had been up to in Bensalem, Pennsylvania and why I had decided to go to New Jersey for no reason. At least I got to see how construction of the Bristol Interchange was going afterward.

[ZLoth]

To not get too political here, John Tesh brings up on his radio show how we should pay cash and never charge.  Also to note that when we started relying on our cards to do the work of reaching into our pockets or waiting in long lines in the bank lobby to cash the old check we used to get, we never had a debt problem.

Tesh points out that when you see the money in your hand its easier to control your spending.  When you assume that you are not spending that much cause you are only charging a few bucks here and there, it adds up little by little.  Remember who writes down in a ledger what they charge on their cards when they use them.  Yes you can guess and maybe be right, but still having cash in the hands is still the way to go.

I can understand what John Tesh is saying, but in today's world, it is kinda unrealistic. Want to rent a car? Either use a credit card or prepared to have a large amount of cash on hold on your debit card. Want to reserve a hotel room? Book it with a credit card. And, I have found it much easier to have my recurring bills charged to my credit card (thus ensuring on-time payment) and then paying the credit card off each month. I am fortunate enough to have a low interest rate card (7.79%) and I get a little bit of cash back each month.

But, back to the original topic.... in my normal day-to-day stuff, I can get away with about $10-$20. If I'm traveling, I can pull cash from a credit union, or do a debit card purchase at a convenience store and get cash and a cola. While I only travel to the SF bay area about two-three times a year, I have a FasTrak transponder for both my car and my mom's car just so that it is quicker to go through the bridges.

[kphoger]

I can understand what John Tesh is saying, but in today's world, it is kinda unrealistic. Want to rent a car? Either use a credit card or prepared to have a large amount of cash on hold on your debit card. Want to reserve a hotel room? Book it with a credit card.

We don't have a true credit card.  Or, if we do, we never use it and I've simply forgotten we have it.  Our debit card has a Visa logo on it, which means it's accepted almost everywhere a credit card is.  For hotel rooms, I always simply reserve them with our debit card and then pay cash upon checking in.

I think a rental car is the only thing we had to do a work-around for.  In fact, that's one reason I suspect we do actually have a true credit card.  But, as I said, if we do then we basically never use it; in fact, it may be that we simply found a way to deposit enough money into our bank account to use our debit card.  And, considering we've only ever rented a car once in ten years of marriage, then I don't consider that reason enough to suggest needing a credit card.

Why buy something you don't have the money for at the time?  That's unwise spending.  We even paid $10,000 cash for our car back in February, with a personal check.  We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but that's just all the more reason to not overextend our spending.

[kkt]

There are good reasons for using a credit card for purchases... fraud protection and a mediator if there's a dispute between buyer and seller.  If the card is lost or stolen it can be stopped.  When in a foreign country, a more fair exchange rate (assuming the card was chosen wisely).

All that said, they do give people more than enough rope to hang themselves.  It's easy to say pay it off every month but hard to fight temptation.

[8.Lug]

Stop at an ATM first. People who work in tollbooths absolutely HATE when you come up to them with no money because all you do is back up traffic and annoy them with paperwork. If they wanted to deal with paperwork and stupid people, they'd work at a bank. They work in tollbooths for a reason.

[roadman65]

Stop at an ATM first. People who work in tollbooths absolutely HATE when you come up to them with no money because all you do is back up traffic and annoy them with paperwork. If they wanted to deal with paperwork and stupid people, they'd work at a bank. They work in tollbooths for a reason.

Heck I would work in a bank if it were offered to me. I would even drive a cab, despite in Orlando most cabbies are immigrants as to me that is not a trash job like washing dishes or mopping floors.

I work in a toll booth cause it pays the bills!  Just so you know up until I got a job working a toll plaza, I had no idea that people could be so nonchalant about pulling up to the booth and admitting they have no money with some even proud of it!  I used to think that you got a traffic citation and hefty fine if you drove a toll road with no money and that everyone knew it!  Even if they did not know the area, I figured that people would see the signs TOLL ROAD, LAST FREE EXIT, LAST EXIT BEFORE FARE (MI uses that one on I-75), or LAST EXIT BEFORE TOLL and never attempt to drive it.

I had no idea that the GPS is the thing for all to use with that being the excuse they are on the road without money until I started toll collecting.  I  especially had no idea also they ignored road signs, but given that EXIT ONLY on an overhead assembly with elephant tracks at a right lane default exit ramp is ignored on freeways I should have realized that one here too.

[ZLoth]

Why buy something you don't have the money for at the time?  That's unwise spending.  We even paid $10,000 cash for our car back in February, with a personal check.  We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but that's just all the more reason to not overextend our spending.

You remind me of this Saturday Night Live skit. Perhaps you use this advice at Christmas to teach your kids about frugality.

Personal finance advice can easily take up its own topic. Suffice it to say there is plenty of good advice to go around, and it is outside the range of this topic. The thing to keep in mind is that credit cards, debit cards, and so on are powerful tools that can be used -- or misused. And, if you have good credit and they want to keep you as a customer, they can come up with some good offers. I just spend $1,500 for eight 5TB NAS drives that were on sale at two-for-$350. (Just below my price target of $179 per drive). The credit card that I used had a promotion where I got $200 back if I spent over $1,000 on a purchase. Because I made the purchase right after the mid-July statement close, it will not show up on the statement until the mid-August statement, and I will have it paid off in full by mid-September. Try that deal with cash or debit card.

We even paid $10,000 cash for our car back in February, with a personal check.  We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but that's just all the more reason to not overextend our spending.

What kind of car did you get with what features? My current vehicle is nicely loaded, but it was a "previous daily rental" with only 15,000 miles on it. The reason behind my purchase was that I got rear-ended and the vehicle got totaled. Did I take out a car loan? Yes. And, that car loan was paid off... in 20 days.

Stop at an ATM first. People who work in tollbooths absolutely HATE when you come up to them with no money because all you do is back up traffic and annoy them with paperwork.

You are making an assumption that everyone thinks and plans ahead. Not everyone does. Also, there is the murphy's law aspect where you thought you have a couple bucks in your wallet, but really don't. I keep seeing that every time I see the traffic backup on the Benicia-Martinez Bridge Toll Plaza, and I'm just driving straight through with a slight decrease in speed using my Fastrak device.

[kphoger]

Even someone who is in the habit of carrying cash can end up getting caught short if they're low and don't expect to be paying cash for something.

Also, there is the murphy's law aspect where you thought you have a couple bucks in your wallet, but really don't.

This is the real point of the thread.  Let's assume for a minute that {gasp!} we're not perfect.  The unexpected happens.  Maybe you drifted into highway hypnosis and didn't notice the toll signs, maybe you unwittingly left your wallet on the counter at the 7-Eleven, maybe a hitchhiker stole the coins out of your console when you weren't paying attention, maybe you're in a friend's car and didn't realize it doesn't have a toll tag, whatever.  What then?