Full-ETC Bill-by-Plate Surcharges

[Dr Frankenstein]

Two years after the A25 toll bridge opened in Montreal, motorists are still disgusted at the steep $5.15 surcharge for bill-by-plate for vehcles that don't have the A25 tag (Canada doesn't have an interoperable tag), which more than triples the toll paid by the user (and the tag accounts also have their own monthly "Account Management Fees" of $1.03 or $2.57 depending on the account type).

The $5.15 fee seems to be the highest in North America, with Ontario's 407 ETR (considered an expensive toll highway) at $3.80 extra for bill-by-plate, on a toll that can reach $20.76.

A25 seems to be hell-bent on keeping that fee, even hiking it from $5.00 last year.

So, my question is, how is this handled in the U.S., and what would be considered a "reasonable" surcharge for bill-by-plate?

[myosh_tino]

$5.15 does seem to be a pretty steep surcharge for Pay-By-Plate toll collection.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco recently went to all electronic toll collection and the surcharge for pay-by-plate is $1.  FasTrak (California's state-wide ETC system) users pay $5 while pay-by-plate users pay $6.

[wxfree]

In Texas, TxDOT charges a higher toll rate, about 30% of each toll, plus $1.15 per invoice.  This seems reasonable to me for infrequent users.  Heavy users could pay a lot more due to the 30% higher rate, but that encourages heavy users to get a TxTag.

NTTA charges 50% more per toll, with no invoice fee.  Again, that seems reasonable to me for infrequent users, but expensive for heavy users, who should get a TollTag.

[jeffandnicole]

Two years after the A25 toll bridge opened in Montreal, motorists are still disgusted at the steep $5.15 surcharge for bill-by-plate for vehcles that don't have the A25 tag (Canada doesn't have an interoperable tag), which more than triples the toll paid by the user (and the tag accounts also have their own monthly "Account Management Fees" of $1.03 or $2.57 depending on the account type).

The $5.15 fee seems to be the highest in North America, with Ontario's 407 ETR (considered an expensive toll highway) at $3.80 extra for bill-by-plate, on a toll that can reach $20.76.

A25 seems to be hell-bent on keeping that fee, even hiking it from $5.00 last year.

So, my question is, how is this handled in the U.S., and what would be considered a "reasonable" surcharge for bill-by-plate?

I guess this issue can be resolved by:

A) Getting a tag

B) Avoiding the bridge

But most people go for C) I still want to use the bridge; I know I'm supposed to have a tag, but I don't want to be penalized for not having a tag.

[1995hoo]

The Intercounty Connector (Maryland Route 200) is fully-ETC with variable toll rates. People who don't have E-ZPass are billed the "Video Toll Rate," which is 150% of the base toll rate (meaning the E-ZPass rate) with a minimum of $1 and a maximum of $15 above the base toll rate.

The 495 Express Lanes (Beltway HO/T lanes) in Virginia are fully-ETC with variable toll rates but require E-ZPass. If you don't have an E-ZPass, you can go on their website within five days and enter your plate number and pay the toll rate plus a $1.50 fee. If you fail to do this, they send you a bill in the mail for the toll rate plus an "administrative fee." The fee is charged per trip. According to their website: "Your first unpaid invoice has an administrative fee of $12.50 per trip. If you do not pay your first invoice then that fee escalates to $25.00 per trip."

The Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike does it differently–toll-by-plate is an explicit option and they say they send you a monthly bill for "the tolls, plus a $2.50 administrative charge." I presume this means a single $2.50 fee. Definitely the most reasonable option of the three I've just noted!

I had reason to think about this issue recently in the context of a bill of costs in federal court. I was writing a sort of practitioner's guide to the law of judgments and costs are a part of that topic. The prevailing party in most cases is entitled to recover certain reasonable costs, and tolls incurred in driving to court or to depositions are one of those costs. I found myself wondering whether the administrative fees we're discussing would be something the courts would allow as part of the toll. I imagine the answer to that might well vary around the country depending on how common toll-by-plate is, how ubiquitous the local transponder is, and whether the toll facility expressly states toll-by-plate is an option (as in Florida) or states that a transponder is required (as in Virginia). Certainly if your witness repeatedly uses toll lanes without a transponder and racks up $12.50 administrative charges, your opposing party should argue they shouldn't have to reimburse the $12.50 charges because they're in the nature of a penalty for the guy's improper use of the lanes. I'd make that argument, and if I were a judge I'd probably agree with it. The key aspect in the law of recovery of costs is that the costs must be "reasonable." I think it's unreasonable for someone to incur $12.50 administrative charges for driving where he's not supposed to, and I think it's further unreasonable to impose that cost on the other party because then it just encourages people to violate the tolling rules.

[wxfree]

495 Express Lanes

Oh, yeah, that reminds me of another system that's being considered.  It may have interesting implications on what's considered to be reasonable.

On some DFW area managed lanes being built, TxDOT is required to pay the private developer for all tolls that are due, whether they're paid or not.  The Regional Transportation Council (DFW MPO) wants to adjust the "video toll premium," to which the developer is not entitled, to cover the costs of billing plus cover the losses caused by failure to pay.  TxDOT wanted RTC to share in the risk, and RTC refused, but suggested that TxDOT set the rates at a level to cover the losses.

I see this as a good policy for the government agencies, but I don't think it's equitable to charge more to those who pay their bills to cover the losses caused by those who don't pay.  Managed lanes are, of course, voluntary and immediately beside free lanes, and not having a tag is also voluntary, so while I think it's inequitable, the plan doesn't force people into that inequitable situation.

Again, for infrequent users, such as someone just passing through town, paying for non-tag use once or twice, even if it's expensive, is a minor expense.  Frequent users should get the tag.

[Dr Frankenstein]

The 495 Express Lanes (Beltway HO/T lanes) in Virginia are fully-ETC with variable toll rates but require E-ZPass. If you don't have an E-ZPass, you can go on their website within five days and enter your plate number and pay the toll rate plus a $1.50 fee. If you fail to do this, they send you a bill in the mail for the toll rate plus an "administrative fee." The fee is charged per trip. According to their website: "Your first unpaid invoice has an administrative fee of $12.50 per trip. If you do not pay your first invoice then that fee escalates to $25.00 per trip."

That's interesting. I was planning on taking these lanes last summer, but didn't when I read that EZ-Pass was "required." I thought I would receive an expensive statement of offense if I did.

However, I probably would have had to pay even though we were three in the car... but it doesn't really matter. I would happily have paid to avoid the congestion we went through.

Or they would just not have bothered to go through the hassle of getting an address from my foreign plate. A25 specifically stated that they, in fact, don't charge out-of-province vehicles (but they're negociating with "neighbouring provinces" for access to their records in the future).

I guess this issue can be resolved by:

A) Getting a tag

B) Avoiding the bridge

But most people go for C) I still want to use the bridge; I know I'm supposed to have a tag, but I don't want to be penalized for not having a tag.

Personally, I choose option B as, considering how infrequently I have to drive to that area, I don't want to maintain a pre-paid account with "management charges" and a $10 minimum balance with them. Shunpiking through Montréal Nord, however, takes some time, and it's worse now that they're tearing down the Pie-IX interchange.

Had the charge been something like $1, I would cross it when I need to, instead of avoiding it like the plague.

[1995hoo]

The 495 Express Lanes (Beltway HO/T lanes) in Virginia are fully-ETC with variable toll rates but require E-ZPass. If you don't have an E-ZPass, you can go on their website within five days and enter your plate number and pay the toll rate plus a $1.50 fee. If you fail to do this, they send you a bill in the mail for the toll rate plus an "administrative fee." The fee is charged per trip. According to their website: "Your first unpaid invoice has an administrative fee of $12.50 per trip. If you do not pay your first invoice then that fee escalates to $25.00 per trip."

That's interesting. I was planning on taking these lanes last summer, but didn't when I read that EZ-Pass was "required." I thought I would receive an expensive statement of offense if I did.

However, I probably would have had to pay even though we were three in the car... but it doesn't really matter. I would happily have paid to avoid the congestion we went through.

....

Correct. The HOV exemption requires that you have three or more people in the vehicle and that you have an E-ZPass Flex with the switch set to the "HOV ON" position. The only jurisdictions offering the Flex are Virginia and Maryland because at the present time, the 495 Express Lanes are the only E-ZPass facility on which the Flex makes any difference (that is, everywhere else it works like a standard E-ZPass regardless of the switch's position), and as far as I know the only currently-planned facility that will use the Flex is the 95 Express Lanes, also in Northern Virginia. Anyone with a standard E-ZPass can use the HO/T lanes but will pay the toll regardless of the number of people in the vehicle.

I only know one person who has an E-ZPass Flex, a neighbor who has three kids.

[vdeane]

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco recently went to all electronic toll collection and the surcharge for pay-by-plate is $1.  FasTrak (California's state-wide ETC system) users pay $5 while pay-by-plate users pay $6.

Wow, that's essentially no surcharge, given that the old cash toll was $6.

[Dr Frankenstein]

[...]and as far as I know the only currently-planned facility that will use the Flex is the 95 Express Lanes, also in Northern Virginia. Anyone with a standard E-ZPass can use the HO/T lanes but will pay the toll regardless of the number of people in the vehicle.

So this means that the trip that I did in the 95 HOV lanes on that same day will no longer be free?

I only know one person who has an E-ZPass Flex, a neighbor who has three kids.

mtantillo has one.

[1995hoo]

[...]and as far as I know the only currently-planned facility that will use the Flex is the 95 Express Lanes, also in Northern Virginia. Anyone with a standard E-ZPass can use the HO/T lanes but will pay the toll regardless of the number of people in the vehicle.

So this means that the trip that I did in the 95 HOV lanes on that same day will no longer be free?

Correct. It will effectively be 24/7 HO/T, although that's not quite accurate because they're reversible lanes and thus there will be times when they're closed to all traffic so they can reverse the direction.

I only know one person who has an E-ZPass Flex, a neighbor who has three kids.

mtantillo has one.

OK, I'll rephrase that to "I've only met one person who has an E-ZPass Flex." 

[Alps]

Illinois charges double for photo billing (or cash at physical booths, where they exist) vs. electronic tags. That's still less egregious than A25, although in theory you could be on the system long enough to pay more than $5.15 "extra".

[Duke87]

$5.15 is a steep fee in relative terms - the bill by plate toll is effectively triple or more the transponder rate.

But then, the transponder rates are pretty low - $2.48 peak, $1.86 off peak. The total bill by plate rate is roughly the same as MTA's cash rates in NYC.

Combine that with the fact that people who don't have Quebec plates pay a $0.00 toll and it seems like not a big deal since non-locals aren't getting hosed. Most people actually paying the toll should have a tag.



What I have contempt for are the tolls that treat it as a violation, not a bill by mail, if you go through them without a tag. Especially in cases like Houston where the tag you need is not used in any other state so a lot of not-local people aren't going to have one.

[1995hoo]

....

What I have contempt for are the tolls that treat it as a violation, not a bill by mail, if you go through them without a tag. Especially in cases like Houston where the tag you need is not used in any other state so a lot of not-local people aren't going to have one.

This raises the potentially-interesting point someone raised (not on this forum, I don't think) about Virginia's HO/T lanes–almost none of the signs use the word "toll" except when they say "HOV-3+/E-ZPass Flex/NO TOLL." Of course, I tend to think that if the sign showing three lines listing exits with dollar amounts after them are unclear, you're probably too dumb to have a driver's license, and I also tend to think that here on the East Coast the vast majority of motorists should know that signs saying E-ZPass is required mean it's a toll road. But then I suppose it's fair to consider that the DC are is an international destination and many of the foreigners won't know what E-ZPass is.

The interesting part of it is that the sample signs shown in the MUTCD don't use the word "toll" either except in the generic ETC system logo they employ. Obviously, the intent is that people will know what the logo means. But it's funny, I see all sorts of weird names for ETC systems–just today I saw someone referring to E-ZPass as "a Speedpass" (no, that's ExxonMobil's little keytag device for paying at the pump without your credit card). It leads me to suspect that some people out there really are just plain clueless. Others are what in tort law we call "willfully blind" (they intentionally remain ignorant). I cannot fathom how anyone in the New York area, for example, doesn't know what E-ZPass is, but I could certainly excuse someone from, say, Idaho....except the sign showing toll rates should be a clear signal those lanes are tolled.

[NE2]

The interesting part of it is that the sample signs shown in the MUTCD don't use the word "toll" either except in the generic ETC system logo they employ.

But the MUTCD does say that the yellow TOLL banner should always be used at entrances to toll facilities.

[Brandon]

Illinois charges double for photo billing (or cash at physical booths, where they exist) vs. electronic tags. That's still less egregious than A25, although in theory you could be on the system long enough to pay more than $5.15 "extra".

That's the "regular" rate.  It's 1/2 off with a transponder.  ISTHA also gives you 7 days to pay with no penalty what-so-ever.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Yeah, using only the toll tag logo on signs isn't a good idea. One of my friends from Montreal went through an EZ-Pass lane on a trip through NYC because he thought it was something like a cash-only no-receipts no-credit* fast-processing lane.

This makes me think that the toll tag logo is never sufficient in conveying that it's a toll road, and that you'll always find people who don't know what it is.

* Credit cards are accepted at some toll booths in Canada, notably on A30Express.

[jeffandnicole]

...It leads me to suspect that some people out there really are just plain clueless. Others are what in tort law we call "willfully blind" (they intentionally remain ignorant). I cannot fathom how anyone in the New York area, for example, doesn't know what E-ZPass is, but I could certainly excuse someone from, say, Idaho....except the sign showing toll rates should be a clear signal those lanes are tolled.

All of the above.

A few examples of my NJ Turnpike toll booth days:

1) A person enters the EZ Pass Only lane.  She can't get a ticket, because it's an EZ Pass Only lane.  She yells over to me saying there's no ticket.  I yell over, saying it's an EZ Pass lane.  She yells, what's EZ Pass? 

OK...I understand if you're not familiar with toll roads, you may not know what EZ Pass means.  But, coming up from the south as this person did, she's already passed by several toll plazas, all with EZ Pass.  And even then, if there's a sign that says "EZ Pass ONLY" and you don't know what EZ Pass is, maybe you should stay out of the lane that says "EZ Pass ONLY". (Similiar example: Exit ONLY.  How many motorists stay in the lane till the very end, surprised to see the lane is only an exit lane?)

2) They don't see the signs.  They insist the sign that has been there in some form since 1960 wasn't there.  It was there when I passed by this morning; the same exact sign was there when I went home in the evening. Thousands of other motorists saw that sign. But certain drivers will insist the sign wasn't there. 

3) They see signs that aren't there.  Several times, motorists pulled up to the toll booth, ready to give me $2 or $3 (this occurred several times on entry).  There's not a single sign announcing a toll rate approaching the booth.  But they saw a sign (or believed randomly) that the toll rate was $2 or $3.

Working interchange 3, almost once a weekend someone would pull off believing the exit was a rest area. They insisted there was a sign for the rest area.  Many would say they saw a sign for McDonalds too.  I could never understand this.  First off, the turnpike doesn't have "rest areas"...we have "Service Plazas", so there would never be a sign for a rest area.  Best I could figure out was they see the blue lodging sign, and maybe the Red Roof logo on the sign, and after driving for a long time and being tired, they interperted it as a McDonalds sign at a rest area, signed "Exit 3, Rt. 168" on a BGS.  Driving the stretch of road, there wasn't even so much as a billboard or a nearby McDonalds off the highway that someone could see.

So not only are motorists everything that you believe they are, they will then argue that they are right, even though there is absolutely, no-doubt-about-it proof they are not.

[formulanone]

Beware of the electronic tolling devices in rental cars; most charge a $2-3 fee per day (with a $10/15 weekly max). So you might pay $10.50 after a week for what might have been a solitary fifty-cent toll. This seems to vary on the jurisdiction in which you've rented the vehicle from on top of whatever the tolling agency charges.

One exception seemed to be New Jersey; even renting cars from the Newark's airport seemed to be comparatively surcharge-free (like $1/week), excluding the toll charges. I might be wrong (or a billing error), but the first scenario seems to be the case for nearly every other place I've used the tolls (IL, PA, FL, CA, NY...)

Fortunately, my company covers the whole thing, since I don't spring for upgrades too often.

[1995hoo]

Yeah, using only the toll tag logo on signs isn't a good idea. One of my friends from Montreal went through an EZ-Pass lane on a trip through NYC because he thought it was something like a cash-only no-receipts no-credit* fast-processing lane.

This makes me think that the toll tag logo is never sufficient in conveying that it's a toll road, and that you'll always find people who don't know what it is.

* Credit cards are accepted at some toll booths in Canada, notably on A30Express.

I tend to agree with this, although I suppose I could maybe see a potential exception on logical grounds if the system's name contains the word "toll" somewhere (example: the MUTCD uses a fictitious logo branded, amusingly enough in light of your post, as "TollTag").

Alternatively, many (but not all) of Florida's toll plazas use a banner reading "PREPAID TOLLS ONLY." Sometimes, as in the image shown below from AARoads, for plazas with ORT lanes it's coupled with the diagrammatic sign telling the cash users to exit to the right. (Funny thing is, my sat-nav tells me "exit left" for the ORT lanes. I view the cash users as having to "exit.") The one thing that's potentially missing from this sort of sign is the words "NO CASH" for the ORT lanes. Off the top of my head, I do not recall seeing the "PREPAID TOLLS ONLY" language outside Florida.



BTW, off the top of my head I know of two toll facilities in the US that take credit cards, both right here in Virginia–the Dulles Toll Road and the Dulles Greenway. The Toll Road requires exact change, credit/debit, or E-ZPass during the overnight hours when the booths are unmanned. Most of the Greenway's ramp tolls are always unmanned and so accept credit/debit or E-ZPass only (no exact change because the toll is something like $5). Cue rant from NE2 about "legal tender," I suppose. There ARE white signs before you enter the Greenway telling you cash is not accepted at the ramp tolls, and before you enter the Toll Road telling you when the booths are unmanned, but from a realistic standpoint they're very small signs and very hard to read at highway speed.

There was a story in the local news recently about some dumbass whose friend told him that during the late-night hours you can go through the "E-ZPass Only" lanes on the Dulles Toll Road without paying the toll because tolls are not collected late at night. Bad Idea. He owed over $200,000, but VDOT reached a settlement whereby he'll pay "only" $95,000! Frankly, I don't blame VDOT or the Commonwealth for it. The motorist bears some responsibility for knowing the rules of the road, and relying on a friend's advice is not sufficient!

....

1) A person enters the EZ Pass Only lane.  She can't get a ticket, because it's an EZ Pass Only lane.  She yells over to me saying there's no ticket.  I yell over, saying it's an EZ Pass lane.  She yells, what's EZ Pass? 

OK...I understand if you're not familiar with toll roads, you may not know what EZ Pass means.  But, coming up from the south as this person did, she's already passed by several toll plazas, all with EZ Pass.  And even then, if there's a sign that says "EZ Pass ONLY" and you don't know what EZ Pass is, maybe you should stay out of the lane that says "EZ Pass ONLY". (Similiar example: Exit ONLY.  How many motorists stay in the lane till the very end, surprised to see the lane is only an exit lane?)

....

There are a surprising number of people who think "Exit Only" means "No Re-Entry," i.e., you can exit at this interchange but you can't get back onto the road going the same direction you're presently going. I always rather liked Delaware's signs that said "THIS LANE MUST EXIT" (or the shorter version "MUST EXIT") because I thought it was absolutely unambiguous. Most, perhaps all, of the ones on I-295 have been replaced with "EXIT ONLY" and I haven't been through Wilmington on I-95 since sometime in the 1990s so I don't know about the ones there.

Ultimately, I think it all raises a philosophical question: At what point do we just have to write off the dumbest of the dumb and the nutjobs when we try to design road signs? There's this attitude in American society that we have to protect everyone from every possible negative consequence. Witness the absurdity of those windshield sunshades with warning labels telling you to remove them before driving. (As an attorney, I would argue that the "reasonable man of ordinary prudence" would inherently know to do this and thus it is unreasonable to demand a warning label, i.e., if you don't remove it before you drive, you're negligent regardless of the lack of a label.) At some point I think you just have to shrug and let the stupeys go. On the other hand, I also recognize the safety hazard posed by cash users stopping in the ETC-only lanes, especially when the facility doesn't use ORT lanes. I've encountered some very scary situations when drivers have stopped in the "E-ZPass Only" lanes on the Dulles Toll Road. So I do think it's fair to expect very clear signs showing when a toll lane doesn't accept cash, or is ETC-only. Virginia does a pretty lousy job of that on most of its toll roads, IMO; Florida does pretty well. The main plaza on the Dulles Toll Road has a ton of small signs all in a short amount of space. I've never liked that idea because I've always thought that the approach to a toll plaza is an area where there's going to be a lot of lane-changing and varying speeds as people slow down at different points and so on, such that it's the last place that drivers should be confused trying to read a bunch of tiny signs. When I was growing up I always thought the much-despised Delaware Turnpike toll plaza had very clear signage telling you the toll rate and directing trucks to stay to the right.

(Speaking of trucks staying to the right, I haven't paid a cash toll in a while, but back when I did pay cash, I always made a point of moving to the right with the trucks. I found I usually got through faster because the truck lines were a lot shorter due to fewer vehicles waiting on line and the drivers usually knowing what their toll was instead of fumbling around with money. Anyone else do that?)

[US81]

There was a story in the local news recently about some dumbass whose friend told him that during the late-night hours you can go through the "E-ZPass Only" lanes on the Dulles Toll Road without paying the toll because tolls are not collected late at night. Bad Idea. He owed over $200,000, but VDOT reached a settlement whereby he'll pay "only" $95,000! Frankly, I don't blame VDOT or the Commonwealth for it. The motorist bears some responsibility for knowing the rules of the road, and relying on a friend's advice is not sufficient!

I don't know.... I have a little problem with a $440 fine being ballooned to over $200,000. I agree that the motorist bears responsibility and should be penalized, but 500x seems excessive to me.

[1995hoo]

There was a story in the local news recently about some dumbass whose friend told him that during the late-night hours you can go through the "E-ZPass Only" lanes on the Dulles Toll Road without paying the toll because tolls are not collected late at night. Bad Idea. He owed over $200,000, but VDOT reached a settlement whereby he'll pay "only" $95,000! Frankly, I don't blame VDOT or the Commonwealth for it. The motorist bears some responsibility for knowing the rules of the road, and relying on a friend's advice is not sufficient!

I don't know.... I have a little problem with a $440 fine being ballooned to over $200,000. I agree that the motorist bears responsibility and should be penalized, but 500x seems excessive to me.

Well, the story is a little unclear because WTOP is a bit of a "sound-bite" format radio station. I presume what happened is that he incurred multiple, probably many, $440 fines and then each of those fines started incurring late fees and interest. In other words, in theory every time you blow through the toll without paying you would incur another fine because it's a separate offense, right? Every instance of an unpaid toll constitutes an offense. Now, perhaps for administrative reasons they might only impose the fine every x number of violations or whatever. But it said he did this many times, which surely means they've fined him quite a few times. (It's sort of like trademark infringement. If you sell a product that infringes my trademark, every sale constitutes a new act of infringement.)

In the interest of examining this theory further, I just did a Google search for the guy's name. The Washington Post reported on this story and said the fine is $500 for the fourth offense and for every subsequent offense, and the story quotes an MWAA official who said Bourcier had 335 toll violations beginning in 2009. $500 times 335 violations is $167,500 right there, and then you add the unpaid tolls and late fees on top of that.

When you get right down to practicality and the public policy approach, operating it so each unpaid toll incurs a separate fine serves a logic function even if the result appears draconian. If it becomes known that you only get fined after, say, 20 unpaid tolls, or that you only get fined after, say, every 20 unpaid tolls, it provides an incentive for people to game the system by incurring 19 unpaid tolls and then starting to pay properly or whatever. I have no difficulty whatsoever envisioning people doing that sort of thing. I remember the report about the Maine Turnpike busting a guy who drove on a sidewalk or something to exit the Turnpike via a service area to avoid paying tolls, and I remember how once upon a time there were people who had an elaborate system rigged up to ride the DC Metrorail practically for free by using a two-farecard system. Doing those sorts of things seems more complicated than simply keeping a count of the number of trips you've taken.

(Heck, I used to do something like that when I was in college. The University of Virginia gave you one parking ticket for free as a "warning ticket" within a 12-month period. But the warning ticket did not apply if you park in a fire lane or a handicapped space. So if I needed to park and I had to choose between parking on a sidewalk or parking in a fire lane, I would pull up the curb cut and park on the sidewalk. The fine for that was $10 and you were eligible for a warning ticket, whereas the fire lane fine was $50 with no warning ticket. Seemed like a no-brainer to me.)


Edited to add: A USA Today article contains further details. It seems apparent to me this guy knew exactly what he was doing, especially after he started receiving bills and warning notices. He even refused to settle for $800!

[Kacie Jane]

Beware of the electronic tolling devices in rental cars; most charge a $2-3 fee per day (with a $10/15 weekly max). So you might pay $10.50 after a week for what might have been a solitary fifty-cent toll.

My understanding was that it's only $2-3 a day on days you use it, not necessarily for the entire length of the rental.  So if you rented a car for a week, but only faced a solitary fifty-cent toll, you'd be charged 50 cents plus 2 dollars for that one day, but not for the days you drove around on untolled roads.

But I could be mistaken.  I've only used such a device once, and I don't think I checked exactly how I was charged afterwards.  (Plus, I think I had to pay a toll every day I had the car anyway.)

BTW, off the top of my head I know of two toll facilities in the US that take credit cards, both right here in Virginia–the Dulles Toll Road and the Dulles Greenway.

The new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

[agentsteel53]

(Speaking of trucks staying to the right, I haven't paid a cash toll in a while, but back when I did pay cash, I always made a point of moving to the right with the trucks. I found I usually got through faster because the truck lines were a lot shorter due to fewer vehicles waiting on line and the drivers usually knowing what their toll was instead of fumbling around with money. Anyone else do that?)

generally that is what I do. 

I wonder why people hold up cash lines - are they attempting to pay with yen or something?  there's signs hundreds of feet in advance for the tollbooths: they don't come as a surprise.

[jeffandnicole]

(Speaking of trucks staying to the right, I haven't paid a cash toll in a while, but back when I did pay cash, I always made a point of moving to the right with the trucks. I found I usually got through faster because the truck lines were a lot shorter due to fewer vehicles waiting on line and the drivers usually knowing what their toll was instead of fumbling around with money. Anyone else do that?)

generally that is what I do. 

I wonder why people hold up cash lines - are they attempting to pay with yen or something?  there's signs hundreds of feet in advance for the tollbooths: they don't come as a surprise.

I'll give another example...

People are checking out in a store.  They are in line.  The cashier is ringing up the items.  The person is given the total.  Only at that time do they pull out their wallet, then get their cash, or their credit card, or even worse, their checkbook.  They knew they would have to pay...why wait to at minimum have their wallet or purse ready?  And many places allow you to swipe your card anytime during the transaction, which a lot of people refuse to do for whatever reason.

Same situation at the toll booth.  They refuse to pull out their wallet until they get to the booth.  They look thru to see if they have exact change; they see they don't, then they hand over a $20.  Even if they didn't know the toll beforehand because they don't understand the ticket they received when they got on the toll road, or they missed the multiple signs announcing the toll, at the very least having a $20 ready would allow the entire process to go faster.