Scofflaws on the turnpike
Pennsylvania needs to penalize motorists who refuse to pay
On a typical day, more than 500,000 drivers use the Pennsylvania Turnpike to get to work or a child’s soccer game or music lesson. Each day, truckers use our system to deliver Pennsylvania-made — or grown — products to market.
Basic fairness suggests that each of these customers pay his or her fair share for use of the system. If you travel farther, you will pay a higher toll. If you drive a 16wheeler, you will pay a higher toll because your vehicle causes more wear and tear on the highway than, say, a Mini Cooper.
Unfortunately, a very small minority of our customers simply do not believe they should pay their share — or any share at all. Millions of dollars in revenue vanish each year in unpaid tolls. Again, the vast majority of customers follow the rules of the road, but the number of violations and the lost revenue continue to climb.
Last fiscal year alone, we wrote off $5.4 million in unpaid tolls and fees that we could not collect despite repeated efforts to compel customers to pay. That’s money that could help fund a bridge project or a new slip ramp to provide better access to our system — while relieving congestion in a community.
The maddening part of this challenge is that we pretty much know who these violators are. Our system takes a license plate photo of every car that goes through an E-ZPass lane; if that motorist is not enrolled in our system, we mail a violation notice to the vehicle owner’s address.
Right now, however, we cannot do much beyond sending out repeated violation letters and eventually referring the issue to collections. Pennsylvania does not provide toll agencies such as ours — and the Delaware River Port Authority to name another — with any meaningful tools to make sure all motorists pay their bills.
That’s why my fellow Turnpike commissioners and I are calling upon members of the General Assembly to support a measure that would give the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation the ability to suspend the vehicle registrations of motorists who have failed to pay tolls after repeated requests. It would penalize motorists with six or more outstanding toll violations or unpaid violations totaling at least $500.
Obviously, we are talking about repeat offenders — not motorists who mistakenly use an E-ZPass lane despite not being enrolled in the program and, for whatever reason, don’t pay their bill.
The legislation also ensures that motorists are properly notified, and it provides an administrative proceeding for motorists to appeal any potential suspension.
Finally, this legislation would also allow tolling agencies to enter into agreements with other states and jurisdictions to ensure that out-of-state motorists pay their tolls as well. There is no reason why a customer who lives in Harrisburg or Carlisle should be expected to help underwrite an out-ofstate trucker’s toll.
Fifteen other states have enacted similar laws, including Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia. And while the large majority of drivers on the Turnpike recognize that a toll is essentially a user fee that must be paid, much like a utility or phone bill, some motorists simply do not pay their fair share.
It’s time that Pennsylvania takes a simple step to ensure all motorists follow the rules of the road, and that includes paying their tolls.