quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
I wonder how much it cost Texas to get that $6 out of you.

An automated everything plus 10 cents kicked to the post office I bet.

Dolla dolla bills, y'all

quote:

Originally posted by elde:
Must be missing whatever the point is here. Toll roads are clearly marked as such in my part of the world. It costs money to travel them. If you don't want to pay, then don't use them. If the toll collection programming (staff or whatever) detect a vehicle not accounted for toll-wise a billing is generated. Systematically, it costs virtually nothing to generate a billing for unpaid tolls. BFD.

They have taken away the toll booths down here so there is no way for out of state people to pay tolls (e.g. my Dad). The toll rate they charge when they track you down months later is double what I'd pay with my toll tag. Also, I can't add my Dad to my toll tag account to be license plate only because unlike my toll tag the license plate reader only works with my toll authority and there are 5 toll authorities in Texas. For example, the 2 toll roads by my house are two different toll authorities.

Stories of NC's 5.oo tolls becoming hundreds because of all the snell spam mail that is allowed. Ppl throwing the bill away thinking junk mail.
I didn't realise I had got on the new one around here. I opened the bill just out of curiosity ..... 3.80 was its price for a 20 min midnight ride.
Pretty little pic of my tag /:

About a month after returning from a trip to Germany my credit card got hit for a speeding ticket on the Autobahn (Oh yes you can). Caught on a speed cam. They hit the rental car company and they then hit your card. About $85.00 US.

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:

Do you write in the comment line "choke on it!"? Because if you don't it's a real missed opportunity.

This brings to mind A True Story. Almost forgotten, but I dredged it up from my memory.

In the early 1970s I lived in the Old Town area of Chicago. Street parking was very crowded, fist fights were known to break out over disagreements about parking places.

I was fortunate enough to have an apartment in a small building that had off-street parking for the residents.

One afternoon I was returning to my apartment after a walk in the neighborhood. A car had just parked, blocking our driveway, and the driver was getting out. Big dude, so I was polite as I informed him that he was blocking the driveway. He told me to mind my own fucking business, he looked ready for a fight, so I just went into my apartment, where I thought about it for a minute or two, then called the PD, told them that there was a parked car blocking the driveway and I couldn't get out.

Few minutes later I'm watching out of my kitchen window and a CPD car pulls up and the cop writes a parking ticket and sticks it under the windshield wiper. I continue to watch through the kitchen window as I'm preparing my supper.

Big dude returns from his dope buy or whatever he was doing, sees the ticket, throws it on the ground, and drives off. I go outside and retrieve his discarded ticket.

I don't know what it's like today, I haven't been in Chicago for over 30 years, but at that time parking tickets were in the form of business reply (pre-paid postage) envelopes with the city department's address on one side and all the information about the violator -- make & model of car, license plate number, etc. -- on the other side. If you received a parking ticket you were supposed to put the payment inside the envelope and just drop it in the mail.

Well, I thought about the belligerent dude who had thrown his ticket on the ground. I took a piece of paper and printed "FUCK YOU. I AIN'T PAYING.", stuffed that into his ticket envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox on the corner. I would have paid a lot to be in the City office when they opened that envelope.

quote:

Well, I thought about the belligerent dude who had thrown his ticket on the ground. I took a piece of paper and printed "FUCK YOU. I AIN'T PAYING.", stuffed that into his ticket envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox on the corner. I would have paid a lot to be in the City office when they opened that envelope.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That was creative. I will remember that for the future. Remind me to never ask you to post a letter for me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ZSMICHAEL,

There are few cities here in the DFW area that are very difficult to travel to without taking a toll road. Frisco is the worst with the Dallas North Tollway and Sam Rayburn Tollway intersecting near the center of the city. I'd hate to live there!

I’m waiting for tolls and a parking ticket from Toronto from two years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
If they accept paper checks, you could have paid that way and it would cost them more than the $5.80 to process it.

I sent North Carolina a check for less than $3, for the same reasons.

Congrats on not having a fracking clue how checks work in 2019.

quote:

They have taken away the toll booths down here so there is no way for out of state people to pay tolls (e.g. my Dad). The toll rate they charge when they track you down months later is double what I'd pay with my toll tag. Also, I can't add my Dad to my toll tag account to be license plate only because unlike my toll tag the license plate reader only works with my toll authority and there are 5 toll authorities in Texas. For example, the 2 toll roads by my house are two different toll authorities.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The only explanation I can offer is Chicagoans have moved to the Houston area. Maybe Houston will consider raising downtown parking to a reasonable 6 bucks an hour as well. I am thinking this was by design. Mississippi is way behind when it comes to this stuff.

A while back there was a big debate in NYS about switching to cashless tolling. Do they do it and potentially lose millions in unpaid tolls or keep the toll booths up and man them to collect as much revenue as possible? They opted to go cashless after much debate and while NYS did lose much more in unpaid tolls, they made up for that loss many times over in money saved due to the staff cuts from not having to man any toll booths.

From a commuters perspective it's wildly better, no slowing down for tolls, no more people cutting across multipole lanes to get to the correct toll booth (EZpass or cash) and no slowing down.

Jersey still flat out refuses to do it despite all this though.

I’m the OP. I’m not complaining about the tolls, if fact I don’t mind at all paying to use quality roads if the price is fair. We have a SunPass sticker for our travels in Florida and it’s like a buck here and two bucks there. No problem.

I’d never traveled through DFW before and my GPS routed me through the toll roads. The roads were great.

We have made the trip from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico round trip to Puerto Vallarta a few times. We generally travel the ‘quotas’ (autopistas) or toll roads as they are usually outstanding. I believe we payed about $80 USD in tolls to make that round trip trip of 850 miles.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
I sent North Carolina a check for less than $3, for the same reasons.

Congrats on not having a fracking clue how checks work in 2019.

I'm old. What can I say?

CA has private toll roads. First few times I had to stop and pay at the manned toll stations. Not fun when on a bike. Then they were unmanned and had automats. Even less fun when you have a $20 bill and get $18 in quarters back. Now it's online only. My local buddy said just to wait for the bill in the mail. Got it, paid online immediately. The following year I did the same thing, except the bill was $230. Turns out the first bill you get is considered a courtesy and warning that you must proactively log onto the website and pay within five days. I filed an an appeal and got the $12 in tolls and $218 fines knocked down to $32. Then this year I logged on as soon as I got home, set up an account, entered my plate and credit card numbers. I checked back every few days for about a month. Nothing. Then came a bill for $160. Turns out the vertical "MC" on my bike plate, which is not part of my vehicle registration # was what they recorded as part of my plate #. I got it fixed, but what a pain in the ass. Fook CA.

LOL! They got me too! Went to a training in Austin last summer, drove down from Central MO, wife just recently paid the toll fee, they kept mailing me, and it creeps up a little too . . . .

Don’t Mess with Texas
Just say’n

The I-90 bridge over Lake Washington has “Good to Go” passes and plate readers. One guy stated getting toll bills from almost daily drives across the bridge. Two problems, it wasn’t him and he lived quite a distance from the cesspool (Seattle).
Turns out it was an out of state license plate but the plate reader recorded it as a Washington State plate. Seemed humans weren’t looking.

quote:

Well, I thought about the belligerent dude who had thrown his ticket on the ground. I took a piece of paper and printed "FUCK YOU. I AIN'T PAYING.", stuffed that into his ticket envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox on the corner. I would have paid a lot to be in the City office when they opened that envelope.

I think it would have been even more entertaining to have been at his house when the popo arrived to arrest him.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
If they accept paper checks, you could have paid that way and it would cost them more than the $5.80 to process it.

I sent North Carolina a check for less than $3, for the same reasons.

Do you write in the comment line "choke on it!"? Because if you don't it's a real missed opportunity.

If they went through all that trouble for $5.80, I'd hate to see what they would do if they were angry.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Well, I thought about the belligerent dude who had thrown his ticket on the ground. I took a piece of paper and printed "FUCK YOU. I AIN'T PAYING.", stuffed that into his ticket envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox on the corner. I would have paid a lot to be in the City office when they opened that envelope.

I think it would have been even more entertaining to have been at his house when the popo arrived to arrest him.

Maybe I should have added "You'll never take me alive."