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Why NOT to miss paying Tolls at Unattended toll booths in USA ?

Paying tolls is something everyone are familiar with…it is no different in America, they also have unattended automatic tolls in US… If you live in an area with too many tolls, you may own one of these devices like EZ -Pass, I-Pass, etc to pay the tolls automatically…If you are traveling or visiting your friends place in another city and you end up in a situation without change to pay toll at an unattended toll both, you may sometimes have to miss paying the toll at that time….hoping to pay it online after you get home…Some of you may think, “ well, what the heck, it is just once, it will be fine…”, some may just forget as you get busy with other things…either case, if you miss toll…it is not very good for you…Let me share with you my roomie’s experience of missing toll and how much it ended up costing him…

Missed paying toll at Unattended toll booth 3 times in one  year

My roomie usually travels to his friends place once in couple weeks or at least once in a month…To reach his friend’s house, he has to take an exit from freeway, where there is an unattended toll booth. Legally, one should pay 75 cents change at the coin operated toll booth to pass without breaking rule and getting in trouble.  It just happened that he missed it once, as he did not had change and thought that he would pay it after coming home…unfortunately, he forgot about it….Also, another time after 3 months or so, seems like someone else were driving his car and they missed another unattended toll and forgot about it….Also, it happened another time with someone else driving his car….the last time was after 10 months or more….The bad part was, my friend never knew that his car missed the toll two more times as it was not done by him…in fact, he even forgot about the first time missing it as well…One fine day, he gets a mail from the state department with a nice picture of the license plate number and details of the instances when the toll was missed…along with that a hefty fine totalling to around $120. The total cost of actual tolls was hardly $3 dollars 25 cents, but he got a big fat fine…the way they mentioned it was, every time he missed the toll they put a fine for breaking it about $30- $40 and then they calculated interest for the total amount of fine and some other charges…

Whats the lesson ? How to Pay tolls if you miss one unattended toll booth ?

The lesson is obvious, NEVER miss paying tolls at unattended toll booths, even if it is not your car…it will impact the poor guy, who owns the car…You don’t want bad karma, do you ?  If you do not have change at that time, make sure you take note of all these :

  • Website info ( if you do not see any, you can google it online )
  • Exit number
  • Toll booth number
  • Direction heading North bound, south bound etc.
  • Closest street and City (it will just help to look up )

once you get home, make a note to pay the toll, it is not worth missing them ! Neglecting $1 can cost you or your friend a lot in long run….Never break any law or rule in America !

You may also read similar article  Why NOT to break law in US ?

Do you have any similar experiences missing tolls or something similar ?

Image credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/3316646681/sizes/m/

   

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2 Comments

  1. Its our (Indians) tendency to break the laws because we know we never gonna be caught and even if we caught easily can be managed by giving 50-100 rupees to traffic police 🙂 today only i broke 3 traffic signal while coming to my office 🙂 This Happened Only in India lol

    Reply
    • Which city you live in ? People take the traffic rules as granted in there home city. Why are doing like this ? I don’t mind if you have not paid the toll, but breaking signals and not following traffic rule is like breaking the god’s rule. You will be punished for it.

      Reply

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