They sent me a letter. Apparently they seem to think I owe them $7 because I drove over a bridge in San Fran. I distinctly recall they had offered me no option. No one was in the booth. No sign said pay cash here.

I dropped $7 out the window. Pretty sure I did.

How much are they asking you to pay now? [www.bayareafastrak.org]

Quote
vision63
How much are they asking you to pay now? [www.bayareafastrak.org]

$7

.....so when they asked....For Whom the Bell Tolls.......it tolls for thee.......????

---

_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2022 09:29PM by NewtonMP2100.

Quote
Wags

Quote
vision63
How much are they asking you to pay now? [www.bayareafastrak.org]

$7

lol! I thought you were really delinquent or something.

You may well just pay that bad boy. I'm sure they have some kind of way to persecute you across state lines. Remember next time you have 48 hours to pay the toll.

[www.bayareafastrak.org]

It'll go up if you don't pay, but you probably know that. Of course, that's the loser's perspective and a proper scofflaw would just ignore the request for the annoyance it is, never mind what comes later.

I once GPS'd my way thru a toll, not realizing it until the letter arrived from out of state with a picture of our minivan that looked oddly similar to one we owned. And ignoring it was not a winning strategy.

Quote
deckeda
It'll go up if you don't pay, but you probably know that. Of course, that's the loser's perspective and a proper scofflaw would just ignore the request for the annoyance it is, never mind what comes later.

I once GPS'd my way thru a toll, not realizing it until the letter arrived from out of state with a picture of our minivan that looked oddly similar to one we owned. And ignoring it was not a winning strategy.

All I got was a crappy pic of my license plate. What a gyp.

I was so confused going over the toll bridge the other day. I kept looking for the CASH lane, but all I saw were signs saying, "FASTRACK OR INVOICE" and also, "DON'T STOP".

WTF... Invoice?

So I guess I'll get a bill in the mail, eh?

Quote
hal
I was so confused going over the toll bridge the other day. I kept looking for the CASH lane, but all I saw were signs saying, "FASTRACK OR INVOICE" and also, "DON'T STOP".

WTF... Invoice?

So I guess I'll get a bill in the mail, eh?

Pennsylvania Turnpike is all toll by plate (or EZ pass). They'll send you a bill in the mail for the old cash price, which is something like 20% more than the EZ pass rate. They've lost millions of dollars to unpaid tolls due to license plate reading issues.

Quote
hal
I was so confused going over the toll bridge the other day. I kept looking for the CASH lane, but all I saw were signs saying, "FASTRACK OR INVOICE" and also, "DON'T STOP".

WTF... Invoice?

So I guess I'll get a bill in the mail, eh?

Go to the link I shared and just pay it within 48 hours. I'm the guy that forgets and piles mail up. I have 2 transponders.

Most if not all CA toll bridges have three types of lanes:

car pool
FasTrak
cash

They're labeled with lighted signs, so one chooses wisely on approach.

The first two don't take cash because that's a slower transaction, and slows the flow.

The last one is cash only.

I have a transponder for my bike and have my car registered.

When my car goes through without a transponder, a pic is taken, records checked and my car found registered, money deducted, and Bob's my uncle.

I could get another transponder, but I don't like sticking anything up on my windshield.


Seriously, if you actually threw money on the ground and believe karma is satisfied, you deserve to pay more than the now required $7, because the State of CA is not.

As fines are ignored, penalties are added.

CA has reciprocity for many vehicle infractions, meaning if one missteps mis-drives here, but are a good citizen in most other states, they will be measured and found wanting.

Many other states have the same agreement.

You won't be extradited for an infraction, but the 'new' state will pickup the mantle for the former state.

It would not surprise me that your state might eventually contact you for a personal appearance to explain yourself.

No extradition required.

Pay The Man.

Or — give him the finger and tells us how that works out for you.

$7 is a pretty small hill on which to stand your ground.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

One of the ways one's 'new' state could encourage compliance with CA's demand for payment is to prohibit registration rewewal of their vehicle, or possibly the renewal of a driver's license, if only one driver is listed as the registered vehicle.

Even if in a scenario where I absolutely knew I paid as was appropriate, without documentation, I'd pay the invoice to avoid any agita.

If I realized I made a mistake and failed to get payment to the appropriate agent, I'd welcome the opportunity to make it right for only $7.

Pay The Man.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

They gave me a postage paid return envelope. I’m gonna tape it onto a bowling ball along with my $7 check and leave it at the post office.

Personal experience - don't mess with tollway systems.

I once owed something like $4 in tolls... but because they come in such a way that my toll pass didn't actually have a credit balance in it at the time; when I added money later the toll did not get re-billed, and I kept ignoring it... until it ballooned to something ridiculous like $140. The best part is that I had actually added a friend's license plate to my account while they were in state, and it was for their vehicle, so I wasn't actually in danger of anything happening to my cars because the toll is owed by license plate not identified pass in the vehicle, but it was problematic in that every time I wanted to manually add money to my balance to pay for other tolls, it came up as in issue. I think after several days of back and forth by phone and literally hours of conversation I talked them down to a more reasonable $20.

---

g=

They gave me a postage paid return envelope. I’m gonna tape it onto a bowling ball along with my $7 check and leave it at the post office.


POMTL!

Even if you were going to do that, it wouldn't work.

But I love the 'Come and get me, copper!' stance.

A toned-down Cagney/Edward G, but still interesting.

It is stepping over the foul line though.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

There was a piece in the NYT the other day about people who deface their plates to defeat those readers. Turns out the po po has better things to do than deal with it.

---

--------------

Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

My son kept getting billed for a car going through plate readers in Miami. Turned out the car in question had a 1 on his plate and my son had an I on his. The reader didn't always differentiate. He had to call every time to get it corrected. He eventually got a new plate and everything stopped. I often wondered if the Miami guy got billed for my son going through plate readers.

---

“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

Pay the bill and cross California off your list of States to visit, or at least the San Fan area. You still have 47 States left that you can drive to (48 if the Canadians don't go all COVID paranoid again).

Did some work in Norway for the Canadian Armed Forces once, and a Canadian Major got a speeding ticket in the mail from Norway for speeding in the rental car he had at the time. (Have to admit their push-down, pop-up stack of speeding zone signs is confusing and requires some real attention going thru them though.) Anyway, the Long Arm of the Law will track you down to get the money they think they're owed!

Don't worry.

If you don't pay, they will send their collection agent.

He only charges a $2 "convenience" fee.

Wags,

IAround here in NY, tolls for all the major crossing (and the minor ones) are cashless. You either have an EZPass tag (or similar) and your EZPass account gets billed or your license plate is scanned and an invoice is sent to the address affiliated with it.

Believe you me, I much prefer the current system. I remember the days before EZPass became a thing. You could sit in a line of traffic for a ridiculous amount of time just to pay the toll. Depending on the time frame, there'd be traffic all the way across the bridge, too.

EZPass improved things except there were always someone without a tag who tries to go through the EZPass lane anyway. Gets stopped at the booth and blocked traffic until he/she could be ticketed by an officer. Cash lanes continued to be a traffic jam.

Now? Just go through the toll. EZPass is billed or your invoiced. Done. Still have to deal with all of the other traffic nonsense but at least that portion of it is vastly improved.

Robert

On a slightly related topic, one day I was on a local toll road behind a guy on a motorcycle. When he approached the transponder/photo area, he reached back and flipped something over to cover his plate, then flipped it back when he went through. I, of course, got close enough to get the plate number then called the expressway authority when I got to work. They were very appreciative of the info.

"You'll never take me alive, you sprout-eating loonies!"

Quote
Wags
They gave me a postage paid return envelope. I’m gonna tape it onto a bowling ball along with my $7 check and leave it at the post office.

In college my car was once towed for illegal parking. The retrieval fee was $60, an outrageous sum to me in the 1980s.

I decided to pay the tow yard in pennies. This required dragging my roommate and my girlfriend with me to the bank downtown, the only location that had $60 in pennies. This required a wait of some minutes while the teller prepared 3 canvas bags for transport.

The presentation of the pennies was not well received by the man with the keys to my car. He told me to @#$%& off. Certain that I had been wronged, I called the police.

That was the day I learned a valuable lesson, which is that coins are not legal tender. No one is compelled to accept them for any reason. Pretty sure I cried afterwards, not exactly impressive to the girlfriend, either.

We returned to the bank with the unopened bags of pennies. They took pity on me by not making us wait to count the coins. I gave the man 3 twenties and told him off. He tossed me the keys and cursed me anew.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2022 09:21AM by deckeda.

Deckeda,

Part of your post is in correct. US coins _are_ legal tender. That a private organization isn't required to accept them in exchange for goods, services, payment is a different matter entirely.

Robert

Robert, the police may have been wrong, but it remains a distinction without a difference.

I worked in Jacksonville, FL for a bit in the early 80s'. The city is divided by the St. John's River and had 4-5 bridges crossing it. Every single bridge was toll and you had to pay in cash, no scanners or stickers. The rush hours were anything but that, the entire area turned to gridlock as people stopped to give their quarter to the gatekeeper.

The newspaper did not even want receipts, just tell them how many trips back and forth when you handed in your mileage for reimbursement.

---

“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

[www.youtube.com]

---

It is what it is.

Quote
RAMd®d
Most if not all CA toll bridges have three types of lanes:

car pool
FasTrak
cash

.

i'm hanging out in the SF Bay Area for a few months and registered my plates. Cash is NOT accepted at any of the bridges in the Bay Area.

Paying Bridge Tolls

---

If you want to fix our country, work with us in the states. statesproject.org

"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

Quote
vision63

Quote
hal
I was so confused going over the toll bridge the other day. I kept looking for the CASH lane, but all I saw were signs saying, "FASTRACK OR INVOICE" and also, "DON'T STOP".

WTF... Invoice?

So I guess I'll get a bill in the mail, eh?

Go to the link I shared and just pay it within 48 hours. I'm the guy that forgets and piles mail up. I have 2 transponders.

I'm not going to start an account - I almost never go via 80 and prefer 680 to 580 to get to my sister's house. Driving home on sunday night, I thought I could get through quickly, but OF COURSE there was a long stoppage near berkeley so I regretted my choice before I got to the toll bridge.

I'll wait for the invoice to arrive... I will pay - no bowling balls

There's a solution to this whole thing - pay for roads via other methods.

---

Quote
mattkime
There's a solution to this whole thing - pay for roads via other methods.

I'm sure that was done, then people complained that they have to pay for roads they never use, so the gov instead charges people who DO use the roads.

Quote
hal

Quote
vision63

Quote
hal
I was so confused going over the toll bridge the other day. I kept looking for the CASH lane, but all I saw were signs saying, "FASTRACK OR INVOICE" and also, "DON'T STOP".

WTF... Invoice?

So I guess I'll get a bill in the mail, eh?

Go to the link I shared and just pay it within 48 hours. I'm the guy that forgets and piles mail up. I have 2 transponders.

I'm not going to start an account - I almost never go via 80 and prefer 680 to 580 to get to my sister's house. Driving home on sunday night, I thought I could get through quickly, but OF COURSE there was a long stoppage near berkeley so I regretted my choice before I got to the toll bridge.

I'll wait for the invoice to arrive... I will pay - no bowling balls

They let you do a one time payment. No need to set up an account. Just for next time. No need to sweat it.

Quote
bobinmurphy
Pay the bill and cross California off your list of States to visit, or at least the San Fan area. You still have 47 States left that you can drive to (48 if the Canadians don't go all COVID paranoid again).

Did some work in Norway for the Canadian Armed Forces once, and a Canadian Major got a speeding ticket in the mail from Norway for speeding in the rental car he had at the time. (Have to admit their push-down, pop-up stack of speeding zone signs is confusing and requires some real attention going thru them though.) Anyway, the Long Arm of the Law will track you down to get the money they think they're owed!

Many of those other states use transponders to collect tolls too. E-ZPass is used in 17 states, which would generate the same situation if you don't pay the toll. Cross those states off the list too.

.....must be taking a....toll on you......

---

_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Huh.

Apparently this started in Mar, 2020 due to COVID.

It's been that long at least, since I crossed the bridge to go to Alice's or, since I had a transponder, I didn't notice that it was no cash allowed.

The Golden Gate Bridge went to this in 2013.

[dot.ca.gov]

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.