Highway Robbery

LAST YEAR, I fouled up my Pennsylvania EZ Pass account. I bought a used car in Maine and forgot to add it to my EZ Pass account. Much later, when I got back up to Maine this Memorial Day, my post office box was bulging with dunning notices from Pennsylvania, New York, Maine and Delaware.

For most of a year, I had driven from Washington D.C. to Maine blissfully unaware that my EZ Pass transponder wasn’t paying a cent. Instead, I had entered the murky world of toll by plate, where a snap is taken of my license plate and a bill is sent to my address—in this case Maine.

Two problems: Toll-by-plate charges are much higher than EZ Pass rates. Second, I don’t live in Maine in the winter, so I wasn’t getting those bills. Yes, I am loosely organized.

It was months before I turned the key on my post office box in Maine to discover I was a notorious scofflaw. New York had sent my overdue tolls for crossing the George Washington Bridge to a collection agency. Maine had piled on late fees until a $1 toll turned into a $14 charge.  Delaware, however, was the highway robber.

I used to wonder how the State of Delaware could provide services without having a sales tax. Now I realize that it simply soaks the people who drive through it. A $4 toll in Delaware had blown up into a $91 charge, and this had happened to me four times.

In a blur, I wrote some checks, made some calls, and filed some appeals. Delaware dropped its tolls down to $51 each. Maine kindly rescinded all the overcharges, so I paid them $1. New York wouldn’t budge, so I paid the collection agency $55. Pennsylvania was the easiest to deal with, discounting my tolls back down to the EZ Pass rates.

I’ve learned two lessons from my experience: One, register a new car and its license plate with EZ Pass in your state. I’ll concede I should have known this, but we covered a lot of subjects in the car salesroom and I don’t remember this discussion. Two, I need to do a better job of having my mail forwarded.

By falling into this limbo, I realized that EZ Pass can be a trap. The system is not constructed to forgive and forget. It’s more like a day in the life of Franz Kafka. Tolls can become astronomical, and you’re at the mercy of each state’s transportation authority. If you’ve tried to get a Real ID, you know how well that works.