As plentiful as the reasons to be against toll roads are,and as well thought out as we know they are,here's another reason to decry toll roads:Toll overcharges purposely made.
We know how the E-Z Tag system works:We put money in a bank account and give the Toll Road Authority authorized access to that account.The Toll Road Authority gives us a tag that "counts" each time we pass a tag reader and the Toll Road Authority deducts from that account the charge for each usage.
My point?
How do we know if that count is accurate?
The Toll Road Authority says "Trust us".
I say "I don't".
We all know,with the facts in hand,that we have absolutely no reason to trust anyone involved with toll roads.
How does the scam work?
It would take one investigator at each tag reader to count all the tolls to determine if they are accurate.It would take each E-Z Tag user to keep track of their own usage,for how long,to determine if the charges are accurate.
Think of this:In Houston,if 300,000 drivers a day use toll roads and just once a month,a false hit is charged,that's $375,000.00 a month that can be skimmed.
Times 12 months and it's now $4,500,000.00 a year.
These numbers are just examples,but as you can see,simply by taking one FALSE charge a month,from each tag holder(and who,without keeping track,would notice only one false charge a month?),an enormous amount of money can be generated,all of which can be skimmed.
And who will ever be the wiser?
We know we can't station enough people to count the tolls.And we know how difficult it is for each of us to keep track of our usage.Even if one industrious soul did manage to keep track for a couple of months and actually caught an overcharge or two,what would happen?The Toll Road Authority would apologize,refund the "accidental" false charge,and promise to "try" not to let it happen again.All the while,keeping the rest of the money from the other "accidental" thousands of false charges.
This is just one of many ways the toll road authorities intend to take from us.
Some others include the reject slots that used to return your rejected coins,but now,no longer do.(They're covered over here in Houston.)
The money dropped on the ground by drivers at the exact change machines and not recovered by the people who dropped it.These amounts may not seem like much,but if the TRA says it's only $500.00 a day,how do we know it's not $1,000.00 a day,or even $10,000.00 a day?We don't and even small amounts,compounded over time ,add up to enormous potential for skimming.
The Toll Road Authority says "Trust us".
I say "I don't".