A few weeks ago I was driving out to Wildwood, NJ for the Beach Jam (a Boy Scout weekend) at Morey’s Piers. I was driving alone with my GPS navigating, I had work so I had to drive down after everyone else.
I think this was the first time I ever actually uses the Turnpike. When I was a kid, we would take the Turnpike to go on family vacations, but I can’t recall ever driving it myself.
So I got on the Turnpike at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area of PA and got my ticket. My GPS was guiding me so I have no idea how long I was on the Turnpike for (the letter said it was Toll Plaza Mid-County-20), but I never went through a toll booth. I know there are normal lanes where you stop, hand them your ticket and pay the toll, and E-ZPass lanes where you just pass through if your car has the device. But I never went through a toll booth on the way down.
On the way back I had no trouble. I had to pay a toll for some bridge near Philly, and I got on the Turnpike and paid that toll with no problem.
Then yesterday I got a letter saying I have a $52.40 bill for running the toll booth, and a picture of my license plate. I am trying to understand how I missed it. I know I didn’t go through a toll booth. I think I passed a few that were on exits I didn’t take, but I didn’t actually go through any on the way down.
If anyone has any idea what the Hell I did, that would be kool.
Exactly which exits did you get on and off? AFAIK, there is a tollbooth at every single exit off the turnpike. If you miss the exit tollbooth, they charge you the max (i.e. as if you drove to Ohio)
The PA turnpike is limited access and has tollbooths at all exits. It’s not pay as you go - it’s pay when you exit. Like it or not, you blew through a tollbooth.
Did you cross the Delaware River Turnpike bridge, that connects the PA & NJ turnpikes? There’s a toll plaza right before the bridge, as seen here.
I’m not as familiar with that side of the state, but if you’re heading out of PA westbound you could zone out and go through the EZ-pass express lane. Basically, being in the right lane takes you to the booths while staying straight in the left lane is the express. There is no toll booth and traffic does not slow down. If you have no transponder they do what you describe:your plate is photographed and you get a ticket in the mail. I’m not sure but I’d guess there’s something similar out there.
The only way to leave the PA Turnpike without going through a tollbooth would be difficult and illegal. There are a few access areas where technically you might be able to exit onto a road, but you would have to go from the berm, over a hillside, etc.
I didn’t go on that bridge. I didn’t use the NJ Turnpike.
But on a side note, as I was driving down the Turnpike, I know I saw what seemed to be side roads connecting the Turnpike to country roads with houses on them, with no toll booths.
If the EZ-pass lane is completely separate from the toll booth, I may have stayed straight and missed it then. I was under the impression that even if you have EZ-pass, you sill pass through a booth of some sort, at which point I would know I was at a toll booth. But If I saw the highway going straight and a booth off to the side, I probably stayed on the highway thinking the booths were an exit I wasn’t going on.
That’s exactly what it looks like. The highway splits and if you weren’t paying attention to the signs leading up to it, it might look like an exit on the right. Traffic doesn’t slow down, you don’t go through a toll booth, and you think the lane coming back on your right is another highway meeting up with you.
Oh, a wiseguy eh? Nyuck nyuck nycuk…
The EZ Pass express lanes are the greatest thing since EZ Pass. Fantastic. They are built over the entire width of a road so there is no slowing down, no toll booth, no lights to watch for, nothing. You just keep driving as you were without any toll-clogging at all.
Having a bit of similar experience on Virginia toll roads; after I once blew through the toll “pay” booth and my ez-Pass did not go green I called them and explained and they were able to connect my license plate with the missed toll and simply charged me the $1.50.
So if it helps… you might want to give them a call and possibly they can then verify the exit you zoned through and charge you the amount you owe, instead of the $54.20. Good luck.
OK, so it looks like you stayed on 476 when it changes from the PA turnpike NE extension to the Blue route. So yeah, you missed the signs that you should have paid a toll and went through the high speed EZ-pass instead - you can make out the square arches and the tollbooths to the sides here.
That’s all new since the last time I drove that path (which was at least a decade ago) - used to be just tollbooths even if you had an EZ-pass. Looks like they just added a few high speed lanes between the booth plazas.
Some of the PA Turnpike exits have ramps that are EZPASS only. In other words the EZPASS infrastructure is built above the road and you do not go through a toll booth at all. Prior to this ramp there is a fork, one for toll booths and one for EZPASS. If you take the wrong one you would go on a regular looking road, but will have gone through the EZPASS toll.
Most of those are access roads for maintenance and construction and such. There’s usually a gate across the road at some point so people can’t sneak off the turnpike without paying.
Did you notice the rumble strips that you drove over before going through the express lanes? Kind of hard not to. They are there to minimize zoning out. But, if you never heard them before or had no idea wtf was going on you’d probably just shrug and keep on going.
I believe the $52 is the toll for the ENTIRE turnpike between the exit you got off on and the state line in the direction you were driving from (so if you were heading to NJ, they calculate from the exit you got off on and the Ohio/WV border), since they really don’t have any way of knowing where you got on.
They don’t track the tickets handed out (you could get on the turnpike, spend a week at a rest stop, and then continue on your way with no ill effect). Doing so would be a major headache and isn’t needed anyhow. They simply detect your car going through the EZ Pass exit lane without a transponder. It’s there that they photograph your license plate. They do not make any effort to figure out where you came on the turnpike. Instead, you are charged the highest possible fare for that exit plus whatever fees they’ve decided to tack on.