This is not true. Going to visit a friend in New Brighton recently, we got on the turnpike in Harmarville. At some point (Clairton? Clairion?), we hit a tollbooth, paid, and continued on the turnpike past another exit or two. We got off our exit and somehow made a wrong turn and got back on the turnpike going in the other direction. Got off at the next exit, turned around and re-entered the turnpike without having to get another ticket, and got off without having to pay another toll.
I don’t remember specifically what exits we got on/off
So, there either isn’t a tollbooth on every exit or we somehow got onto another road that had “PA Turnpike” signs all over it but was in fact a completely different road.
So the OP’s photo should show exactly how he managed to get off the pike without a booth. Most places I’ve seen, usually NYC tunnels etc., the EZpass is a converted tollbooth lane so you do go through beside a booth; it’s just not manned. (Hence the OP’s confusion?)
You’re saying they have built some exits now where EZpass is just a lane around the toll plaza? Hmmm, good to know.
One time driving from Cleveland (actually Sandusky) to Buffalo, I accidentally went into an EZpass lane; there was nobody at the tollbooth. The guy in the next booth told me to go ahead and not worry about paying (a whole $1 or so) instead of backing out in the middle of traffic. (Damn Canadian drivers!) I never saw any bill or whatever for that, not sure what happened.
The photo they sent me shows nothing but the back bumper of my truck and the tail gate.
And yes, I was under the impression that the EZpass lane was still covered and connected to the manned toll booths. But from this thread and talking to my sister I found that the one I went through and some others, the EZpass lane is the highway itself. You have to get off the highway to go to the manned toll booth.
You will usually get these express EZ-Pass lanes where the toll is not associated with an actual exit and everyone on the highway at that point pays a toll- maybe before a bridge, before crossing a state or county line, or when there is a change in highway numbering or designation ( There’s a point on the NYS Thruway where continuing on I-87 takes you off the Thruway and you pay the toll although you haven’t left 87)
Oh, is THAT what those are? Glad I read this thread. A friend and I were driving back to Virginia from NYC when we encountered what I’m almost sure was one of these in (I think) New Jersey — there was an exit to a tollbooth, but it looked for all the world like there was nowhere to go after the booth except back onto the highway, and we couldn’t figure out why on Earth anyone would want to pull off at such a thing. As we continued past it, we concluded that we must’ve missed an obscured turnoff. I’ll have to keep an eye out for these in the future.
Never did get a ticket, though.
http://images.quickblogcast.com/72745-63839/800px_SR417UniversityTollPlaza.jpg
Here’s an example of a Sunpass toll plaza in FL. If you have a Sunpass you just go straight, without slowing down, without stopping at a toll booth. If you need to pay cash you go to the right and stop at a toll booth then return to the main highway.
I drove the PA turnpike a few months ago. I had never before driven anywhere in the northeast, and had never driven on a toll road at all.
The signs indicating where the EZ-Pass lanes were, where the regular toll lanes were, where the exits were, etc were so goddamned bleeding obvious that anyone who could not see and clearly understand the signs has no business behind the wheel.
Sounds like you only thought you were on the turnpike after you paid your toll. There aren’t any tollbooths on the turnpike where you would pay and not exit anywhere around Harmarville.
Going from Harmarville to New Brighton, you’d go through the last plaza (a couple miles before Cranberry) and then continue on the turnpike without exiting. After that point, you can exit and get back on the turnpike without paying any tolls.
But can you return to the turnpike without getting a ticket, and exit again without paying? I thought also that Clairton (Clarion is nowhere near the PA turnpike) reference meant this all took place not far from Harmarville. Never considered Cranberry as a possibility.
I ignored Clairton because doing that made what was described possible. West of Cranberry, when you get on the turnpike you do not get a ticket. You also exit without paying a toll. If you go eastbound just beyond the Cranberry exit, you’ll have to stop and get a ticket (unless you accidentally stay in the EZ Pass express lane, in which case you’ll have to pay a substantial penalty when you try to exit).
I believe these are the signs that the OP missed. They’re on southbound I-476 (the “Northeast Extension” of the Pennsylvania Turnpike) just before the Mid-County toll plaza (#20).
It’s not an exit; the highway continues, but ceases to be a toll road beyond that point. (It’s labeled in Google Maps as both the Blue Route and the Mid County Expressway south of the toll plaza.)
Bull hockey, I missed the toll at the AC expwy, 25 lanes of ez pass and one toll lane somewhere else, I think they hid it under the bridge-
Scammed me out of $15 by missing it. Nice.
A couple hours before that, I lost my ticket on the PA turnpike, it slipped behind the ashtray. Stopped at the end and told the nice toll lady,but she cut me off from my tale of woe tootsweet, how many times do they hear that one. But she did give me a slip to get reimbursed by the atate to get my $30 bucks back.
I went through something similar recently. I got directions to my coworkers house and went there for lunch. Her written directions had me driving the beltway/tollway system, which I had never done. Apparently, beltways and tollways are different.
I was expecting to pull over occasionally to pay the toll and did so on the beltway. I did not realize when I transferred to the tollway that the tollway was an E-Z tag only roadway. Either it was not marked or I missed the signage. Or maybe you are just supposed to know the difference.
While driving on the tollway, I was wondering where the pay booths were, but as I got close to my exit, I got all excited about being close to my friends house and forgot to ask her about the lack of pay booths at the end of the drive. I did see the occasional buildings with signs that said “Buy your E-Z tag here”, but figured ‘I don’t drive on the toll roads much and usually pay at the booth, so I don’t want to buy a tag.’ When I left her house, I realized I had forgotten to ask her, but it was too late. I got lost on the way home and wandered on to some other toll road, but eventually found my way home.
When I got the bills, I had about $85.00 in tolls and fines. The tolls were in increments of about 60-80 cents, each toll violation was $11.00 and I think there was a fine for driving without a tag. They offered to waive the fines if I bought a tag and opened an account with a $40.00 balance. So, for $65.00, I escaped an $85.00 bill.
They mailed me my tags. I got them but never applied them as I was not planning to drive the toll roads anymore- too expensive and too much hassle. I never even opened the envelope.
Then I got another bill for $58.00 for not activating my account. When I called to say I had activated my account, the said ‘ya- you activated your on-line account but you never activated your tags, so the fines are reinstated.’ Because I never activated the tags, I had to pay all the previous fines and some new one(s).
So in all, it cost me about $150.00 to have lunch at my friend’s house. She said she had no idea that the toll roads would be such a problem- she has E-Z tags and it never occurred to her what would happen to someone driving on the road without tags.
Ok, I knew it was somewhere that started with a C! Sorry for the confusion. Yeah that’s exactly what we did, hit a tollbooth and stayed on the turnpike for another couple exits before leaving. So there are places where you don’t have tollbooths every exit but there are booths setup on the pike itself to catch this. Anyhow, that clearly wasn’t what happened to the OP so sorry for the hijack.
The Mid-County Toll plaza is a particularly confusing part of the highway. Traveling south bound your first opportuntiy to exit is a harsh right which takes you to the “regular” East/West bound Turnpike.
Drivers taking the Turnpike east or west at this point need to get off first because they’re not leaving the Turnpike - no tolls to pay.
Immediately after they have their exit (several hundred yards) is the toll area. You can pull to the far right, where they have the non-EZpass booths, pull off to the right for the low speed EZPass booths (which I can`t understand why anyone with EZPass would use) or you can stay on at highway speeds and go through the high speed EZPass, which is what **The Man In Black **did.
It’s actually hard to imagine that anyone except a very comfortable driver could get through that for the first time with no recollection of it. It’s easy enough to figure out if you look at all the signs carefully and are alert, but it could be easily confusing. I’m surprised anyone would drive through the whole thing and not remember.
We were coming back from DC in May and had this happen too! I just got a ticket in the mail. I did see a sign that a tollboth was coming and pulled out my wallet. I was stuck in the left lane with a truck in front and on my right and did not see any warning signs that I was in an ezpass lane and that it would drive through without even going through the tollbooth lanes. I only saw the tollbooths as I was going past them and could do nothing about it. I have never seen that before, only express lanes that ran through the booths. They should have better signs and on both sides of the roads to let “out of towners” know what is coming!
Did you end up just paying the fine? I still don;t know if I am going to call them and try and get the extra fee knocked off it or not.
If you still have your entry ticket it looks like it is fairly straightforward to just pay the actual toll and not the penalty.
If you still have your ticket from when you entered the turnpike at you can file an appeal and avoid paying the other fees. Check out this website for more help. However you must have the original ticket!Proceed with caution!
I had done the same at the same pass also :smack: