Texas Toll Authorities Double-Bill 50,000 Drivers & Have No Plans To Stop In The Future
According to a report in the Austin American Statesman, motorists on three Austin toll roads have been double-billed since charges began in January. One out of every 600 vehicles was double-billed in that time period. The money has been refunded, but it shows the clear danger of relying on machines to enforce traffic laws.
You would think that the authorities would make sure that this kind of thing never happens again, but they haven’t fixed the flaw in the system completely. They’ve just reduced the frequency of the mistakes. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) estimates that from now on only one out of every 2000 vehicles will be double-billed. This is unacceptable.
The system is already set up to make it difficult to dispute charges and some people may not even realize that they’re being overcharged. Even when the facts are clearly in the driver’s favor, they are still forced to go through a lengthy court process to rectify the situation. TxDOT insists that any overcharge will be refunded, but if they can’t fix the toll system they have in place it’s hard to trust their billing system to do the right thing.
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Think about what they have told you here 50,000 drivers were accidentally double charged of some 30,000,000 who paid tolls. That is 0.166% error(.166 of 1% or approx 1/6th of 1%). The NMA portrays this as a purposeful attempt to over collect tolls. The NMA admits that the TxDOT did something to reduce the error so that instead of 50,000 only 15,000 or 0.05%(.05 of 1% or 1/20th of 1%) of those tolls are collected from would be effected. Sal when you get your freedom of information act info on this let us all know just how many tolls were collected and how many accidentally got double billed. One needs to ask the question is this really the injustice that the NMA portrays it to be or are they angering you so you’ll be easier to coerce into supporting thier agenda?
Is it an attempt to create additional revenue through 1 additional toll per every 600 vehicles or every 2000 vehicles or is it a simple problem of the automatic toll collecting system. To correct the problem they would have to return to the traditional toll plaza with toll collectors in every lane and no EZ pass, speed pass or convenient drive thru automatic collection. with any automated system there is the problem that someone will get over charged or double charged. I would think that the TxDOT would want to keep the story out of the news for fear that every driver would lodge a complaint and it would cost them more in clearing up the screw up than if they just quietly worked on the problem.
I just went to TxDOT today to pick up a FOIA request on this exact double charging subject. I’ll have a report on my blog this weekend.
TxDOT knew about the double charging for months and kept it a secret. They only fessed up because KXAN contacted them. I’ve got internal TxDOT emails, with top TxDOT employees scheming to keep other news outlets from doing the story.
Unreal!
Sal “The Muckraker” Costello
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/