Nobody is fond of paying tolls. They slow you down and take your money. But, apparently there are several trucking companies in Pennsylvania who are outright ignoring the tolls altogether.
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, on July 31, announced it’s finally received somewhere around $48,000 in overdue tolls from two trucking companies. As a matter of fact, the commission sued the companies recently for these long-standing debts.
These overdue payments came from a string of lawsuits the commission file against 20 trucking operations that continuously avoided payment at toll crossings. As it turns out, these tolls were spread across the non-navigable area of the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“We will consider every legal tool at our disposal to enforce compliance at our toll collection points along the river,” said Executive Director Joseph Resta. “Any trucking firm that thinks it can operate with a business model of not paying tolls is going to find that we going to make it our business to go after them and collect payment.”
Zero Tolerance
Just this February and March, the Commission joined a bulging list of toll agencies around the nation who’ve decided to invoke zero-tolerance measures against toll evaders. They are doing so with civil complaints or taking criminal actions in courts.
By taking this new hard-line stance they’ve received the payments from two trucking companies. CRST International, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, paid $43,188.15 in ongoing toll and administrative fees. Furthermore, Transcom Leasing Corp, stationed in Union, N.J., was the other guilty party. They coughed up their debt. They paid $5,000.
According to Resta, the recent lawsuits are the first time the Commission went to court to get their money from the evaders. In these cases, the violators had tallied considerable violations while simultaneously ignoring repeated correspondence instructing them to pay.
What do you all think? About time these toll-evaders pay up?
