- Tourists and others may be away from their home address for months and months...perhaps entire semesters at school....perhaps as "snowbirds" off to oiled or un-oiled beaches in Florida. How can people pay without having to go home to find the bill in the mail? What will be the penalty if the bill is months late? Will the bridge leasers sic Private Collection Agencies on late- or non-payers? Will one's credit rating be affected? These questions never could arise from just paying a toll with cash, or accepting no-tolls where the entire public paid for the bridges by a fraction of a cent in their income taxes.
- Many people drive others' cars....parents', boyfriends', etc. This toll-bill-mailing system requires the car owner (who may or not be home for months, perhaps being away for the winter) to pay someone else's toll or to forward the bill to the driver thus increasing the chances of it being lost in the mail or overlooked.
- A car owner, not the driver, will have to prove innocence for not driving across that bridge and not paying a toll. The bridge administrators will not have to prove the driver's guilt. This is Napoleonic Law...not part of the US legal system. In fact, that is contrary to the US justice system. It's like Salem witch trials. Can you prove that you didn't cause that hail storm that wiped out the crops? Good luck.
- As for rental cars, rental business will be hit with the added task of either forwarding the bill to the renter, or somehow adding that toll fee to the renter's credit card...that is, if the renter is even still using the same credit card. It isn't likely that Rental firms will do this chore for free...thus effectively raising the bridge toll even more...perhaps many times the cost of the base dollar toll.
- Shipping and other delivery firms will simply add the toll costs to bills of every customer, even those who don't use the bridge or who don't even drive.
- Will it be the state (Pa and NJ) that will do the billing enforcement (at public expense) for the private bridge business?
- How much of the toll goes to cover the cost of mailing the bills to tens of thousands of people (the non-EZPass travelers) each day? That's millions of notices a year. Does that work out to being cheaper (and less of a contributor to the trash stream) than having a human-tended toll booth?
- Will there be a sign informing motorists where to send the payment so they don't have to rely on the mail to make the transaction? Will addressed, pre-paid return envelopes be made available for that?
- Will there be adequate signage well before the bridge, before the last exit, to warn motorists that they will have their license plate photographed and the bill sent to address of registration, and with advice about how to avoid that if they wish?
- For economic reasons or privacy concerns or other reasons, many will take side roads to an alternate bridge...a seven mile detour, apparently. Has there been an Environmental Impact Statement concerning what this extra traffic will do to side road air and water? Do local highway engineers and residents approve of this inevitable extra traffic, noise and exhaust? Have they had any say in this plan?
- Gov. Rendell has proposed the idea of cameras for ferreting out car owners who fail to patronize private auto insurers It is more than likely that this will be inserted into the bridge toll scam. Media outlets report nothing that prohibits that.
This is the most complex, disruptive, unnecessary, burdensome, privacy-threatening, intrusive, deceptively-sold "solution" imaginable. It's done so that the two state governors can continue policies of cutting taxes even though those tax revenues are necessary for vital public services and function of a public government. To those who vote so often for candidates who promise "tax cuts" (and then hit us all with "fees", tolls,and new penalties at every turn)...thanks...not.
This is a case of our sworn and paid public officials working overtime to force as many people as possible to patronize private businesses...in this case, the bridge leasers, the E-ZPass profiteers, and private insurance businesses. Those new to this planet may believe that it's for "convenience" and "safety" of drivers, or "good for the environment"...as "truthy" as those selling points may be.
Be assured, Gov. Ed "Frack, Baby, Frack" Rendell is not Mr. Environmentalist.
As for NJ Gov. Christie, he's a open, unembarrasses champion of privatizing virtually every public service he can think of. He ran on a platform of "cutting taxes" but he forgot to add"""and hiking fees and penalties for everything under the Jersey sun". http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/report_to_christie_administrat.html
Warning to neighbors down-river--- At least one news report hinted that if the ScudderFalls bridge experiment is a "success", the same No-Toll-Booth/Camera system may be extended south to the four big Delaware River bridges in Philadelphia and Chester---Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Commodore Barry.
And then to bridges and roads nation-wide.
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