There is more news today in the Dallas Morning News about the North Texas Turnpike Authority's efforts to curtail scofflaws that don't pay tolls. I briefly mentioned those efforts a couple days ago.
 
In briefings to the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition from NTTA representatives, I have heard a number of times of the need for greater effort. There are some drivers that repeatedly use the tollways without paying, even daily at the same times. The new toll collection system will document those drivers by capturing the vehicle license numbers, making enforcement much easier.
 
The article also quotes Bob Day, Garland's immediate past mayor and NTTA director.
 
Here's how violators will also be creating very expensive penalties for themselves if they don't pay tolls and do so timely:
 

Dallas Morning News, July 1:

Left unpaid, North Texas Tollway Authority tolls grow – and fast

07:07 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 1, 2009
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
mlindenberger@dallasnews.com
 
How do you turn an $80 bill into a $2,000 monkey on your back?
 
Spend two weeks using the North Texas Tollway Authority's growing network of toll roads, then ignore your bills for as little as 45 days, and you're likely to find out.
 
As it prepares to raise toll rates next month, NTTA has increased its efforts to collect the money it is owed by drivers who use its roads without a toll tag, and then refuse to pay or simply ignore bills sent to their homes.
 
To encourage them to pay up, the agency tacks on a $25 fee for every toll transaction that isn't paid after 45 days and two notices. With a typical one-way trip on a toll road involving several toll transactions, those fines can quickly turn two weeks of toll use into a four-figure affair.

How an unpaid toll can spin out of control. Click to enlarge. Source: DMN

 
The agency hopes that painful kick in the pocketbook will reverse a trend in which it has identified tens of thousands of drivers who refuse to pay 13 million toll transactions. Those tolls are worth $9 million, not enough money to head off NTTA's toll increase, but money that the authority badly needs.
 
Repeat offenders
 
Most violators are repeat offenders who simply ignore the bills – which often are for just a few dollars – that are mailed to them after a video camera captures their license plates. Others are drivers who rarely use toll roads, but are being hit with hundreds of dollars in fines after failing to pay minor toll amounts.
 
It's a bad situation for both drivers and the NTTA, authority officials said. But it's not likely to change any time soon.
 
"Are we satisfied with this system?" asked agency chairman Paul Wageman at a meeting two weeks ago. "No, we are not."
 
But with toll rates about to go up, and overall revenue below expectations, Wageman said the authority must get tough with drivers who use the roads but don't pay. "It's theft of service," he said.
 
Most collections are simple for NTTA. Indeed, the vast majority of its customers pay in advance. When a driver gets a toll tag, NTTA links his or her account to a debit or credit card, and charges $40 up front. Every time the balance reaches $10, the agency debits another $40.
 
In 2008, 75 percent of NTTA's 428 million toll transactions involved a toll tag customer. Twelve percent came from drivers paying at cash booths.
 
But 13 percent or so of the transactions are from drivers without toll tags.
 
NTTA is fast doing away with cash toll booths. And at locations without them, drivers without a tag drive straight through the electronic toll gantries, just like toll tag customers do. A camera takes a picture of their license plates and NTTA sends them a bill for each toll transaction.
 
Adds up quickly
 
Unless drivers purposely avoided a cash booth, the bill from NTTA is only for the tolls owed. If drivers don't pay after 45 days, and a second notice, the costs spike upward. That's when NTTA sends a bill that includes the $25 fines for each transaction.
 
That can mean hundreds, or thousands, of dollars quickly. Driving back and forth from Frisco to Dallas on the Dallas North Tollway will rack up eight tolls a day, or 40 in a workweek.
 
NTTA will cut up to two-thirds of the fines if the driver pays within a total of 75 days. After that the bill is sent to a collection agency and negotiations end, spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said.
 
"Our goal is not to put someone in the poor house," she said. "The goal is to collect the tolls we are owed and to recover the cost of collection."
 
Richard Jordan knows this story well – and he has had a toll tag for 15 years. His bank was recently bought out and issued him new credit cards, making his card on file with NTTA invalid. When NTTA tried to debit his account for a series of toll transactions, it could not. It mailed him a bill for about $20, which Jordan said he did not pay.
 
"I see a bill for $10 or $20, it's not going to be top of mind," he said.
 
He called NTTA last week and learned his case had been sent to a collection agency. The agency told him his bill was more than $2,000. He eventually worked out a settlement with NTTA for about $180, he said, but remains furious and is considering hiring a lawyer.
 
Coffelt said no collection agency has the authority to arrest anyone. But law enforcement does get involved eventually.
 
The collection agency has 35 days to collect the debt. After that, the matter is turned over to Department of Public Safety, which will issue a single citation to drivers who have failed to pay. Once a citation is issued, drivers are given court dates in a local justice of peace court. Failure to show up for court leads to an arrest warrant, spokesman Tom Vinger said.
 
13 million tolls
 
But with NTTA trying to collect against 13 million tolls, those courts are overwhelmed, meaning that the most delinquent customers are least likely to ever have to pay. And for drivers who feel they were wronged, their day in court may be months or years down the road.
 
A bill that would have given NTTA the power to create its own administrative court to handle fines died in the Legislature this year. Wageman said NTTA will try again in 2011.
 
Meanwhile, NTTA feels squeezed. It owes creditors about $6 billion, and they want to know that its revenue projects won't be undone by unreliable collections. But just as clearly the system in place isn't working.
 
In the first four months of 2009, Coffelt said, about half the cars without toll tags were deemed uncollectible from the start, either because they were in vehicles with dealer tags or the camera wasn't able to get a good picture of the license plate.
 
The other half got bills in the mail.
 
"The truth is that you can't ever collect all the tolls" from non-tag users, Coffelt said. "But you save so much in capital cost, operations and maintenance that those savings offset the small uncollectible portion of revenue."
 
By 2011, NTTA will have no cash booths at all, lowering costs overall but also making it increasingly important that it figure out how to collect its unpaid tolls. Its biggest hope is to convince more people to sign up for toll tags.
 
NTTA board member Bob Day has proposed making it easier to sign up, even if drivers don't have a credit card and can't afford the $40 upfront deposit.
 
But for now drivers beware: Those small bills from NTTA are likely to add up to big problems, and fast.