Tollway Agencies and Scofflaws

* Re “Agencies Lost $3.6 Million as Tollway Cheaters Coasted,” Dec. 11:

Just how farcical can the Transportation Corridor Agencies get? This wonderful private enterprise, desperately trying to convince us all that we really need their beloved road carved through our open land and state park, is unable to work out for themselves that spending $5 to try to retrieve 25 cents is really not the greatest business decision.

Also, I wonder what exactly TCA Director Linda Lindholm and departing director Christina L. Shea are thinking of when they are advocating not going after people who are breaking the law by not paying their tolls? Maybe everyone who does pay should contact the two aforementioned people and ask for an explanation. The main point I’m trying to get across here is this: How can we take the TCA seriously with anything they say in regard to how we need Foothill South, when they are obviously in total disarray in something as simple as upholding the law and making sure offenders are fined the maximum amount of $96?

STEPHEN BURGESS

San Clemente

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It’s hard to feel sorry for the quasi-governmental Transportation Corridor Agencies in their effort to catch scofflaws.

When my fiancee (now wife) turned in her leased 1996 Mazda Miata (with California tags) in early 1999, the horror began. She began getting notices from the TCA that this vehicle was blowing through tolls all over the place. This was truly a guilty until proven innocent ordeal. She had to repeatedly call the agency and submit proof that the car was not hers anymore.

Because the TCA wouldn’t take her information right the first time, she kept receiving new violations. Just because the DMV was slow in recording the lease transfer, this agency continued to harass and threaten her. Shame on the TCA.

I wish nothing but bankruptcy and a state takeover for the managers and bondholders who condone this police action against innocent taxpayers.

JIM JOSWAY

Aliso Viejo

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One thing is certain about Southern Californians: Get them behind the wheel and rules such as speed limits and tolls become as blurry as the signs that announce them. People drive 40 mph in 25-mph zones and speed through toll plazas because they know they can get away with it.

Back East there is a solution for this, and the gentleman from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority stated it: more police patrols. Just the apparent possibility of being pulled over would be enough for these drivers, but there’s no visible threat. No one has the right tospeed through city streets and toll plazas.

DALE

SHEPHERD

Newport Beach

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You missed a wonderful chance to pursue the implications of the numbers reported. If 2.5 million gate runners fail to pay expected revenues of $3.6 million, that’s about $1.45 per trip. If half of those 2.5 million cheaters are not identified, then half are. As a matter of simple arithmetic, the situation will be a wash for the toll roads if the average fine per toll violation is big enough.

So does the average fine reach that level? You bet it does, according to the numbers you published. If 2.5 million abusers are worth $142 million in fines, then each separate toll violation means potential fine revenue of just under $57 to the agency. That’s nearly a 10 to 1 advantage. The paranoid might suspect that a certain level of user noncompliance is a critical component in the agencies’ fiscal health.

As an aside, do the toll road agencies know how many FasTrak customers get free rides? Are transponder holders counted among their 2.5 million scofflaws if system failure means their toll road accounts are not debited when they pass beneath a reader? There is one toll station on Route 231 where the transponder in a car in which I sometimes ride never beeps. I am suspicious.

I believe you got the numbers wrong or you missed a bigger story. Please try again.

DAVID WILSON

Laguna Beach