Pennsylvania Turnpike: Commercial scofflaws owe $1.5M
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Turnpike is trying to shame trucking firms and other commercial haulers into coughing up more than $1.5 million in unpaid tolls.
One firm, Green Coast Logistics of South Plainfield, New Jersey, owes the bulk of that money, more than $678,000 stemming from more than 7,600 violations, the turnpike commission said in a list of top violators. The company didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The violations occur when vehicles drive through EZPass lanes and don't have an electronic toll-paying device attached - or don't have enough money in their EZPass account to cover the tolls. Pennsylvania doesn't use gates on EZPass lanes, like Ohio and some other states.
"We decided a through-system was best for us to keep traffic moving," turnpike spokesman Carl DeFabo said. "We still think the benefits definitely outweigh the risk of avoidance."
License plate cameras at the gates enable the turnpike to send notices to vehicle owners who don't pay, but sometimes folks don't respond to those mailed violation notices.
When the last fiscal year ended May 31, there were violations seeking $49 million in unpaid tolls and fees, DeFabo said. But that number includes an administrative penalty of at least $35 per violation, and is also inflated because violators are assumed to have entered the turnpike at the farthest point from their direction of travel, until they can prove otherwise, DeFabo said.
Still, most of that money will be collected from violators, because most are folks who mistakenly drove through an EZPass exit. Conversely, the turnpike wrote off $5.4 million in tolls it couldn't collect last year, and the 24 commercial firms named this week are among the worst of the worst repeat offenders, he said.
Turnpike officials are hoping lawmakers will eventually pass a measure allowing Pennsylvania to revoke the vehicle registrations of violators - but that would only work for vehicles with Pennsylvania license plates.
Yet the list released Tuesday shows 10 of the 24 scofflaw companies are based in New Jersey, and eight are from Pennsylvania. The rest are from Virginia, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona.
And at least one firm is questioning the turnpike's numbers.
Tim Legarsky owns Pittsburgh Southwestern Trucking based in Coal Center, which allegedly owes $20,817 in unpaid tolls and fees.
"That seems very high to me," Legarsky said, noting his company has just two trucks. His firm hasn't received correspondence from the turnpike commission, so Legarsky says he's unaware of the violations, but willing to pay up if officials can document them.