Downstate drivers have toll troubles too

SPRINGFIELD -- Carla Meier was stunned to receive a $62 tollway fine recently, especially since the infractions occurred when she couldn't drive.

"I broke my foot," said Meier, who lives in Sherman, just outside Springfield. "My doctor wouldn't let me drive -- no way, shape or form."

In addition, the vehicle pictured in the tollway citations isn't hers. The pictures show a Honda Accord, although it does have her former temporary license plate numbers on it.

"I drive a flipping station wagon," she said.

Meier's is but one of a growing number of tollway complaints that have cropped up across central Illinois in recent weeks, sparking calls to lawmakers who normally have little to do with the tollway. There is no tollway downstate.

The complaints come on the heels of a Daily Herald investigation that exposed flaws in the tollway's violation enforcement system, including: toll cameras that have trouble reading 25 percent of all Illinois license plates, notices that may not be going to the proper addresses and an 18-month-long computer problem that has delayed notices and left the agency unaware of how many violators there on the roads.

Meier is hoping to work with lawmakers and appeal the matter. She was previously told she had to drive hours to Downers Grove for a hearing. She said she wondered if telling downstate residents to drive to the Chicago area was a way to get more people to pay.

Tollway spokeswoman Joelle McGinnis said that's not the case.

"It's not a downstate issue versus upstate issue," McGinnis said, adding that downstate residents can ask to go through the hearing process by mail.

McGinnis said she's aware of calls from downstaters, and the agency has look into complaints.

Still, the unusual citations spark unwelcome memories among some downstate lawmakers.

State Rep. Bill Black, a Danville Republican, compared the recent tollway complaints to the phantom Chicago parking tickets that plagued downstaters a decade ago.

Back then Black got the city's attention after he introduced legislation that would have banned Chicago from enforcing its tickets outside its own boundaries.

If questionable violations keep mounting, he'll consider similar action.

"I'll file some kind of foolish legislation that you shouldn't have to file in the first place," Black said. "But until you do that, it seems like no one wants to listen to you."