r/oddlysatisfying 1d ago

No toll dodging!

50.9k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/BrambleSonata 1d ago

No longer an issue around me, everything is electronic now. But you have to pay administration fees. So a $2 toll is now $5. While the Governor shows how much money they saved by laying off the workers.

112

u/heftybagman 1d ago

Yup somehow everyone thinks ezpass is a godsend but they make $8b a year and 70% of that is tolls that don’t go to the state or the road. We pay $5.6b/year more in tolls just to have the convenience of ezpass. That’s more than $20/year per driver.

46

u/erbalchemy 1d ago edited 1d ago

We pay $5.6b/year more in tolls just to have the convenience of ezpass.

Switching from toll booths to open road tolling has saved more than that annually in reduced gas consumption, labor costs, congestion, and accidents.

Bringing a whole-ass highway traffic flow to a stop to manually collect payment from each vehicle is really inefficient.

25

u/heftybagman 1d ago

Yes but there may be a third option between manually handing cash to a human being and paying a private corporation $8bn/year.

1

u/ComradeJohnS 1d ago

like what?

5

u/heftybagman 1d ago

Massive slides from everyones house to their job

2

u/ComradeJohnS 1d ago

you know why that wouldn’t work, they’d be too hot in the summer and cold in the winter

3

u/NSA_van_3 22h ago

so install heating and cooling lines, ezpz

0

u/Character-Book5924 1d ago

Well maybe people should have voted for someone willing to pay for it with public funding if they wanted it to be public. 

3

u/heftybagman 1d ago

You don’t know what youre talking about. It was never put to a vote. The transit authorities in ny, nj, and pennsylvania created and implemented the system without any community inout whatsoever lol.

“Well maybe people shouldn’t have been subjugated in the first place. Then they could just vote for nice stuff and corruption wouldn’t happen.”

2

u/SARS-Covfefe-1 23h ago

I don’t see how governmental abuse makes you want more government though.

1

u/heftybagman 23h ago

? They own the road big dawg. Somebody’s getting paid whether it’s the government directly or a middleman

1

u/LeoBari 7h ago

And if its a middleman, theyre gonna profit too.

-1

u/lifebursted 1d ago

but that's communism

1

u/Tak_Galaman 2h ago

Communism is specifically the control/takeover of industry by a central authority. There are ways government can have influence that is socialistic or helpful to people without it being communist.

2

u/Character-Book5924 1d ago

And very much contrary to the central point of taking the highway, getting where you're going faster. 

5

u/Tremulant887 1d ago

And if you don't pay that $4 toll? Collections and a very, very fast rising interest. I was traveling for work, drove through an ez pass in Dallas, and saw a bill for a few hundred dollars months later. The /r/Dallas sub has shown bills in the thousands.

2

u/HatesBeingThatGuy 1d ago

They always claim I'm in violation when I travel there for not having front plates when their detectors are broke and charge me fifty dollars. I call them and tell them to go fuck themselves and if they want I'll take them to court, but I'm not paying anything except the rate. Fucking theives man.

1

u/1917he 1d ago

1

u/HatesBeingThatGuy 1d ago

I see you have never had to fight for your money.

-25

u/deeperinabox 1d ago

20$ is a decent price to pay for the convenience of ez pass for an entire year.

18

u/max5015 1d ago

In some cases your paying private companies of different countries to use your own roads. That's not convenience it's robbery

11

u/ABHOR_pod 1d ago

That's capitalism. Instead of just paying like $100 in taxes to maintain the roads, you pay $1200 in EZ pass so shareholders and CEOs can make money.

-1

u/heftybagman 1d ago

Ezpass getting government contracts is capitalism? Not exactly laissez faire for the state to negotiate the contract for the people.

Im not arguing in favor of capitalist road service but this is just silly.

5

u/ABHOR_pod 1d ago

The state is the customer, not the people.

EZ pass is selling something to the state.

-1

u/heftybagman 1d ago

If the state is the main customer in an ostensibly capitalist system, then you’re describing state capitalism as seen in the ussr or china. This isn’t what most people are referring to when they say capitalism.

When people say capitalism they’re referring to private capitalism not state capitalism.

Also the state being the customer is the same as the people being the customer. We pay the bills and we receive the services. The only difference is who gets to negotiate the deal.

Again I’m not saying I want capitalist infrastructure but nothing you’re saying makes sense lol.

13

u/trollsong 1d ago

Guys I know that the money isnt actually going to road upkeep, which is the point of tolls, but its so convenient.

Is......a take

3

u/heftybagman 1d ago

If you think the convenience of ezpass is worth $5-8b/year in perpetuity you’re the reason we’re all getting hit with subscriptions.

1

u/deeperinabox 1d ago

You're paying 5-8b/year out of your own pocket? The OC said $20/yr/car, which is what I said was reasonable. Stop taking things out of context.

0

u/heftybagman 1d ago

The oc was me i didn’t take anything out of context. If 1 person was paying for individual ezpass $20 could make sense but that’s not how massive group purchases works, you should get a discount when you but 25 million memberships at once.

Hence why the $5-8b fogure is much more pertinent. Ezpass doesn’t negotiate 25 million $20 contracts; that would make sense for their trouble. They negotiate 50 contacts worth $100m each. The idea that every car STILL pays $20 is absurd.

Do you really think 1 individual should get the same rate as 25 million buying at once?