My only reasons for posting this are to get it off my chest, give some people a heads up so they can possibly avoid a similar problem, and maybe one of the attorneys on this board or someone else can help me understand it because I am just baffled. Maybe I'm missing something?
I got a demand for $127.30 from the Illinois tollway awhile back for supposed toll violations. It was something like $5 in tolls and the rest in fines. They have what is apparently a useless dispute process, where you can request a hearing that I'm convinced never actually happened.
Their claim was that I blew a bunch of tolls in a rental car (I live in Florida but travel to Chicago often on business). I may have missed one, but I'm not stupid, I wasn't blowing every tollbooth in the state. I'm there enough to know my way around not on the toll roads! If I ever plan on doing a lot of driving that will require tollroads, I rent an I-Pass. Anyways, they sent me a picture of the rental car's license plate. Wait a minute... A rental car's license plate? I'm up there so much I can't even check if the dates match a particular trip. How do I even know these were when I had the car? Or if it was even a car I rented? Hmm... The info they sent me states they are allowed to asses fees against the registered owner of a vehicle. OK, fine! Let's go that route. When Enterprise contacts me, I can work it out with them, and at least that gets me some more time before I need to pay. Maybe they will have better luck fighting with the state.
I go online and request the hearing to dispute it. A few days later, I head home to enjoy Christmas. I come home late one evening to a letter from them with a dispute form and a hearing date. I have 5 days before the hearing to get the form to them. Let me get a calendar and start counting with my fingers. One, two , three, four, five... I have to send this tomorrow to meet the deadline! And, that's if they mean calendar days. If it's business days, I'm hosed... What happens if you don't get the form to them soon enough? It's disregarded! So, let me get this right... They never sent the initial notice in any manner that could verify I actually received it, but if I didn't pay or dispute within a certain number of days, the fine skyrocketed to $427.30. I try to do the right thing and do the dispute and then have the audacity to spend Christmas with my family. Because of that I may not even have enough time to dispute this. This doesn't even get into if I had become injured or ill and ended up in the hospital...
So, I send in the form and simply state that I am not the registered owner and according to the statutes they quoted, they need to be talking with the registered owner. They also quote a part that specifically said it didn't matter who the driver was, registered owners accept the liability of someone driving their vehicle. That seemed logical enough. You quote law, I quote law, you must make finding in accordance with said law...
I got the answer back today. They didn't even bother to say why, it just came back "Liable". How much time do I get to send them $127.30? By next Thursday 1/20! They again didn't send this in any way that would guarantee I got it, and if I don't happen to have $127.30 lying around, it goes to $427.30 after that day. Lucky for me I didn't leave town earlier today for a couple weeks like I will be doing late next week...
Let me change the scenario a little bit. Let's say I had never in my life been to Illinois. If everything else was the same except for that one fact, this would have had the same outcome! I would have still told them it wasn't my car, they still wouldn't have cared, and they would still be demanding this money from me under threat of my license being suspended.
Well, that's not quite right I guess. There is the option of disputing this with the Illinois Circuit Court. All a person has to do is spend more than the fine in court filing fees and likely hire an attorney. Hold on, hire an attorney... I challenge anyone to find google search terms that will bring up any attorneys that specialize in fighting these guys. They don't exist! I tried! Everyone knows the insane specialties you can find lawyers for and yet you can't find any that specialize in taking these guys on. What does THAT tell you? My research indicated that Illinois Tollway fines can't even be discharged in bankruptcy!
I am nearly in shock. This sounds like something that should be happening...anywhere but somewhere in the US! I have the money to pay this but what about a person that doesn't? $5 or $7 in tolls could turn into $427.30 in fines and that's not considered excessive? How about some due process to A) Verify the person actually received the letters B) Allow for a reasonable amount of time to prepare and submit a dispute and if needed come up with the money and C) Explain the reasoning for a finding of liabilty? How about some due process to stop the whole process when it looks like there may be a mistake? I have until 1/20 to pay the money or it goes to the $427.30, but they give me 35 days to dispute in court. Well, DUH, obviously that means I need to pay regardless and all I can hope for is a refund.
So, to summarize...
I don't know if I am guilty of all of these toll violations, and to be honest, I don't think I am. But, that doesn't matter...
They quote law that states the registered owner of a vehicle is responsible for all fines on that vehicle, regardless of driver, but when I point out this is not my vehicle it doesn't matter... Or, maybe it did, but they tossed my dispute in the trash for not getting to them quickly enough over the Christmas holiday...
I could have conceivably never received that first letter and be responsible for $427.30 with absolutely no recourse or possibly even knowledge... I could have received a letter from the State of Florida one day telling me my license was suspended and not had any idea why.
A person can conceivably never set foot in Illinois, but if their driver's license number somehow gets associated with a vehicle that blows a toll, they are in the same situation I outlined here.
A person found liable is given 14 days from that finding, minus mail travel time to them, plus return mail travel time back to Illinois, to pay the amount due-whether it is $100 or $10,000. If they don't the fine quadruples... I'm glad the mail didn't move slow because of all the bad weather lately!
This is happening in the United States of America...
I guarantee I will start A) Keeping closer records of my trips to Illinois B) Keeping records of my travel paths C) Always rent an I-Pass D) Have my House Sitter check my mail when I'm gone and immediately call me if she sees anything from Illinois E) Try to finish up getting our Illinois operations in order ASAP and pass them to off to someone else so I never have to go there again, ever in my life...
I got a demand for $127.30 from the Illinois tollway awhile back for supposed toll violations. It was something like $5 in tolls and the rest in fines. They have what is apparently a useless dispute process, where you can request a hearing that I'm convinced never actually happened.
Their claim was that I blew a bunch of tolls in a rental car (I live in Florida but travel to Chicago often on business). I may have missed one, but I'm not stupid, I wasn't blowing every tollbooth in the state. I'm there enough to know my way around not on the toll roads! If I ever plan on doing a lot of driving that will require tollroads, I rent an I-Pass. Anyways, they sent me a picture of the rental car's license plate. Wait a minute... A rental car's license plate? I'm up there so much I can't even check if the dates match a particular trip. How do I even know these were when I had the car? Or if it was even a car I rented? Hmm... The info they sent me states they are allowed to asses fees against the registered owner of a vehicle. OK, fine! Let's go that route. When Enterprise contacts me, I can work it out with them, and at least that gets me some more time before I need to pay. Maybe they will have better luck fighting with the state.
I go online and request the hearing to dispute it. A few days later, I head home to enjoy Christmas. I come home late one evening to a letter from them with a dispute form and a hearing date. I have 5 days before the hearing to get the form to them. Let me get a calendar and start counting with my fingers. One, two , three, four, five... I have to send this tomorrow to meet the deadline! And, that's if they mean calendar days. If it's business days, I'm hosed... What happens if you don't get the form to them soon enough? It's disregarded! So, let me get this right... They never sent the initial notice in any manner that could verify I actually received it, but if I didn't pay or dispute within a certain number of days, the fine skyrocketed to $427.30. I try to do the right thing and do the dispute and then have the audacity to spend Christmas with my family. Because of that I may not even have enough time to dispute this. This doesn't even get into if I had become injured or ill and ended up in the hospital...
So, I send in the form and simply state that I am not the registered owner and according to the statutes they quoted, they need to be talking with the registered owner. They also quote a part that specifically said it didn't matter who the driver was, registered owners accept the liability of someone driving their vehicle. That seemed logical enough. You quote law, I quote law, you must make finding in accordance with said law...
I got the answer back today. They didn't even bother to say why, it just came back "Liable". How much time do I get to send them $127.30? By next Thursday 1/20! They again didn't send this in any way that would guarantee I got it, and if I don't happen to have $127.30 lying around, it goes to $427.30 after that day. Lucky for me I didn't leave town earlier today for a couple weeks like I will be doing late next week...
Let me change the scenario a little bit. Let's say I had never in my life been to Illinois. If everything else was the same except for that one fact, this would have had the same outcome! I would have still told them it wasn't my car, they still wouldn't have cared, and they would still be demanding this money from me under threat of my license being suspended.
Well, that's not quite right I guess. There is the option of disputing this with the Illinois Circuit Court. All a person has to do is spend more than the fine in court filing fees and likely hire an attorney. Hold on, hire an attorney... I challenge anyone to find google search terms that will bring up any attorneys that specialize in fighting these guys. They don't exist! I tried! Everyone knows the insane specialties you can find lawyers for and yet you can't find any that specialize in taking these guys on. What does THAT tell you? My research indicated that Illinois Tollway fines can't even be discharged in bankruptcy!
I am nearly in shock. This sounds like something that should be happening...anywhere but somewhere in the US! I have the money to pay this but what about a person that doesn't? $5 or $7 in tolls could turn into $427.30 in fines and that's not considered excessive? How about some due process to A) Verify the person actually received the letters B) Allow for a reasonable amount of time to prepare and submit a dispute and if needed come up with the money and C) Explain the reasoning for a finding of liabilty? How about some due process to stop the whole process when it looks like there may be a mistake? I have until 1/20 to pay the money or it goes to the $427.30, but they give me 35 days to dispute in court. Well, DUH, obviously that means I need to pay regardless and all I can hope for is a refund.
So, to summarize...
I don't know if I am guilty of all of these toll violations, and to be honest, I don't think I am. But, that doesn't matter...
They quote law that states the registered owner of a vehicle is responsible for all fines on that vehicle, regardless of driver, but when I point out this is not my vehicle it doesn't matter... Or, maybe it did, but they tossed my dispute in the trash for not getting to them quickly enough over the Christmas holiday...
I could have conceivably never received that first letter and be responsible for $427.30 with absolutely no recourse or possibly even knowledge... I could have received a letter from the State of Florida one day telling me my license was suspended and not had any idea why.
A person can conceivably never set foot in Illinois, but if their driver's license number somehow gets associated with a vehicle that blows a toll, they are in the same situation I outlined here.
A person found liable is given 14 days from that finding, minus mail travel time to them, plus return mail travel time back to Illinois, to pay the amount due-whether it is $100 or $10,000. If they don't the fine quadruples... I'm glad the mail didn't move slow because of all the bad weather lately!
This is happening in the United States of America...
I guarantee I will start A) Keeping closer records of my trips to Illinois B) Keeping records of my travel paths C) Always rent an I-Pass D) Have my House Sitter check my mail when I'm gone and immediately call me if she sees anything from Illinois E) Try to finish up getting our Illinois operations in order ASAP and pass them to off to someone else so I never have to go there again, ever in my life...
