Florida Appeals Court Reinstates Bogus Toll Road Bills

The Newspaper
by The Newspaper

In March 2007, Florida firefighter Christopher M. Baird started getting traffic citations, after the E-PASS toll transponder in his wife’s SUV failed. Although Baird had kept his address properly updated with the Department of Motor Vehicles, officials mailed a stack of sixteen tickets to the wrong location. Baird first learned of the problem while trying to renew his car registration. Despite the lack of proper notice, he was given no chance to be heard on the matter. Instead, Baird was forced to pay $1448 in fines to renew his vehicle registration and was hit with 48 points against his driving license, resulting in an immediate suspension. In April, Circuit Judge John Galluzzo found the actions of toll road officials “outrageous.” He ordered Baird’s money refunded and license reinstated, and extended his ruling to all toll violation tickets issued to motorists in Seminole and Brevard counties– as long as they held a valid toll transponder account. And then…

The Florida Department of Transportation and Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority filed an appeal, insisting that their due process rights were violated by the circuit court opinion’s extension of the principle to every motorist within the circuit court’s jurisdiction. The appeals court has agreed. Thousands of Florida motorists will once again be liable for toll road offenses that they did not necessarily commit. Of course, all “toll cheating” tickets issued against motorists in Seminole and Brevard counties will be immediately reinstated, regardless of whether the motorists had a valid toll transponder account at the time of the offense. [ click here for the full story from thenewspaper.com]

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  • Satire Satire on Oct 14, 2008

    In California they are called freeways for a reason. But the bridges are another issue. The Golden Gate Bridge promised that it would have no toll after it was paid for. That happened in the mid-1930s. But yet it costs $6 today. Go figure.

  • Windswords Windswords on Oct 15, 2008

    To everyone who has moved out of Florida or changed your mind about moving to Florida: Good. Tell your friends not to move here either. More room for me. I don't like toll roads either but in NE FL we don't have them. I had enough of them in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey. In NJ the tolls were supposed to pay for the bonds taken out to build the roads. Then the tolls were to be taken down. That worked out real well.

  • I_hate_tolls I_hate_tolls on Oct 21, 2008

    Did you think that you were living in the USA and not a dictatorship? Why does this not surprise me? Apparently they have no requirement to handle monies with any sort of ethics whatsoever. The Turnpike Trolls have bought a judge, apparently, with all of their filthy money. I guess they buy a lot of lobbyists with their spoils from screwing the public for nothing, and providing no real services in return - in short, on of the most useless government services around! Ask your toll operator what you get in return for your money that they steal from you. This just goes to show that Florida needs more LEGAL and FINANCIAL oversight in the whole area among DOT, Florida Turnpike Enterprise, OOCEA, Post Buckley (PBS&J), and all of the other interoperability partners and orgs that contract with them. Didn't PBSJ have some outright embezzlement scandals? Too bad they are still entrenched in the Turnpike, they have not earned the public's trust by any stretch of the imagination. The toll company is currently wasting tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Their upper management team has not been stable for many months now and quite a few people have left including directors and above the level. A lot of the key people have gone to other related organizations which also may be a conflict of interest. The toll company has also paid a team of java developers located at 7700 Southland Blvd Orlando Fl to write code for years, then arbitrarily decide not to put it into production. All of this is at the cost to the taxpayers and driving public. SOMEONE SHOULD INVESTIGATE THIS !

  • Olenorsk Olenorsk on Jan 20, 2009

    If you get around any of the hugely popular places like Disney World and you will pay thru the nose for EVERYTHING. I just made my first - and last - trip there by auto. NEVER AGAIN! Not only do the toll roads soak every bit of money out of your pockets, they do so very inconveniently for everyone. And, the political temptation to screw around with the money is apparently irresistable: http://www.tollscreategridlock.org/oocea-corruption.html Buy a GPS and avoid the blood suckers . . .

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