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I sold a vehicle also, sent in the paperwork, still got tolls. I called the authority, did the affidavit, car got drove on the toll way more and I got more bills... After hours on the phone, I decided it wasn't worth $20.

RPBrown wrote:Funny thing, I have never been charged for my motorcycle going through a toll booth. Don't know if it can't read my license plate due to the tour pack or what but I ride a toll road several times a week and have never received a bill.

Motorcycles were not officially tested either, but should pick up just fine. Likely, if they can't see your license plate from the toll plaza bridge (where the cameras are typically mounted), they can't send you a bill. There may be systems with a different camera position, especially on exit ramps, that may pickup that tag. In TX, they try for a front and rear license plate.

I can tell you that this particular case - car + trailer with 2 toll tags isn't a "tested" or qualified case. A car + trailer (3 axles) is, but the 2nd tag should make it interesting.
If they bill both, I guarantee it's not worth your time to try and de-tangle it... at least in my experience.

I worked on these systems for a number of years. Here's another little piece of info:
Sometimes the card readers "miss" - I can see this happening more frequently in an RV as the windshield is flat and the RF doesn't reflect up to the receiver. When the card reader misses, they take that auto-magic photo of the license plate. The license plate is looked up and if found to be associated with an active toll tag, they bill the tag at the discounted rate. At least that's how it works in central Texas.

If your car has a toll tag, they should have billed at that rate.

Honestly, you could have disputed the whole thing - as the car was being towed on a trailer at the time. How long that would take to get through the maze of incompetence, I'm not sure.

Closing your toll tag, although it sounds like a good means of protest, will accomplish nothing. It'll only result in higher tolls in situations where you could have been billed at tag rates. These businesses are established, they're not going away, and I don't think they care if they lose 1 customer or 100 customers.

And I agree with someone above - if your car is towed, there's no reason to display a license plate. Likely that would have made you "untraceable" in this case as they didn't capture the right photos.


I really dislike these systems and go out of my way personally to not use them.

No defense for the level of competency in regard to their customer service. They're providing their customers exactly the level of service that they pay for.

In terms of why did you get the toll?
If you cruise through the tollway, absent a toll tag, the system identifies the number of axles on your vehicle through magnetic induction. Number of axles is important for billing.

The system takes a photo of the front and rear of the vehicle. An automated system tries to identify what looks like a license plate. Then the system uses text recognition to figure out what your license plate number is. Based on that number, they lookup the registration and send you a bill. No humans are involved.

The system makes mistakes. Obviously, in your case, it found a license plate on the rear of the vehicle and used your plate for generating the toll, even though your RV tag was billed. It was billed, right.

Generally, the system - if it picked up your motorhome toll tag, it shouldn't use the picture of the rear of the vehicle to generate a second fee. Likely that setup is so long that it's abnormal and looks like multiple vehicle. To get out of this, you'd need to show where your RV toll tag was billed at the same location and approximate date/time of the toll that they've sent you in the mail.

I don't know if their customer service reps can actually "make it go away".


To be completely honest, I've had a few issues with the toll authority on things like this. They're probably up $20 on fees that I didn't owe, that I simply didn't want the blood-pressure raising experience of dealing with the non-customer service, sending in affidavits, and going though the whole thing multiple times.