SunPass Toll Violation Fees Were Wrongly Imposed, Says Florida Driver

Quite a few major American cities have toll road systems. Many of these systems work on an automatic billing system or a system that relies on photos of cars and license plates to assess tolls.

However, some drivers have accused large toll road managing companies of unfair assessment of tolls. In Florida, drivers have alleged that SunPass, one of the major toll road management companies in the state, has assessed unfair and improper SunPass toll violation fees for a variety of reasons.

Toll Road Fee Assessment

Many toll road management companies rely on photos of vehicles, their tags or their license plates in order to assess fees for drivers who use their roads. When a driver passes through a toll plaza, a quick photo is taken of the car and the driver is billed for the toll.

Before this technology was available, drivers had to deposit change in a basket or give cash to a toll booth attendant.

With the availability of photo technology and the use of transponders, fees can be assessed quicker, often not requiring drivers to slow down or stop through toll plazas. Transponders are small devices that are placed on a vehicle dashboard or windshield that communicates with the toll plaza when a driver goes through. A fee is then imposed upon that driver’s toll road account.

Often, if a car does not have a transponder, the plaza will take a photo of the car’s license plates and then impose the fee upon the owner of the vehicle.

A number of drivers, however, have accused some of these companies of billing drivers falsely (their car was not actually the one driving through the toll plaza), of billing higher fees than what was posted by the toll management company or not notifying drivers that there was a fee at all.

Improper SunPass Toll Violation Fees

One driver in South Florida has had a myriad of ongoing problems with what he says are improper SunPass toll violation fees. WFTV9 reports that a Cocoa, Fla. man, John W., was charged for SunPass toll fees that weren’t from his vehicle.

Allegedly, last November, John gifted his Chevy Trail Blazer to his son. He removed the metal license plates and ordered new temporary “plates” made of paper for his son. His son, to prepare to receive the new permanent, metal plates, destroyed the temporary ones.

Soon thereafter, John received a bill for SunPass toll fees for a drive he claims he never took. The photo that was sent to him, he says, was a of a dark colored SUV going through a toll booth.

John told WFTV9, “The picture they sent is of a Ford Excursion and you can’t even read the tag and they say it’s my tag. I know it’s not my temporary tag plate.”

The bill was for $9.20. John called SunPass to discuss the SunPass toll violation fee. They told him that the tag on the car did belong to him and that he owed the fine. He believed that this was an impossibility because his son had destroyed the temporary tags and his stickers were on his new vehicle. John told WFTV9 that he considered paying the unfair SunPass toll violation fee, but he thought if he did, whoever was using the tag would continue to incur fees.

He said that the kept calling SunPass to try to rectify the situation, while at the same time, more false SunPass toll violation fees came in. SunPass informed him that he needed to file a police report. The police told him it was most likely forgery and not a stolen item. Because of that, they could not file a full police report but filed an “incident” report instead.

John sent the incident report for the SunPass toll violation fees to SunPass, but SunPass told him they couldn’t do anything with it. In essence, he still owed money to SunPass for SunPass toll violation fees he was not personally incurring.

Eventually, his tolls were dismissed, but not until after a long journey and many unnecessary phone calls.

Join a Free Toll Road Fees Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you believe you were assessed an excessive SunPass toll violation, EZPass toll violation, FasTrak violation, MDX violation, iPass violation or other electronic toll violation fee within the past four years, you may be able to take legal action against the company or companies responsible.

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