Delaware's biggest toll violator owes $175,000

The next time you hit a pothole on one of Delaware's toll roads, you can blame the handful of habitual scofflaws who blatantly disregard the state's tolls and the fines that follow for it not being repaired.

Delaware's top five toll violators currently owe nearly $407,000 in unpaid tolls and fines, with the top violator in arrears for $174,384.25. The others range from $57,000-$60,000 each.

The oldest uncollected tolls and fines date back to 2005 with $225,000 still outstanding for that year and have been sent to collections, said C.R. McLeod, director of community relations for the Delaware Department of Transportation.

He said that's all money that goes directly back into Delaware's roads and infrastructure projects.

"The Department of Motor Vehicles is the biggest revenue source for DelDOT," McLeod said. "That money is critically important to all of the projects we are doing around the state. As anyone who drives on a daily basis knows, we have a lot of infrastructure needs and a lot of projects that are currently underway. All of these dollars go toward our transportation infrastructure."

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McLeod said many of the violators – including four of the top five – are currently on payment plans with the state and are no longer breaking the law.

Scott Vien, director of Delaware's DMV, said that when a person drives through a toll booth every day and doesn't pay, then ignores the fines, the amount owed adds up pretty quickly.

The proportion of violations to actual toll is significant, he said. Using a $1 toll as an example, if that goes unpaid it turns into a $50 fine. If the second notice goes unanswered, then $37.50 is added onto that, so it’s going to be the toll plus $87.50 if it goes completely unanswered after two notices. That’s per toll that is run.

"It doesn’t happen overnight," Vien said. "[The top violator] is a daily driver who constantly goes through the tolls, constantly ignores every notice that we send him, and in this case, we obviously had a registration hold on the vehicle but the registration hasn’t been renewed."

Vien said in order to catch this scofflaw – who is a Delaware resident who continues to use state toll roads – it’s a matter of law enforcement saying this vehicle is driving without a valid registration. And because the number is so high, he said conversations continue to take place to see what can be done above and beyond the registration hold.

In a similar case in 2008, Delaware State Police (DSP) took out warrants on a Maryland man who had illegally traveled 633 times through DelDOT toll booths without paying.

According to a 2008 DelDOT release, Frank Maier, 55, of Abingdon, Maryland, was the top toll violator in DelDOT history up to that point, totaling $4,748 in unpaid tolls, and another approximately $30,000 in fees and penalties. Between the dates of Jan. 2, 2005, through October 30, 2007, Maier is said to have primarily used the I-95 toll plaza, which is just north of the Delaware/Maryland line. He would travel through the E-Z Pass-only lanes to avoid having to stop and pay the fees.

Maier voluntarily turned himself over to authorities.

The arrest came approximately a year after DelDOT announced it was partnering with state police and others to further crack down on toll violators. Since then, DelDOT has collected millions in toll violations and worked with state police in the arrest of other individuals.

Beginning in 2007, toll evaders who exceed $1,000 in toll violations have been evaluated by the Department of Justice for prosecution of theft of services, which is a felony in Delaware.

More cars, more tolls

The number of cars passing through Delaware toll booths has constantly been on the rise since the state went to the E-Z Pass system on I-95 in November 1998. The state went to the system on Del. 1 south of the Roth Bridge in April 1999 and in Dover in May 2004.

Looking back to FY2011, there were a total of 62,130,082 toll transactions, with slightly more than 64 percent using EZ Pass and a little more than 4 percent having violations. The total revenue from tolls that year was $157.8 million.

Fast forward to FY2017 and there were 72,265,925 toll transactions (73 percent EZ pass) for a total revenue of $193.5 million. Of those transactions, 7.54 percent had violations.

"We collected about 92 percent of those tolls at the time of the transaction," Vien said.

Vien said that typically, the DMV collects 98 percent of tolls – either cash or EZ Pass – at the time of vehicles passing through toll plazas. For 2017, the total toll violation revenue collected was $7,602,170.

For the remaining, Vien said the DMV issued more than 415,000 first-time violations in 2017, and to date has collected about 51 percent of those violations. He said that if a driver went from Dover to New Castle on Del. 1 for a week, that would be 28 notices.

"For the others, we encourage them to contact us to arrange a payment plan to ensure the outstanding amounts do not go to a collection agency or prevent residents from renewing their vehicle registration, as we will put a hold on it until the outstanding amount has been settled," he said.

In the prior two years, Vien said the state has collected about 75 percent of the unpaid tolls and fines.

"This is what we expect in the collection efforts and registration holds," he said.

Because of that annual increase, Vien said the DMV is looking at other enforcement strategies to collect unpaid tolls and fines. He said the state is under contract with a company called Trans Core, which runs the customer service E-Z Pass call center and processes all of Delaware's toll violations as well.

Currently, the state is working on reciprocity agreements with Pennsylvania and other surrounding states that would make it easier to hold out-of-state drivers accountable for toll violations in Delaware.

Vien said the state is in the planning stages with Pennsylvania so that Delawareans who owe Pennsylvania tolls can have holds put on those violations, and for Pennsylvania drivers who owe Delaware tolls to put holds or suspensions on their registrations.

"We’re going to be able to start spreading that enforcement program across state borders, and this will be our first go at it," Vien said. "It will definitely be a big help and we will learn a lot in this first program, and then we can start applying to other agreements."

Vien said the only other reciprocity agreement he knows of is an agreement between Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

"It’s a manual exchange of information and we’re trying to take what they have learned in their program and create a little more of an automated process," he said. "We’re constantly looking at the way we are collecting and assessing how effective it is and reevaluating. Reciprocity across state lines is going to be a big deal."

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.

By the numbers

Top 5 toll violator fines:

1. $174,384.25

2. $60,085.25**

3. $57,915.00**

4. $57,354.24**

5. $57,094.00**

Total = $406,832.74

(**Violators working with the state to pay fines)

• The oldest uncollected tolls go back to 2005 with $225,000 outstanding.

• In 2017 we had more than 72 million toll transactions and the DMV collected about 92 percent of those tolls at the time of the transaction.

• For 2017, the total toll violation revenue collected was $7,602,170.

• Typically, the DMV collects 98 percent tolls – either cash or EZ Pass – at the time of vehicle passing through our toll plazas.

• In 2017, 415,000 first-time violations were issued, and to date, the state collected about 51 percent of those violations.