Now It Can Be Tolled

(This is an unusual entry for me but I want to spread awareness and raise consciousness. Feel free to share, copy and reprint.)

The removal of human toll collectors from the picturesque Golden Gate Bridge has now provided a stunning view of how dystopia happens. In less than two years, the handover of responsibility for a public necessity from a public authority to the private sector shoved bridge crossers from simple and predictable traffic backups into a nasty, Orwellian world of lawsuits, impounded cars and petty extortion. In 2014 alone, nearly a quarter million drivers had to pay penalties for supposed toll evasion, five times higher than the last year drivers paid a human. Another 16,000 drivers were “accidentally” mailed violation notices with late payment penalties already attached.

Users of the bridge, aka consumers, had no say in the switch from the outstretched hand of human beings to the faceless arm of what now turns out to be Xerox Corporation. The loudly touted reason was the same as it has been for turning over prisons, schools, parks and other public property to the private sector: saving money. Going electronic was going to save the Golden Gate Bridge Authority $1 million a year in employee salaries and benefits—not those of its executives of course, just those who have face time with the public.

The implied message to the public was: at least your tolls won’t rise. Never mentioned was the cost of going electronic: $117.5 million paid to Xerox to operate toll collection, the unspoken cost of demolishing the toll gates, severance packages, and now, it turns out, additional money for a consultant to “help Xerox fix its problems.” No explanation why taxpayers are obliged to fund the incompetence of Xerox. Or why tolls went up another dollar anyway.

The lollapalooza of the deal for Xerox was getting to outsource the real dirty work of toll collection to drivers. People who simply crossed the bridge suddenly became its unpaid workers. We couldn’t just hand over the money and move on. We were now solely responsible for making sure the crossing fee got paid to wherever and whomever it was supposed to go whenever some Orwellian machine spit out the bill, traced our whereabouts and sent it.

DIY toll collection has proved horrifyingly Kafkaesque for visitors, tourists and out of the area residents--anyone without a local transponder. Sometime their whereabouts turn out to be dead wrong, saddling them with penalties for a bill they never got. The third week, I crossed in a rental car, unable to use my transponder because each must be registered to a specific license plate. Driving nonstop through the gate caused a moment of stomach churning bewilderment, but I was just following orders. When I returned the car, I handed the clerk an additional $6 for the toll. She pushed it back, saying: “Oh no. We don’t deal with tolls. That’s your responsibility.”  Well, I thought, twice I was ready to pay. It’s no longer my problem.

What did I know? More than a month later the bill came to Enterprise Rent-a-car. That company then spent its time going through records to identify the renter at that particular moment and sent that info on. By the time I finally got the bill, it had late fees, penalties and threats. Not worth more of my time for a fight; I sighed for le temps perdu and sent a check.

Xerox Corporation counts on padding its bottom line with people like me making these unwarranted petty payments rather than protesting them. Its contract allows collecting fees from every violation, which any idiot can see gives Xerox endless incentive to gin them up. Their highway robbery has already taken such a toll, a local attorney had to file a class action lawsuit. A local news investigator specializing in consumer complaints had more than enough to air a chilling segment in February documenting thousands of drivers who got unwarranted toll evasion notices even before they got the original bill notice. They got huge, ongoing impossible-to-resolve penalties, partly because there is no person to resolve them, and partly because Xerox profits by letting penalties pile on.

The poster child of the TV segment had spent 16 months, sometimes as long as an hour at a time on phone hold, trying to clear accumulating charges for a one time trip from the north bay to the south bay, $6. He could not afford to give up his fight because it turns out that Xerox reports toll evasion to California’s DMV, and the state does not question this private company. Nor does it not allow any citizen to re-register a car unless all “fines” are fully paid.

Despite the fact that he actually paid was acknowledged, no telephone clerk at the private company claimed the “power” to expunge his public record of its mounting penalties. After 16 months, someone did dismiss the false penalties-- except the charges mysteriously re-appeared the following year on his DMV file, forcing him to launch a whole new fight to clear his name again. Fairness, hearing, due process have all gone the way of human toll collectors. And the DMV has become a revenue agent for Xerox.

We are stuck with no escape from this nightmare. Those of us who lack the swimming skills of a Navy Seal do not consider crossing the Golden Gate Bridge optional or a lifestyle choice, even some kind of take or leave it offer like the Triboro Bridge for which there are alternatives at 59^th St and 34^th St. As the only direct public highway over the huge bay that cuts into this section of the California coast, it is painstakingly hard to avoid. The Golden Gate Bridge is a public utility.

For that reason, frequent commuters who cross with a transponder thought the organization whose name is emblazoned on it, FasTrak, was public. After all, it is the only option. The TV Investigation revealed seemingly public FasTrak is private capital corporation Xerox. Whichever so called public servant made the decision to do away with human toll collectors evidently has since been so embarrassed, particularly by those 16,000 “accidental” violation notices, the Bridge Authority fined FasTrak $330,000 for failing to provide any semblance of customer service. That, the TV reporter said, “merely scratches the surface of what we’ve uncovered.”

I got one of those notices. Twice I had to wait on hold 20 minutes to find out why, since my car is equipped with a working transponder, I suddenly got a toll evasion notice for one out of several bridge crossings within two weeks. FasTrak had no explanation or apology for how that or the double 20-minute hold time could’ve happened.That's 40 minutes of my time totally wasted.

These revelations have filled me with a chilling, nightmarish dread about a DIY $4.30 toll for a very short stretch of highway connecting freeways in the Denver area. There, flashing signs warn of a toll but tell you to keep driving: your license plate is somehow being photographed. It was spooky and it turned out to be scary. About six weeks after taking that short stretch of road, I got a bill, its due date past. I paid the day it arrived. Two weeks later I got another bill with extended late fees and evasion penalties. The following week I saw my toll payment check had been cashed. A month later I got yet another ominous toll evasion notice with even higher penalties. I sent back a copy of the cashed check with its tracing number…

What’s most shocking about all this is how quickly the handover of the Golden Gate Bridge brought what some call Republican dystopia to a most Democratic place. And how the abuse has been ignored although it has been, as the TV reporter said, “staggering.” People who feel smugly elite enough to think themselves insulated from well-publicized depredations and indecency in privately run prisons, schools, parks and student loan programs can no longer avoid them if they need to drive on America’s highways or bridges. “To save money”, more and more have been turned over to the vaunted faceless private sector. Yet nobody has asked the obvious questions: who exactly is saving money? What is the toll?

P.S. Last night, in March, TV news showed pictures of cars, trailers and trucks being smashed —32 in a year—trying to keep up the nonstop pace going through those old booths for tolls.

PPS: Yet another penalty bill has come again for that Denver road for the toll I already paid. $4.00 that just won't quit.  

~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/
Technorati Tags: Yours In The Dharma, Sandy Garson, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Spirituality, Religion This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Click here to request Sandy Garson for reprint permission.
Yours In The Dharma 2001-2010, Sandy Garson Copyright 2001-2010 Sandy Garson All rights Reserved