Skip to main content

Texas House votes to cap toll violation fees

The Texas House has unanimously passed a bill that caps total toll fines at US$73 every six months for any given customer, according to the Austin–American Statesman.
May 23, 2017 Read time: 1 min

The Texas House has unanimously passed a bill that caps total toll fines at US$73 every six months for any given customer, according to the Austin–American Statesman.

The amendment said toll violations would carry a US$6 administrative fee, capped at US$48 each six months for any given person, plus at most a US$25 civil penalty every half year. The amendment does not cap court costs associated with taking a toll violator to court, but it also stipulates that failure to pay tolls would be a civil offence, not a criminal violation as is the case now.

It would apply only to TxDOT tollways, which owns just five tollways in the state; Austin-area drivers could still, in theory, rack up larger fines on the 183-A, US 290 East and Texas 71 tollways, operated by the 5681 Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, as well as the MoPac Boulevard, US 183 and Texas 45 Southwest tollways that are now under construction.

Related Content

  • January 23, 2012
    Changing driving conditions need ongoing driver training
    Trevor Ellis, chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the role of ongoing driver training in increasing compliance. It is over 30 years since I passed my driving test. The world was quite a different place then, in that there were only half the vehicles there are now on the UK's roads, mobile phones did not really exist and (in the UK at least) the vast majority of us drove cars which by today's standards exhibited dreadful dynamic stability and were woefully underpowered.
  • August 1, 2012
    Simplifying enforcement systems type approval
    Martyn Harriss looks at what we can do to simplify the type approval of enforcement equipment in Europe. I doubt that there are many who can remember the days when policemen hid in the bushes with stopwatches and flags to catch speeding motorists - and I'd suggest that back then there were few who were caught who would have dared question the accuracy of those watches or those who operated them. Probably, fewer still here in Europe could have dreamt that a supranational body such as the European Union (EU)
  • October 19, 2015
    Authorities select enforce now, pay later option
    Outsouring of enforcement services is on the increase internationally as highway and traffic authorities seek further support in resources and expertise from the private sector. Jon Masters reports. Signs of a significant company making moves into a new market can usually be read as indication of likely growth in that particular sector. Q-Free’s expansion from tolling operations into general traffic enforcement could be viewed as surprising as it is moving into what are relatively mature and consolidating m
  • March 15, 2012
    Enforcement suppliers highlight industry best practice
    Major suppliers of enforcement technology highlight the countries, regions or cities that they consider to be leading the way in reduction of road traffic violations. The French government’s ambitious programme of enforcing traffic law violations has proven to be an unrivalled success and is continuing to bring improvements in road safety with innovative enforcement technology.