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 10, 2014
    Will interoperability prevent progress?
    David Crawford examines the political and industrial background to the tolling technology debate. Saving the US State of California ‘millions of dollars’ in tolling infrastructure costs by encouraging new technologies is the professed aim of a legislative Bill, SB 242, which is currently moving through the State’s Senate (upper house) process. According to its sponsor, Republican State Senator Mark Wyland, permitting alternatives to the current FasTrak-branded radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based sys
  • February 27, 2013
    Report: 'Red-light cameras have reduced crashes’
    From the beginning, the SafeLight and SafeSpeed programs in the Louisiana city of Lafayette have met with controversy and resistance. However, a newly released report shows that the programs, which began in 2007, have reduced crashes at monitored intersections and improved the city's finances. A new contract with Redflex, the company that runs the program, will provide cameras at four new locations and will deploy two more speed vans by 2016. “We believe that SafeLight and SafeSpeed, the so-called red-light
  • February 3, 2012
    Electronic toll collection delivers efficient traffic regulation
    Electronic tolling systems have been in use for decades now. Worldwide, steadily more and more tolling systems are being set into operation, providing efficient means for traffic regulation and financing of infrastructure. But despite this maturity enforcement is still not being given the consideration it deserves. Q-Free's Steinar Furan writes
  • April 29, 2020
    E-tolling is the new normal
    Electronic tolling has become a cornerstone for the next wave of innovation, says IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. So is this the end of the road for toll plazas?