BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 628
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: block
VERSION: 4/2/09
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: July 7, 2009
SUBJECT:
Toll evasion: pay-by-plate toll processing and payment
DESCRIPTION:
This bill defines "pay-by-plate toll processing and payment" and
establishes what constitutes evidence of a toll evasion
violation where a toll operator permits this method of toll
payment.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law makes every vehicle using a toll bridge or toll
highway liable for any tolls or other charges that may be
prescribed and prohibits a person from evading or attempting to
evade the payment of those tolls or charges.
If a vehicle is found, by automated devices (including cameras),
by visual observation, or otherwise, to have evaded a toll, a
toll operator shall issue to the registered owner of the vehicle
a notice of toll evasion violation within 21 days of the
violation. The notice must describe the violation, the
approximate time and location of the violation, the vehicle
license plate number, a clear and concise explanation of the
procedures to contest the violation, and if practicable, the
registration expiration date and the make of the vehicle. If
the toll operator is unable to obtain accurate information
concerning the identity and address of the registered owner
within 21 days of the violation, it shall have an additional 45
calendar days to issue the notice.
Toll evasion penalties include any late payment penalty,
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administrative fee, fine, assessment, and costs of collection.
Existing law limits toll evasion violation penalties to $100 for
the first offense, $250 for a second within one year, and $500
for each additional violation within one year.
Existing law establishes a process for contesting a notice of
toll evasion violation. Within 21 days from the issuance of the
notice or within 15 days from the mailing of the notice,
whichever is later, a person may contest the notice in which
case the toll operator is required to conduct an administrative
investigation. If the person is not satisfied with the results
of the investigation, he or she may, within 15 days of the
mailing of the results and after paying the penalty for toll
evasion, request an administrative hearing. If the person is
not satisfied with the results, he or she may, within 20 days of
the mailing of the results, appeal to the court.
For a toll bridge or toll highway where toll payment may be made
with cash or with a transponder or other electronic toll payment
device, using the toll facility without either lawful money of
the United States in the person's immediate possession in an
amount sufficient to pay the tolls or charges or a transponder
or other electronic toll payment device associated with a valid
Automatic Vehicle Identification account with a balance
sufficient to pay those tolls is considered prima facie evidence
of a toll evasion violation. For a toll bridge or toll highway
where a transponder or other electronic device is the only
method of toll payment, failing to have an account with a
balance sufficient to pay the tolls due is considered prima
facie evidence of toll evasion. Prima facie evidence indicates
that the burden is on the alleged violator to prove that either
the violation did not occur or that the person was not
responsible for it.
This bill :
Defines "pay-by-plate toll processing and payment" as an
issuing agency's use of on-road vehicle license plate
identification recognition technology to accept payment of
tolls within a specified period of time following the use of
the toll facility by persons entering the toll facility
without the payment of tolls or other charges.
Specifies that for toll facilities where the issuing agency
permits pay-by-plate toll processing and payment of tolls and
other charges, it is prima facie evidence of a toll evasion
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violation for a person to enter the toll facility without
either lawful money of the United States, a transponder or
other electronic toll payment device with a valid Automatic
Vehicle Identification account with a balance sufficient to
pay those tolls, or valid California vehicle license plates
properly affixed to both the front and rear of the vehicle.
Specifies that for toll facilities where the issuing agency
permits pay-by-plate toll processing and payment of tolls and
where electronic toll collection is the only other method of
paying tolls or other charges, it is prima facie evidence of a
toll evasion violation for a person to enter the toll facility
without either a transponder or other electronic toll payment
device with a valid Automatic Vehicle Identification account
with a balance sufficient to pay those tolls or valid
California license plates properly affixed to both the front
and rear of the vehicle.
Provides that the bill does not require a toll operator to
implement pay-by-plate toll processing and payment.
Allows, for agencies that permit pay-by-plate toll payment and
processing, the person reporting the toll evasion violation to
include a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the tolls
or other charges and any applicable fee were not paid in
accordance with the issuing agency's policies for pay-by-plate
and specifies that that documentation shall be considered
prima facie evidence of the violation.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . This bill permits toll roads operating in
California, which already use vehicle identification cameras
for recording toll violators, to begin using the same
technology for the payment of tolls. This method is in
addition to cash, a transponder (e.g., FasTrak), or other
electronic toll payment devices that are authorized under
current law.
The author asserts that motorists may accidentally enter a
toll area with no ability to turn around or they may have
mistakenly believed they had sufficient cash or a transponder
when entering a toll payment area. Furthermore, individuals
may wish to utilize a toll road on an intermittent basis, but
do not possess a transponder or are averse to using the road
for lack of cash and threat of penalty. Under this bill, the
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same technology currently used to capture images of and
process license plate numbers could be used to record license
plate numbers for purposes of toll payment, thereby allowing
drivers an additional option when they want to use a toll road
and helping to reduce congestion and related impacts on
overcrowded freeways.
2.How pay-by-plate would work . Each toll operator would be
responsible for developing its own policy regarding the use of
a pay-by-plate toll payment and processing system, but in
general, a driver who would like to pay a toll but is unable
to, either because they did not realize they had entered a
tolled area or do not have a transponder or sufficient cash,
will, within a specified period of time (e.g., 72 hours), be
able to call or access a website to pay the toll (plus an
administrative fee) via credit card. The toll operator would
be able to match the license plate number provided by the
driver to the license plate photographed at the time the
vehicle failed to pay the required toll. Depending on the toll
operator's policy, a person could establish a pre-paid account
that is debited each time he or she uses the road. Drivers
could be informed of the pay-by-plate payment method in a
variety of ways, including signs with the telephone number or
website located within the toll facility.
3.Two types of enforcement . Toll evasion can be enforced in two
ways, through criminal penalties or civil penalties. In the
first way, a CHP officer observes a motorist failing to pay a
toll and issues a citation for a toll evasion violation. The
base fine for a violation is $35 with a total bail of $146.
Money derived from the base fine is distributed either to the
city and/or the county, depending on where the violation
occurred, and money derived from the penalty assessments is
distributed to several state and county funds for a variety of
purposes. Between 2004 and 2008, CHP issued a total of 14,945
citations for toll evasion.
The second way to enforce toll evasion, through civil
penalties, is more common and typically involves a toll
operator capturing by photograph the license plate number of a
vehicle that fails to pay a toll. The toll operator then
matches the license plate number to a record in the Department
of Motor Vehicle's database and issues a notice toll evasion
violation to the registered owner of the vehicle. These
notices result in civil penalties ranging between $25 to $100,
plus the cost of the toll. The toll operator controls these
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funds. In the Bay Area, the Bay Area Toll Authority issues an
average of approximately 200,000 notices of toll evasion
violation per month, which represents about 2 percent of the
10 million bridge crossings that occur in the same time
period.
How CHP would enforce toll evasion violations in a
jurisdiction with pay-by-plate is unclear. An officer, who
may be watching whether or not a FasTrak system produced a
green light as a car proceeded through the toll plaza or
payment area, would not have any indication whether the driver
was evading payment of the toll or intended to pay by plate.
Would CHP issue tickets to drivers even if they had intended
to pay by plate or would CHP simply not enforce toll evasion
violations in jurisdictions where pay-by-plate was permitted?
4.Committee concerns and author's amendments . This bill was
presented in this committee on June 16th. At that time,
committee members raised the following four questions and
concerns:
a. What privacy issues are raised by pay-by-plate toll
collection and processing? How can these privacy issues be
addressed?
b. Toll operators seeking to authorize pay-by-plate toll
collection and processing should be required to undertake a
public information program that addresses, in part, the
cost of the toll, any administrative fees, and the length
of time a motorist has after using the facility to pay by
plate.
c. There should be statewide standards regarding the use of
pay-by-plate. Such standards should address, at a minimum,
the length of time for payment and the process by which
administrative fees will be assessed and communicated to
the motoring public.
d. By authorizing pay-by-plate toll payment and processing,
will toll operators opt to stop allowing for payment by
cash?
Since that time, the author and sponsor have been working to
address these issues in cooperation with other toll operators
in the state. Toll operators generally prefer to set their
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own toll policies and procedures locally and thus have been
resistant to establishing some of the standards and
requirements desired by the committee. The author intends to
offer author's amendments in committee that address some, but
not all, of the committee's issues. The amendments do the
following:
Require toll operators permitting pay-by-plate toll
payment to maintain a public information program and
specify the type of information that should be included in
the program.
Require toll operators permitting pay-by-plate to
communicate the amount of toll in the same manner that it
communicates other toll payment methods, which includes
on-road signage approved by the California Department of
Transportation.
Provide that administrative costs shall be incorporated
into the base toll rate for pay-by-plate and that no
additional costs shall be added above the posted
pay-by-plate toll rate.
5.Other author's amendments . The author will also offer two
other substantive amendments.
a. Front and rear license plate. The bill specifies that
in order for failure to pay-by-plate to constitute prima
facie evidence of a toll violation, the driver must have
both a front and rear license plate. Some vehicles, such
as motorcycles and tractors (i.e., big rig trucks), are not
issued plates for both the front and the back of the
vehicle. To remedy this, the author intends to offer
amendments in committee to delete the requirement that a
license plate be affixed to both the front and rear of the
vehicle and instead provide that the plate must be affixed
in accordance with the law for that vehicle.
b. Penalty of perjury. The bill conforms the process for
conducting an administrative review for violations in
jurisdictions that offer pay-by-plate toll payment and
processing with the process used in those jurisdictions
that offer electronic tolling or cash payment. In this
process, the officer or agency representative that issued
the notice of toll violation provides a statement under
penalty of perjury indicating that the violator did in fact
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fail to pay his or her toll. With this provision, the bill
was double-referred to this committee and the Senate Public
Safety Committee. Because the author and sponsor were
attempting to address concerns raised by committee members,
the bill would not have been passed out of this committee
and re-referred to the Public Safety Committee prior to the
last day that policy committees may meet and report bills
pursuant to Joint Rule 61(a)(10). In other words, the bill
would have become a two-year bill. To allow the bill to
proceed through the legislative process this year, the
author is amending the bill to remove the penalty of
perjury provision from the bill and in its place
establishing civil penalties to which officers or agents
may be subject for providing false information regarding a
notice of toll violation. Of course, now the types of
penalties for providing false information are different in
jurisdictions where pay-by-plate toll payment and
processing is permitted than in jurisdictions where it is
not.
6.Support . Supporters of the measure believe that toll
collection technology has progressed to the point where toll
authorities are able to charge and collect tolls using digital
images of license plates and that this method has been
implemented on toll facilities throughout the U.S. and around
the world as an alternative or supplement to transponder-based
electronic toll collection. Supporters describe several
benefits to pay-by-plate. It would expand the toll payment
options available to their customers, which may be
particularly beneficial for infrequent users, making it easier
for them to use a facility they may not have had access to
previously. At toll plazas that allow payment by cash,
pay-by-plate may also reduce the number of cash-paying
customers, easing traffic congestion at toll plazas.
7.Double-referral . This bill is double referred to this
committee and the Senate Public Safety Committee. If the bill
passes this committee, it will then be referred to the Public
Safety Committee.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 79-0
Appr: 16-0
Trans: 14-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
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Wednesday,
July 1, 2009)
SUPPORT: South Bay Expressway, L.P. (sponsor)
Golden Gate Bridge, Highway & Transportation
District
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Orange County Transportation Authority
Transportation Corridor Agencies
OPPOSED: None received.