Drivers on the Illinois Tollway better beware, as raking up unpaid toll fines could soon land them on a public shaming list.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill into law Tuesday that allows the state agency to publicize the names of those racking up unpaid toll fines, as well as the amount of fines and unpaid tolls they owe, on their website.
“The Tollway is committed to using every option available to us to try to collect millions of dollars in unpaid tolls and fines from delinquent drivers,” a press release issued by the Illinois Tollway said. “Anything less would be unfair to the 98 percent of Tollway customers who pay their tolls on time.”
While Illinois’ current list only contains the names of companies that have unpaid tolls, individual drivers accruing more than $1,000 in unpaid tolls could be posted on the list, which will be updated quarterly, as well. Collectively, the companies currently on the list owe $3.7 million in unpaid tolls, according to the agency.
“This is certainly a list of shame,” Kristi Lafleur, the executive director of the Illinois Tollway, told The Chicago Tribune. “This is an effort to use every enforcement tool that is available to us to pursue these businesses and to do the right thing.”
Leading the “Super Scofflaws” list is Landa Transport, which has almost $215,000 in unpaid fines to date and is being sued by the Tollway over the fines. Eddie Garza, the operations manager at Landa Transport, told the Tribune that he had no idea his company had accumulated so many violations and had never been contacted previously by the Tollway to settle them.
“I could pretty much guarantee that we do not owe that much because we don’t have that kind of equipment to generate that kind of money,” Garza told the Tribune. “We don’t even spend that (amount) in fuel, let alone tolls,” adding that all of his trucks have I-PASS transponders installed and rarely use toll roads on their routes.
Other companies on the list told the Tribune that they had never been contacted by the agency and were unaware that they owed so much in toll violations as well.
Several other states already public shaming to coerce people into paying their back fines. The North Texas Tollway Authority has an online list of more than 78,000 of its top toll violators, including a woman from the Dallas area who owes the agency more than $150,000 in unpaid tolls. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey also lists its top violators on its website.
