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As I was traveling to the Chicago-Midway airport the other day, I mistakenly drove in the I-pass lanes instead of the coin toll lanes. I drove right through and onward to my destination. I thought for sure that a State Trooper’s car would immediate chase after me, sirens going with shots a blazing. But believe it or not, nothing. Not a siren. No shots fired.
At first I didn’t care because, after all, I was in a rental vehicle. But still, I was pretty worried at the excessive violation fee that I knew I would eventually be charged. No matter what, there are some things that we could never hide from, especially when there are about ten hundred thousand cameras recording video of every car passing on the Interstate.
It was just my luck that my passengers had experienced a similar problem before. I was told if I wanted to prevent a toll violation fee that I had to just pay the toll online. I never even would have thought of that. I would have just waited for the violation invoice to find me, which by the way probably never would have since I rented a car with my Michigan Driver’s License, though I live in North Carolina.
Believe it or not, it was pretty easy to pay the $1 fee once I got to a computer.
I went to Illinois Tollway’s website, chose the Pay Unpaid Toll option, and enter the required information: The plates of the vehicle, time of incident, interstate that was traveled and in which direction, and the booth where the violation occurred.
Come to find out, if I wouldn’t have paid the $1 within 7 days, I would have been charged $20 about 21 days after the incident, and then $50 in addition to the $20 in about 2 months. Worse yet, if the $50 wouldn’t have been paid, I could have faced to following penalties:
- Possible suspension of driver’s license
- Referral to a collection agency
- Report to the credit bureau
So, Don’t Prevent Wealth, pay your damn violations!
Readers: Have you ever had a problem paying toll violations? Do you have an outstanding toll violation?
13 Responses to Damn it! I Had a Toll Violation in Chicago, Illinois
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[...] pay for Thrifty’s Shitty Rental Car Piece of Shit Fuel Surcharge, and even learned how to pay a toll both violation online, after mistakenly driving right through the toll lane. And they got to save the $60 that the taxi [...]
This happened to me yesterday on a rental car, i was travelling in chicago, the gps messed me up and i entered into a toll road. I didnt have the exact change, it was a 80 cent toll, and i threw 50cent. I dont even remember which toll or which road but it was near the airport. I went online to pay the toll, but the sytem is asking for first name, last name, zipcode etc of the plate owner, but as it is a rental vehicle i am not sure what to enter. The only thing i noted is vehicles number plate, it is a Florida registered vehicle, but i am not sure what to enter for FN, LN, address, city, zip of the plate owner. Any idea? It would be of great help. I dont want to end up paying $25 violation and then again Thrifty charging me some violation fee huh…Thanks.
I remember an option to select whether or not I was driving a rental car. Once I selected this option I was only asked to enter the time, location, and some other information. I wasn’t asked to enter registration informaiton, which makes sense since I was driving a rental car. Hope this helps.
In fact, I know there is an option to select rental vehicle. After this, just input all the info that you know. Thanks for visiting and hopefully you’ll come back again.
Thanks for the reply Romeo. I am going to this page https://www.getipass.com/MissedTolls/plateOwnerInfo.jsp and when i select rental car as Yes and when i continue i get the error saying, First Name, Last Name etc are mandatory..I have no idea what to do
.
This is the link that I used: http://www.illinoistollway.com/portal/page?_pageid=133,2016036&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
It seems to work fine for me. Thanks!
Remember the limitations though:
You may NOT use this feature if:
Your unpaid toll occurred more than 7 days ago
If you are an I-PASS patron with a valid account or had a valid I-PASS in the vehicle. Please note the vehicle plate number in question needs to be registered to an I-PASS account to avoid having the incident registered as a violation.
Your unpaid toll occurred on another toll system such as the Chicago Skyway or the E-ZPASS system
You were issued a citation for the unpaid toll by a police officer
You live outside the United States
Even with the above link when i click on I am eligible to pay online button it takes me to https://www.getipass.com/MissedTolls/plateOwnerInfo.jsp and here there is a form called as STEP 1 : PLATE OWNER PERSONAL INFORMATION PAGE and here it asks for First name, last name, zip etc. Even when i select rental car, these above fields doesn’t disappear and when i click continue it says i can’t continue withouth entering the above fields…Thanks..I am doing something wrong?
I violated yesterday itself near the ORD airport.
Nope. You’re not doing anything wrong. You are the plate owner, so to speak. After filling this information out, and annotating that the car was a rental, you should be fine. Just make sure you save your receipt that will be emailed to you so that you can prove your $1 payment in the future, if need be.
Thanks alot, i payed the toll amount online.One last thing, do i need to inform the rental car guys about this?I guess not, because as i paid the toll they will not even get to know i violated at first sight. Correct me if i am wrong. Thanks, appreciate your help.
Hum, I have no idea if you have to tell the rental guys. I didn’t tell them. If I did they probably would have just stick me with another fee.
I think we’re safe as long as the violation was paid. There will be no need for the city to come after the license plate holder (the rental company) as long as the violation was paid.
I’m seriously glad I could help.
I have the exact same scenario; in a rental and did not have correct change for unattended toll booth. Did you enter your name or the rental car company as the owner? I see the check box for Rental Car. Sure would be nice if they provide a little extra explanation for the rental car scenario.
Hi, Greg.
I entered my name.
Romeo
Thanks for the quick response!
I was just perusing your other blogs and finding it very interesting. Personal finance has been a hobby of mine snce the early 80′s.
I have been in information technology for over 30 years and have been obsessed with using a computer to manage my finances. One of my favorite authors and software developers is Andrew Tobias. His personal finance software, Manage Your Money (MYM), was perfect for me. I was hugely disappointed when he stopped developement in the late 90s.
I moved on to Microsoft Money and now using the only desktop software available, Quicken.
I am a fanatic budgeter and track every expenses to the penny. I converted my wife of 22 years to this same behavior and she loves it. We have never had a heated discussion about money. Besides budgeting all our bills and savings, we allot ourselves a personal amount that is never questioned.
Her personal allotment is about 10x mine but this covers clothes, hair, nails, etc. She loves paying the bills each Saturday morning and monitoring the budget. This is really just downloading the bank transactions as almost eveything is on auto pilot.
We subscribe to living beneath our means, no need for expensive houses or cars. We do like our vacations and will hopefully be able to maintain our same life style when we retire.
Looking forward to some more reading and getting a hold of your book.
I’m glad I could help. Thanks in advance for reading my book. I hope you enjoy it.
I also enjoyed Microsoft Money, and was disappointed when it gave its reign to Quicken. But now I use Quicken and it works great for me, with the exception of it not automatically calculated with the total monthly bills are in the “bills” page. Then again, maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing.
I look forward to you reading more of my blog. This month, April, is really the only time that I will be writing about the basic mechanics of personal finance, as I’m sure you are way pass the basics. I’m supporting Financial Literacy Month.
I’m in no way an expert, I can always use a suggestion or two. Please feel free to help out when you can. Thanks.