Taking the Toll Road and Not Paying Toll

Even those of us who aren't career criminals or who shudder when seeing acts of violence on television like to act like "Johnny Scofflaw" on occasion. We like to 'stick it to the man' whenever we can even if that is for something as minor as taking two cupcakes instead of one at the office birthday mixer. We like to pretend that we're doing something so vastly illegal that getting caught will mean a long prison term so we get determined 'not to be taken alive'. Too bad for most of us that the most we do is refuse to pay toll on the Dulles Toll Road.

For those of you outside the state of Virginia, more specifically, the 'state' of Northern Virginia need to know what the Dulles Toll Road is. Well way back when, prior to the IT boom and major corporations moving out into Reston and Sterling, Dulles was considered the leading edge of the boonies and the toll road was created as a means of limiting traffic because after all, who wants to pay more for using a highway if they can avoid it right? So as the population grew, so did use of the road and this ended up backing up traffic as those with 'airport business' ended up getting stuck in the same traffic as regular commuters. What's the solution? Create 'express lanes' that are toll free and have only entranceways leading up to the airport. This was great and all but when the express lanes were built, they had exits along the way for people who accidentally entered the express lanes.

Solution? Add electronic gates that open only when authorized users use a transponder to send the 'open sesame' code. Still, as the Washington Post reported yesterday, this hasn't served to curb 'abuse' of the toll road. What do people do now? Well, the rules state that if you have no business on the toll road (i.e., airport business) then you can be ticketed. What a lot of people used to do is take the express lanes to the airport and then take the first exit and head back towards the city thus making the trip much faster without actually paying anything. Police caught on and so the super criminal geniuses that we are, we exploited the loophole in the law about 'airport business'. So now people go up to the nearby gas station (meant for rental cars mainly) and buy coffee. With receipt in hand, they get their morning dose of java and in essence what amounts to a toll-free ride all the way to the city.

It must seem petty to some to do something so cheap in order to save some cash on the drive to work but it tends to add up in money and time saved. Rather than crawling along and sitting in traffic, the ride tends to be much faster and you're not paying for use of the road. The police and law haven't been changed as yet to curb this sort of 'criminal activity' but every so often when there are police checkpoints set up in the express lanes of the toll road, I now realize why so few people are getting tickets and why others are being fined heavily. Go to the airport, get your coffee or pay a fine and possibly get points on your license. It seems inane and a bit ridiculous to think that we are reduced to doing this in order to get to work but with fuel costs on the rise, it's better to spend a bit more driving to the airport and then cruising along to work rather than burning fuel unnecessarily in traffic.