I am not doing it, but a lot of people without E-ZPass transponders are. In fact, according to testimony last fall before Pennsylvania state senators on the Transportation Committee, these lawbreakers have a one in two chance of getting away with it. Those are odds I’d love to get at Wind Creek in Bethlehem or Mohegan Sun in Luzerne County.

In 2021, there were $104 million in uncollected tolls from turnpike trips. Mind you, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is the agency that is constantly pleading poverty and annually increases tolls on the nearly 80-year-old not-so-super highway.

Of course, turnpike officials did not volunteer this embarrassing information; a media inquiry by The Associated Press pried open the data through a Right-to-Know request to the state’s Office of Open Records.

Many of us have the E-ZPass transponder, which records our license plate then debits our account when we pass through a toll plaza. Those who do not have E-ZPass are supposed to be charged by what is called a “toll-by-plate” system, where drivers are sent a bill and are expected to pay in a timely fashion. Remember, there are no toll-takers on the turnpike any more, a change that was made during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As most of us are, Sen. Marty Flynn, D-Lackawanna, was astounded by the disclosure of this level of noncompliance and called it “unacceptable.”

In one of those ha-ha moments, although it is far from funny, turnpike Executive Director Mark Compton called the situation “leakage,” a euphemism for thumbing your nose at the idea of paying a toll.

In a brazen attempt to justify that all is right with the world, Compton said the turnpike’s collection rate of 93% is comparable to other turnpike operations in the country.

One idea suggested by Sen. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe and Northampton, was to lower the amount owed the state in unpaid tolls from its current $500 before a license is suspended.

Compton said that the agency is attempting to get more reciprocity with other states, but this is a tough sell because of the variation in license suspension laws among the states.

Compton explained to the senators that the agency uses two collection companies and gives them a 10% commission of what they recover. Compton said the agency has filed “lots of lawsuits” against nonpaying lawbreakers. If a bill is not collected within three years, however, the turnpike writes it off, an idea some senators said needs to be revisited.

Through this testimony, we also found out that some camera images are not usable because of a variety of reasons, including some individuals who obstruct their license plates from view.

This raises the question of how tolls will be collected if and when the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation proposal to toll nine bridges statewide takes effect. Among them are bridges over the Lehigh River and Nescopeck Creek, both in Luzerne County. PennDOT is looking at tolls of about a buck each way, although since the two in Luzerne are so close together, officials are studying patterns and might toll in opposite directions in cases such as this.

“How can we have any faith in the proposal for bridge tolling that this isn’t going to happen 10-fold, or ninefold, because there are nine candidate bridges,” Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Cambria, chairman of the transportation committee, asked Compton.

Since it was proposed in 2021, legislators are trying to scuttle the bridge-tolling idea. Each house passed legislation blocking the plan, and a joint committee is attempting to resolve differences in the bills, but Gov. Tom Wolf plans to veto the measure when it reaches his desk, and there are not enough votes to override his veto, according to reports.

I don’t know about you, but I really get hot under the collar when there are so many lawbreakers who want to take advantage of a broken system all the while that we law-abiding citizens pay what is expected of us. We may grumble, and we may not like it, especially because the system is so unfair, but we don’t game the system.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.