Thankfully I don't drive very much on a daily basis, and there are not many toll roads where I live. However, there is one toll road, a stretch of highway, that is often the fastest and most convenient way to get certain places (like my dentist). For this reason, several years ago I went ahead and got a toll transponder and set up an account with autorefill of funds from my credit card. . . because I just don't want to be bothered with "bill by mail" tolls for amounts like $2.13 when I go to the dentist or go to an away soccer game to watch my kid play.
So my EZ Pass transponder seems to work fine as long as I stay in my state. However, when I head on road trips to visit family, I frequently come home to a month or two of continuous petty toll bills.
Recent examples:
PA wants $6.00, but I can spend several minutes filling out a paper appeal form for a lower rate if I have an out of state transponder.
NY has a $3.20 toll but they've tacked on a $12.50 fee because my transponder wasn't picked up for some reason (it regularly works . . . no idea why it didn't in that moment).
MD has a list of separate video tolls. Hey, I went through this tunnel, but the video thing glitched, so here is a bill with double toll showing that you went through it twice in 2 seconds. Call if there's a problem, though! We answer the phone M-F 9-5, and you'll probably be on hold 45 min.
Oh, and here's another toll road in NY that doesn't even accept EZ pass, so I guess everyone has to get a bill in the mail because they also just snap a photo?
Also, are you rich?! (Why, yes, thank you, and this still annoys me). Here's a separate couple of lanes just for you, because you are too rich and important to sit in this traffic, so just pay this little fee! Sure, we could alleviate much of this jam by just making these two extra lanes open to all the cars . . . but then richie riches would be inconvenienced instead of feeling special!
So I'm here to say definitively that toll roads suck ass. I wish they would just fold it into the annual excise tax on vehicles or make it part of a state emissions inspection fee or whatever. Even the one by my house is just one section of a loop around the city . . . the rest of the loop is not a toll road and was paid for by our taxes in the form of DOT funds, but for whatever reason they decided that about 12 miles of the circle of it just south of my home needs to have expensive and time-wasting toll monitoring.
All such a waste of our collective life energy.