Sunday, August 19, 2012
Associated Press
BEREA
The Ohio Turnpike has put a stop to an estimated $50,000-a-year scam involving truck drivers who managed to duck part of their tolls.
Truckers cheated automated-fare machines to save up to $40 a trip across the 241-mile toll road, says David Miller, the turnpike’s director of audit and internal control.
Turnpike officials told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer that the turnpike updated its toll-collecting system in July to deter the scam.
The machines now charge drivers a full, cross-state toll if a ticket shows they traveled only a few exits but entered the turnpike many hours before, Executive Director Richard Hodges said last week.
The scam worked this way: A trucker taking a ticket at the turnpike’s entry near Indiana would travel across Ohio and claim the ticket was lost when he hit the last interchange before Pennsylvania.
The trucker would pay $44 for the “lost” ticket, the same he’d pay if he had turned in the ticket. After delivering his load to the east, the trucker would head back on the turnpike.
Instead of crossing the state and paying another $44, the trucker would leave the turnpike several exits before the Indiana border and feed the “lost” ticket to an automated-fare machine. Toll tickets don’t designate east or west travel.
To the machine, the trucker had traveled only a short distance from the Indiana border and would pay, depending on the exit, a toll less than $10, turnpike officials said.