The New York State Thruway Authority has upped the pressure on delinquent drivers in recent months, raking in $4.5 million since restarting its registration suspension program last summer.
That’s nearly $2 million more than the total tallied in May.
And it comes from nearly 4,000 accounts referred to the state Department of Motor Vehicles for suspension, roughly 100 a week. May’s total stood at 2,400.
The DMV has suspended 1,640 registrations after receiving referrals from the Thruway Authority, more than doubling the 716 total at the end of April, officials say.
Most are drivers who’ve racked up three unpaid violations in five years or large amounts of debt.
The enforcement effort come five years after the Thruway Authority paused registration suspensions following the botched rollout of a cashless tolling system, which substituted toll collectors for license plate readers fixed to overhead gantries.
The system debuted on the Tappan Zee Bridge in 2016.
Drivers who didn’t have E-ZPass were sent bills in the mail. But many tossed them away believing they were junk mail. Fines multiplied quickly for unpaid tolls, leaving drivers with hefty debts.
Fines and suspensions were paused in 2018 while the Thruway went about fixing a broken system. The registration suspension program, scheduled to restart in 2020, was paused when the pandemic hit.
Between 2018 and 2021, the Thruway Authority, which relies on user fees to balance its budget, had $64 million in tolls and fines go unpaid.
And state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued a damning audit of the Thruway Authority’s collections system in May.
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Drivers told to pay up or else
Suspensions resumed in July 2022.
Since then 325,000 drivers have been told if they don’t pay soon their registrations could be suspended.
Of those, nearly three quarters owe less than $500 and 91% less than $1,000. A smaller group, made up mostly of commercial business owners, owes $10,000,…
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