Tolls in New Jersey

I make lists. Yes, I confess that I make lists. Things to do today. Things to buy. Things to pack. Things to take on my travel.

One of the items that I have on my list is called “local money”. On my current journey to the land of the free, it even included an item that read “take $144”. As I went through my list, I rifled in the box of money I have looking for greenbacks and came up empty.

Now that is pretty rare. I travel to the US often enough that we always have a stash of American moolah at home. The wife did have some in her box of goodies, but I volunteered to leave those with her (she was joining me a few days later) and get some at the bank at Zurich airport.

I forgot. Yes, I did. Not only did I forget at Zurich airport, but I also forgot at Newark airport. As I often do, I kept my head down and walked through both airports. I suppose the fact that I only got out of customs after 9 PM may have played a part. I walked up to the Hyundai Sonata, loaded by bags, set up the Garmin and drove off.

As I hit the NJTP, I went “oh shit!” in my head. The penny dropped. I had no cash US$ with me to pay tolls. No matter, Hertz has the EZ card reader in the car, so I was in the clear. That’s what I thought. But not this one. No EZ card to make it eazier for me. Dang.

My brain went into overdrive. Partly “what the hell am I gonna do now” and partly panic. As I pulled out a ticket from the toll booth entering the NJTP, I started to think how to get to an ATM. After a while, my mind cooled down. As I drove along, I finally said to myself that I was surely not the first person to turn up at a toll booth without money and I just barrelled along until I was presented with the need to pay.

“We don’t take credit cards”.

That was not a promising start.

“I am sorry, but I don’t have any cash. Is there an ATM nearby that I can use?”

“There is one about 2 miles ahead in the Service Area but I have to get your licence and registration details for the toll”.

So it turned about to be quite simple after all. She filled out a form with all the details she needed, gave me a copy and a receipt for $3.60 that I had to pay within 5 days and off I went. The cars that were lined up behind me waited patiently (very un-Swiss) for the 5 minutes or so that the process took.

I found the ATM, my Swiss card worked and I had the money to pay the other $13.75 in tolls for the rest of my journey to Stamford.

Welcome to the US of A.

15th August 2012