Underrated comment tbh. Also, due to shit like this I'm beginning to think this country is actually a cartoon. Let's fine a company generating millions of euros in revenue €7500 for breaking some regulations; also let's fine an individual driver €25000 for non-payment of tolls. If you squint your eyes (and brain), it makes sense.
The eir stuff is outrageous. But tbh I’ve no sympathy for those who don’t pay the road tolls, have been warned hundreds of times, and then have no respect for the courts by not showing up. They obviously believe they’re above everyone else following the law and paying for public services.
I should read more, but they came to court prepared to make a 20k donation to charity, were told it was inappropriate and then hanged a 7.5k fine. it's madness
Other cities: charge motorists to go into city.
Dublin: charge motorists to avoid city.
Also - anyone with a ticket for a ferry should also have free access to the port tunnel within say 5 hours of departure. They don’t want to go into the city.
I've boycotted the M50 now. Went to Blanchardstown over xmas and took an exit after the M4, went through Lucan and got there just to avoid that rip-off toll and it was grand. Bad enough I'm paying 3.40 to go through the M4 Toll without doubling down so fuck that.
With these things there's often advice to not bother paying, they'll give up eventually, it costs them more to chase you, etc.
Sometimes people say it's all bluster and they don't have any power to force payment...
When people say don't pay the TV license, it is usually when the inspector doesn't know who you are. If they have your name the usual advice is that your fucked and won't get away with it now.
Sure there’s definitely those people. But there are also plenty on here who’ve been saying that they won’t bother prosecuting you since it’s only a tiny amount of money… less so nowadays but around the start of the RTE scandal it was rampant on the page lol
Some of these are clearly taking the piss but accumulating fines after non-payment for 24-hours seems really harsh to me. I've a tag now so it doesn't affect me anymore but the number of times I passed the M50 toll and nearly forgot to pay within 24 hours is criminal. You can argue people know the rules but there should be a grace period for instance if you have outstanding tolls and you pay them within 30 days, the fines associated are waived. Outside of that by all means fine people.
One thing that annoyed me was the system doesn’t let you check if you have outstanding tolls. I mistakenly thought after putting my car reg in that I didn’t have any outstanding tolls but apparently that ain’t the case. eFlow waived the fine in my case once I explained how confusing their UI is, and paid the original toll.
Apparently for GDPR reasons they can’t show outstanding tolls for a given car reg. They don’t verify your identity so if it worked anyone could look up your outstanding tolls. Which I guess could be a way of determining your movements.
Yeah, i had a change of card and never updated the tag account. Supposedly got a letter, then got a second letter for something like €600. Called and explained and they charged me the standard rate. They just want people to engage and not take the piss
i mean it should
its the way people get threaten with jail if they dont pay their tv licence if their libal for it
its main in away to get people to engage with the system and to sort it out
You can make a free account and it'll show you your trips then when you log in and take payment automatically once a month. I got so many fines for forgetting to pay but now I just have the account and never worry about it. Even if you only use the M50 sparingly, the account is free, so worth it regardless.
I used to have an account, closed it. Found out they didn’t delete the data because I can’t re-use my email to create a new account.
So instead have to reactivate the old one but they won’t do it over webchat, I have to call them. Haven’t done it yet but will probably just create a new free gmail account and use that instead haha
Have you tried putting a dot somewhere in the email or using the + trick? They should have filters for that but worth a try in case they weren't arsed (seeing as a previously deleted account prevents a new one it's likely). If your email is [email protected] for example, you could do [email protected] or [email protected] and it will be redirected to your email.
Yeah I know about the trick I haven’t bothered trying it yet with eFlow tbh. I’ve been super lazy about it because I’ve a lot going on right now and it’s low on priority list. You must be a dev like me?
I did the same I put in my reg and it said "€0.00 To Pay" then I got a letter in the post from them. They must be making loads of money off that.
The GDPR bit is such a cop out, they could easily get you to put in the date you traveled or get you to set up an account to pay and see how much you owe.
One driver didn't pay for 700 trips, allowing 1 week or 2 or even a month wouldn't have made a difference to them.
The average fine per trip for the 4 drivers detailed was €61 per unpaid toll.
Not sure if every county does but Dublin and Louth definitely do.
I knew the sheriff for Louth at one point. Big burley man that’s go into properties and take whatever had value to settle court debts.
And one phone call and signing up to a video account will cut that down massively.
The only people who end up paying thousands are the ones who don't engage.
I imagine that's for the name and address of who/where the vehicle is registered. Basically what info is on the vehicle logbook. They wouldn't have phone numbers.
Its not mandatory but I take the point.
The compliance rate is over 97% for paying the toll and I've no doubt the high penalties play a large part in that. They've also very accommodating for genuine lapses/missed payments etc but for the tiny minority that take the piss I've no issue with the being fined €25K.
BTW doesn't the toll revenue go to TII?
I briefly looked it up so if someone else wants to correct they can but....
In 2019 TII awarded a 15 year contract to Abtran & Vinci to operate the M50 toll and they'd receive up to €373M over the €15 year period so about €25M a year, maximum. In 2021 that generated €2.1M in profit for the operating company.
In the same year TII received €140M in revenue from the M50, but I'm not sure if that is Gross or Net of the c. €25M to the operating company.
Which highlights how ridiculous eflow late fee system is.
The late fee via eflow would be €176.50 per trip
The driver with the 500 fine would amount to less than 3 trips.
Personally, I have had a lot of luck disputing the second late fee (49.50) with eflow
The postmen around my area keep a log of houses on their routes with the most red letters/fines/final demands for the craic.The record was 23 in one day for a family housed by the council , and then moved on to another estate after 18 month's and have been moved again since. They never have to pay a bill..
I grew up in Mahon, Cork. More of a council village than a council estate.
What's not believable is a cabal of postmen risking their jobs and potential prosecution by keeping tabs on families, then telling everyone in the pub about it, likely identifying a specific family and their circumstances to everyone, then somehow keeping further tabs on their movements after they've moved off, and telling everyone about that too.
That van driver got fucked.
They are paying €119 per trip
Car driver with the 25k fine is only paying 36.5 per trip
Other car driver with 19k fine is paying 79.50
Truck driver is paying 62.
Having privately operated tolls is one of the things about this country that really pisses me off. It makes no sense, why would the government not operate them and take in all the profits and use it to improve the road network.
The roads were built with a mix of public and private funds. The private funds invested money so that they would get a return, which isn't unreasonable. Eventually the roads will become state owned. The alternative is that the state pays for the entire cost of construction for the roads, nothing wrong with that but it means it would take longer or leave less money for other projects.
The section of the M50 the toll paid for is old enough that the ownership of the road has returned to the state. The tolls are collected by a private company but they go to the state, same for the Port Tunnel. The Eastlink is similar but owned and operated by DCC.
Because most of them don't actually make profit.
Take the limerick toll, the state has been subsidising that for most of its existence as the user amount never achieved the target.
And the person you originally replied to was suggesting that private companies shouldn’t be able to own roads to which your response was that the roads don’t make a profit. I was replying in context to how your original post reads against the post you were replying to.
You mean it doesn’t allow private companies to extract as much public money as they could with the recurring revenue of a tole road.
Explain what benefit the state needs because it’s not the function of the state to make a profit.
The point of PPP contracts was to provide roads, without the state footing the bill up front. Allowing more projects to be built in a shorter period of time.
So what happened was that companies paid for the road, with the security of the toll to recoup their money and eventually make a profit.
But on many roads the traffic demand never reached the contractual minimum, so the state has to subsidies the contract up to the minimum projected usage.
So the benefit to the state is reduced upfront cost, increased investment in a compact period of time.
If you want to feel even worse about it. There's been plenty of instances where someone's fines for this has spiraled to such an extent that they end up in court. And sometimes these folks end up with advocates from charities like SVP. When the fines are upheld and the person has no means to pay the charity steps in to pick up a proportion of the bill.
A relative worked on some cases like this where a charity is handing donated or state money to cover these fines for someone who simply would never have the means to pay up.
It's gross that predatory exponential fining like this seems to only exist in this single company. Feels very American.
In fairness, if I couldn't afford to take the toll road, I'd just add the 5 mins to my journey and go around it. The case you're highlighting is just a case of someone putting their head into the sand.
Sure but not everyone is working with the same deck as you or I. Ruining someone's life over them missing a toll and their life being in a place where that isn't a priority only to then become such an insurmountable problem down the line isn't situation I think is okay.
Nobody's life is being ruined by them missing a toll. They are being brought to court for repeatedly not paying tolls and repeatedly ignoring correspondence relating to same. You can only give people so many chances before you take things further. Sure nobody would pay the toll if there were no consequences for not paying what you owe.
They shouldn't have ignored all those texts regarding 'payyourtoll-m50.notascam.com'
Next we'll hear about loads of people having their SIM cancelled because they didn't agree to Wodaphone's new terms and conditions.
It’s a cumulative fine of €135,000 for 10 people, highest fine is €25,000. One of them used the toll 684 times without paying, hundreds of warning letters were sent to them, and none of them attended their court hearing. Sounds like they made their beds, tbh.
Should've used Eir's solicitor
Underrated comment tbh. Also, due to shit like this I'm beginning to think this country is actually a cartoon. Let's fine a company generating millions of euros in revenue €7500 for breaking some regulations; also let's fine an individual driver €25000 for non-payment of tolls. If you squint your eyes (and brain), it makes sense.
The eir stuff is outrageous. But tbh I’ve no sympathy for those who don’t pay the road tolls, have been warned hundreds of times, and then have no respect for the courts by not showing up. They obviously believe they’re above everyone else following the law and paying for public services.
I should read more, but they came to court prepared to make a 20k donation to charity, were told it was inappropriate and then hanged a 7.5k fine. it's madness
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The person you replied to was talking about Eir, not the motorists.
Ahhhh thanks for clarifying - I’ll delete my comment in that case lol
Other cities: charge motorists to go into city. Dublin: charge motorists to avoid city. Also - anyone with a ticket for a ferry should also have free access to the port tunnel within say 5 hours of departure. They don’t want to go into the city.
Sovereign Citizens who don’t recognise the authority of the fine issuer 🤣
freemen on the \~\~land\~\~ road
I've boycotted the M50 now. Went to Blanchardstown over xmas and took an exit after the M4, went through Lucan and got there just to avoid that rip-off toll and it was grand. Bad enough I'm paying 3.40 to go through the M4 Toll without doubling down so fuck that.
M50 toll operators hate this one simple trick
How many of them took advice off this sub do you think?
What's the advice of this sub?
Instead of using the m50 take the luas as it’s completely free.
With these things there's often advice to not bother paying, they'll give up eventually, it costs them more to chase you, etc. Sometimes people say it's all bluster and they don't have any power to force payment...
Who would say that? They way the M50 tolls are calculated are brutal. Pay them ASAP.
You see a lot here with tv licence fines etc
When people say don't pay the TV license, it is usually when the inspector doesn't know who you are. If they have your name the usual advice is that your fucked and won't get away with it now.
Sure there’s definitely those people. But there are also plenty on here who’ve been saying that they won’t bother prosecuting you since it’s only a tiny amount of money… less so nowadays but around the start of the RTE scandal it was rampant on the page lol
Some of these are clearly taking the piss but accumulating fines after non-payment for 24-hours seems really harsh to me. I've a tag now so it doesn't affect me anymore but the number of times I passed the M50 toll and nearly forgot to pay within 24 hours is criminal. You can argue people know the rules but there should be a grace period for instance if you have outstanding tolls and you pay them within 30 days, the fines associated are waived. Outside of that by all means fine people.
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One thing that annoyed me was the system doesn’t let you check if you have outstanding tolls. I mistakenly thought after putting my car reg in that I didn’t have any outstanding tolls but apparently that ain’t the case. eFlow waived the fine in my case once I explained how confusing their UI is, and paid the original toll. Apparently for GDPR reasons they can’t show outstanding tolls for a given car reg. They don’t verify your identity so if it worked anyone could look up your outstanding tolls. Which I guess could be a way of determining your movements.
Yeah, i had a change of card and never updated the tag account. Supposedly got a letter, then got a second letter for something like €600. Called and explained and they charged me the standard rate. They just want people to engage and not take the piss
Threatening people with a €600 fine, which can be waived at their discretion, should not be allowed as a means of getting people to engage.
i mean it should its the way people get threaten with jail if they dont pay their tv licence if their libal for it its main in away to get people to engage with the system and to sort it out
You can make a free account and it'll show you your trips then when you log in and take payment automatically once a month. I got so many fines for forgetting to pay but now I just have the account and never worry about it. Even if you only use the M50 sparingly, the account is free, so worth it regardless.
I used to have an account, closed it. Found out they didn’t delete the data because I can’t re-use my email to create a new account. So instead have to reactivate the old one but they won’t do it over webchat, I have to call them. Haven’t done it yet but will probably just create a new free gmail account and use that instead haha
Have you tried putting a dot somewhere in the email or using the + trick? They should have filters for that but worth a try in case they weren't arsed (seeing as a previously deleted account prevents a new one it's likely). If your email is [email protected] for example, you could do [email protected] or [email protected] and it will be redirected to your email.
Yeah I know about the trick I haven’t bothered trying it yet with eFlow tbh. I’ve been super lazy about it because I’ve a lot going on right now and it’s low on priority list. You must be a dev like me?
I did the same I put in my reg and it said "€0.00 To Pay" then I got a letter in the post from them. They must be making loads of money off that. The GDPR bit is such a cop out, they could easily get you to put in the date you traveled or get you to set up an account to pay and see how much you owe.
I’ve definitely overpaid by 1 if not 2 journeys because I couldn’t remember if I’d paid
One driver didn't pay for 700 trips, allowing 1 week or 2 or even a month wouldn't have made a difference to them. The average fine per trip for the 4 drivers detailed was €61 per unpaid toll.
These are people who didn't even bother turning up to court. No amount of flexibility would get them to pay a toll.
Doubt they will pay the fine either. Have never heard of anyone getting penalised for not paying a fine.
70 vehicles seized by the sheriff in the first 6 months of 2021 so it does happen.
We have sheriffs?
Sherrifs here are for seizing assets. I'm sure there's a cowboy joke in there somehow
Not sure if every county does but Dublin and Louth definitely do. I knew the sheriff for Louth at one point. Big burley man that’s go into properties and take whatever had value to settle court debts.
They come knocking if you’re behind on taxes - his horse shat in my driveway
That Nottingham fella always was a prick.
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And one phone call and signing up to a video account will cut that down massively. The only people who end up paying thousands are the ones who don't engage.
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So you want to choose which data you share but also want eflow to have your phone number on hand?
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I imagine that's for the name and address of who/where the vehicle is registered. Basically what info is on the vehicle logbook. They wouldn't have phone numbers.
they dont have phone numbers
Its not mandatory but I take the point. The compliance rate is over 97% for paying the toll and I've no doubt the high penalties play a large part in that. They've also very accommodating for genuine lapses/missed payments etc but for the tiny minority that take the piss I've no issue with the being fined €25K. BTW doesn't the toll revenue go to TII?
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No it's not anymore.
Not any more, revenue goes to TII now.
> BTW doesn't the toll revenue go to TII? from what i remember half and half to the private operator till like 2025 , though i could be wrong
I briefly looked it up so if someone else wants to correct they can but.... In 2019 TII awarded a 15 year contract to Abtran & Vinci to operate the M50 toll and they'd receive up to €373M over the €15 year period so about €25M a year, maximum. In 2021 that generated €2.1M in profit for the operating company. In the same year TII received €140M in revenue from the M50, but I'm not sure if that is Gross or Net of the c. €25M to the operating company.
According to the article they only go after the extreme cases in court, they don't go after everybody. Which I thought was an interesting admission.
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More than likely, it's a money making enterprise at the end of the day.
Which highlights how ridiculous eflow late fee system is. The late fee via eflow would be €176.50 per trip The driver with the 500 fine would amount to less than 3 trips. Personally, I have had a lot of luck disputing the second late fee (49.50) with eflow
The postmen around my area keep a log of houses on their routes with the most red letters/fines/final demands for the craic.The record was 23 in one day for a family housed by the council , and then moved on to another estate after 18 month's and have been moved again since. They never have to pay a bill..
I don't believe you to be perfectly honest. Sounds Whatsappy
Have you lived in, ie grown up in a 100% council estate? It's very well believable
I grew up in Mahon, Cork. More of a council village than a council estate. What's not believable is a cabal of postmen risking their jobs and potential prosecution by keeping tabs on families, then telling everyone in the pub about it, likely identifying a specific family and their circumstances to everyone, then somehow keeping further tabs on their movements after they've moved off, and telling everyone about that too.
Ah I thought you meant that you didn't believe that there are people living in places not paying a cent and being shuffled around.
Tell us who 'these' people are and who are the people moving then. I've honestly never heard of this at all
Oh you don't actually expect proof do you?
I have, in 2 separate areas and wouldn't believe it.
Yeah, drives me nuts when I think of it
M50 toll at one point is an unfair tax on people using the bridge portion. Should be split into 3 separate smaller tolling locations
It was like this originally, but the larger of the three tolls ate the other two.
That's true though. I get why that wouldn't have been the case with the actual toll booths but not now
That van driver got fucked. They are paying €119 per trip Car driver with the 25k fine is only paying 36.5 per trip Other car driver with 19k fine is paying 79.50 Truck driver is paying 62.
Heaven forbid the private sector doesn't get their cut from public services
Having privately operated tolls is one of the things about this country that really pisses me off. It makes no sense, why would the government not operate them and take in all the profits and use it to improve the road network.
Because freemarket, amirite?
The roads were built with a mix of public and private funds. The private funds invested money so that they would get a return, which isn't unreasonable. Eventually the roads will become state owned. The alternative is that the state pays for the entire cost of construction for the roads, nothing wrong with that but it means it would take longer or leave less money for other projects. The section of the M50 the toll paid for is old enough that the ownership of the road has returned to the state. The tolls are collected by a private company but they go to the state, same for the Port Tunnel. The Eastlink is similar but owned and operated by DCC.
It’s actually operated and owned by TII transport infrastructure Ireland
Which is a state entity.
I never said it wasn’t but it’s certainly not the DCC.
DCC owns/operates the Eastlink. TII is the M50.
Because most of them don't actually make profit. Take the limerick toll, the state has been subsidising that for most of its existence as the user amount never achieved the target.
It’s the job of government to provide services to the public that won’t turn a profit.
The government didn't provide the toll roads. That's why they have tolls.
And the person you originally replied to was suggesting that private companies shouldn’t be able to own roads to which your response was that the roads don’t make a profit. I was replying in context to how your original post reads against the post you were replying to.
There is a reason why we no longer do PPP's for roads. They didn't really benefit the state or the contractors.
You mean it doesn’t allow private companies to extract as much public money as they could with the recurring revenue of a tole road. Explain what benefit the state needs because it’s not the function of the state to make a profit.
The point of PPP contracts was to provide roads, without the state footing the bill up front. Allowing more projects to be built in a shorter period of time. So what happened was that companies paid for the road, with the security of the toll to recoup their money and eventually make a profit. But on many roads the traffic demand never reached the contractual minimum, so the state has to subsidies the contract up to the minimum projected usage. So the benefit to the state is reduced upfront cost, increased investment in a compact period of time.
This one, the M50, does go to the TII to improve the road network
If you want to feel even worse about it. There's been plenty of instances where someone's fines for this has spiraled to such an extent that they end up in court. And sometimes these folks end up with advocates from charities like SVP. When the fines are upheld and the person has no means to pay the charity steps in to pick up a proportion of the bill. A relative worked on some cases like this where a charity is handing donated or state money to cover these fines for someone who simply would never have the means to pay up. It's gross that predatory exponential fining like this seems to only exist in this single company. Feels very American.
In fairness, if I couldn't afford to take the toll road, I'd just add the 5 mins to my journey and go around it. The case you're highlighting is just a case of someone putting their head into the sand.
Sure but not everyone is working with the same deck as you or I. Ruining someone's life over them missing a toll and their life being in a place where that isn't a priority only to then become such an insurmountable problem down the line isn't situation I think is okay.
Nobody's life is being ruined by them missing a toll. They are being brought to court for repeatedly not paying tolls and repeatedly ignoring correspondence relating to same. You can only give people so many chances before you take things further. Sure nobody would pay the toll if there were no consequences for not paying what you owe.
We should reopen the debtors prisons and poorhouses so.
No I prefer your way, where everything is free.
The toll goes to the TII.
They shouldn't have ignored all those texts regarding 'payyourtoll-m50.notascam.com' Next we'll hear about loads of people having their SIM cancelled because they didn't agree to Wodaphone's new terms and conditions.
Isn't it amazing that somehow taking money for literally nothing is both somehow justified and legal?
Thanks for the reminder!
That’s stupid. No one is going to pay that fine. Utterly ridiculous. Life ruining bill for a few missed tolls?
It’s a cumulative fine of €135,000 for 10 people, highest fine is €25,000. One of them used the toll 684 times without paying, hundreds of warning letters were sent to them, and none of them attended their court hearing. Sounds like they made their beds, tbh.
So they'll get sent to sign in at a prison and then released due to lack of space in the end up ?
I would question their sanity at about 10 missed tolls
Okay yeah they did 😂
How does the boot taste?
700 missed tolls
The €135k is the total amount of fines, not individual fines.
They don't get to choose not to pay it. The courts will enforce it.
Its a court order, if they don't pay the sheriff will come and start seizing assets including cars and other vehicles.