Tolls that have to be paid online

[Fianceechickie]

We live nearish the new Mersey bridge in Runcorn. You can't pay there and then, there are no booths and you have to remember to go online and pay when to get home. Is it me, or is that a neat way of money grabbing? Cheap for the operator who doesn't have to put in toll booths and people are bound to forget, being tired, busy, other things to do and they can just fine you then. DH been fined twice in the last few months having forgotten to pay the £2 when he gets home on evenings he's used it. On one occasion he paid for one trip that same day but forgot he'd driven across it again. You can set up an account but there's a £10 fee and £20 minimum top up. I've seen this on roads in Ireland too. I've not used it because I just know i would forget to pay!

To the person asking about tourists who may not understand English, most hire cars are already signed up to the auto payment sites and the hire companies then just add any charges you incur to your bill or take it from your credit card later. This is very common the whole world over.

Re elderly people... my view on this is that it's incredibly rare to find someone who can drive across a busy toll bridge confidently but who is UNABLE to use the internet. Even so, I imagine that if I didn't have internet and I couldn't remember or write down the payment number I would just call 118 118 and ask for it... see, I've solved the problem! end of argument.

Oh, and the list of things you claim are difficult and new are all, without exception, more than twenty years old (personal computers, mobile phones), and many of them more like forty years old (ATMs, credit cards). Was he refusing to change when he was thirty or fifty, too?

I didn't claim they were difficult, I pointed out that they are things that had happened during the lifetime of a 70 year old. My point is that one adjusts to an enormous amount of change in a lifetime, but there comes a point, different for different people, where the cumulative change is just too much.

Can I ask a question please? I crossed the new Mersey bridge over Christmas to visit my mum in Runcorn. I paid online for two journeys when I arrived at mum's as I had travelled from MILs and intended to go back after seeing my mum. However, I ended up having to make a detour through Warrington and came back without using the bridge again. Will my second payment be a credit on my account that I can use another time?

CuboidalSlipshoddy I've done with arguing with you. You're inventing things to argue against that no-one on this thread has said, and your posts are showing a callous lack of sympathy. You're just playing games, and I can't be bothered.

I found myself on the Mersey toll bridge recently too. I drove on confidently, expecting to see a toll booth, and was very surprised when I realised it took online payments only. Luckily I can use the Internet and didn't forget to pay but I can think of a lot of people who would find paying online complicated and worrying, or else forget to do do altogether. It does seem like it's designed to catch people out. Perhaps the fairest way of doing things would have some free-flowing lanes for those who are internet-savvy and confident that they won't forget, but a few lanes with toll booths for those who would rather pay as they cross and don't mind queuing to do so.

This is same as the congestion charge in London and Manchester, it's all online. Ditto all the car parking in this area. There are enough signs reminding you to pay. The large digital sign s that hang over the M25 keep reminding you all the way into Surrey to pay your toll.

Down load the app.

TBH anyone who says they have no internet access is so rare, they might just as well be saying I still barter and use groats. Car tax is online, checking your MOT is on line, the DVLA is online. How people cope in todays world is a worry at times.

many of those who use the internet do not feel confident or able to use it for any financial transaction.

Then learning how to do so is a great deal better than attempting to rail, Canute like, about change that they are not going to be able to stop. They're 70, for God's sake: the arrival of the web as a mainstream thing happened when they were in their late forties. Are people in their late forties currently looking at Alexa devices and thinking "no, what is this witchcraft?"

I would be willing to place bets that in 10 years' time it will be essentially impossible to insure a car other than over the Internet, and the alternatives will be expensive and complex. The same will apply, with variations, to obtaining a taxi outside areas with taxiranks, ordering anything we now think of as "mail order" (that staple of the housebound) and ordering food for delivery. There will be niche services, available over the phone (again, the irony: this debate was being had about the move from post to phone barely a generation ago) which will be expensive, inflexible and hedged around with restrictions.

This is a massive, disruptive social change on a scale akin to electricity. If someone is 70 and objecting to computers, the best answer is "then learn" (and for reference, my parents and in-laws are in their 80s). You can say that's harsh. It is, however, true.

"Echo, pay my bridge toll charge".

You can pay at any shop with a PayZone point

The nearest PayZone where you can pay the Dart charge is over 6 miles away from my house, according to the website, although you can pay utility bills at my local shop. It would appear that not all PayZone points allow you to pay the full range of stuff.

In London, there was a ludicrous parade of stupid about the withdrawal of cash payment on buses. Now no-one gives it a second thought.

I last used a bus in London in about 2012. I still have an Oyster card that hopefully still has the balance of the money on it. However, I have no idea how I would top it up in Sussex.

I would like to see one unified system for all these toll charges we are in SE so have a Dartford crossing account. Surely it wouldn't take too much joined up thinking to have one account deducted from wherever you are. When on holiday you don't always have the same access to the internet- no reception when wild camping in Scotland. The roads are unfamiliar and you need to concentrate on navigating not extra tolls. It could be like paypal, one account which any toll/parking/congestion charge type debit is taken from. Oh if only I ruled the world.

I hadn't thought about people who can't access internet or aren't computer literate even more outraged now!

Like, who on Earth is capable of navigating a complex road system that is unfamiliar to them and dealing with owning a car - but can’t access the internet and pay a toll??

Come on. If people are too confused to pay a toll, then shouldn’t be driving.

I accidentally used this bridge late last year, and forgot to pay. Got stung with a £20 fine.

Used it again a few weeks ago, and forgot to pay again!! But either they aren't as firm with the 36 hour rule as they say, or I'm misremembering and it's 48 hours but I only had to pay £2 at least. I'm slightly fretting that I will get another £20 fine in the post though.

I resent these toll roads.

However, I have no idea how I would top it up in Sussex.

IGSYDHT: oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/link/sso/0001.do

But outside the crazy world of people deliberately looking to make things difficult for themselves, you'd use a contactless payment card. Cash payment wasn't withdrawn from buses until contactless payment was rolled out: indeed, if memory serves, contactless was made available on buses before it was made available on station gatelines, by a few months, precisely for this reason, and this wasn't done until at least two years after contactless rollout started.

As indeed the top-up page I linked to says: "If you plan to use pay as you go, travelling with a contactless payment card is a good alternative. You don't need to top up your card before you travel or worry about running out of credit. Pay as you go fares and daily caps are the same as Oyster."

Cue the parade of "but I don't use contactless payment, can't top-up online, aren't entitled to a freedom or other over-65 pass, etc". That, by the way, was what revealed the bad faith of the people using "what about the old folk" argument about London buses: with incredibly edge-case exceptions ("what about retired people who live outside London but travel into London on full-price peak tickets arriving before 9.30 which they paid for with cash because they don't have a payment card and are making onward journeys by bus whilst being unable to purchase an Oyster card at the major station they arrived at because reasons?") they either have a Freedom Pass, a non-London bus pass or like everyone else pay with a contactless payment card.

TBH anyone who says they have no internet access is so rare, they might just as well be saying I still barter and use groats. Car tax is online, checking your MOT is on line, the DVLA is online. How people cope in todays world is a worry at times. There are alternatives for paying car tax, checking your MoT is not necessary, car insurance can be done off-line. One in four 65-75 year olds have no internet access, and more than half of 0ver 75s have no internet access. It's rare in younger age groups but not rare in older age groups.

My DF is in Huyton...so very close and the other day he asked what Google was!!! He's 73 and never used a computer in his life ..... He can't even use his old Nokia brick phone for text messages.

Luckily he has a blue badge so my sister in law set up a tag for him!!!
Dartford crossing in the same ...don't get me started on congestion charge!!!

Surely it wouldn't take too much joined up thinking to have one account deducted from wherever you are.

That would be a very good idea. The US hasn't managed it nation-wide, but there are transponder tags which stretch over very large areas, covering multiple states.

The problem I believe is that these are usually local government initiatives, which is why (as another stupid example) there are multiple pay-by-phone parking apps littering my phone. I suspect that the CMA would get cross if one of those operators bought the others, but from a user perspective one mobile phone parking scheme plus a bit of regulation to stop obvious abuse would be ideal. It's not really a competitive market for parkers anyway, unless you believe parking in Oxford is fungible with parking in Bristol, it's just a market for local authorities.

I can remember people grumbling when services were switching to "phone only"

what about all the people who don't have phones ?

Would the OP be happy of there were an automated pay by phone service ?

BUT YOU DON'T NEED THE INTERNET TO PAY!!!!!!
Why are people saying you can't pay without it??
And people who blame unfamiliar roads or being elderly for not reading road signs, then please, do us all a favour and hang up the car keys for good.
Sorry, i drive the wrong way up the M6 as the road was unfamiliar and i couldn't read the signs.
What a pathetic excuse.

The problem I believe is that these are usually local government initiatives, which is why (as another stupid example) there are multiple pay-by-phone parking apps littering my phone. So what do you do if you turn up somewhere that you've never been before, find that they use a different parking app? Do they all require pre-registration?

I think the issue really is the 24h payment window. I can see how plenty of people might need to use it and have reason to not be able to access the Internet 24h after, or have it slip their mind. I would be the one who forgot but remembered 3 days later. So maybe having a week to pay would help?

I live nearish to the new road but have no need to go on it. I use the mersey tunnel and it annoys me how that is cash only. I know there's fast tags but they're not suitable for occasional infrequent use.

YOU
DO
NOT
NEED
THE
INTERNET!
FFS. Are people really this dense?

Like, who on Earth is capable of navigating a complex road system that is unfamiliar to them and dealing with owning a car - but can’t access the internet and pay a toll??

It is the additional cognitive load of being in a different situation which makes it more hazardous. Just as some people think, 'oh I will be fine to just answer this phone call' while driving, most of the time they will be fine, occasionally they will crash. An additional load on driving while already in a different situation should be reduced where possible. Seeing a sign thinking 'oh must remember to pay that, I wonder when I can stop, oh just a minute I think I need to be in the other lane here ...'

Crikey CuboidalSlipshoddy are you OK?

So what do you do if you turn up somewhere that you've never been before, find that they use a different parking app?

App Store->type in name of app helpfully displayed on the sign->hit install->register.

It's a pain in the arse, but there are only I think two main ones (RingGo and ParkMobile) so once you've done it twice you are - in my experience, there may be some minority local system for local people somewhere - good to go. The apps are also pretty crap (not integrated with Apple Pay or equivalent, don't support "point camera at card to put details in quickly") which is a sign of a market which isn't functioning well.

This heads off into the edge cases again, though. "What about people who travel to unfamiliar cities by car and park in street carparking which has no alternative to online payment who have a mobile phone to pay in their own city but are unable to register on the phone because the boxes for typing in the credit card details are too small or they are in a hurry or they don't have their payment card on them". That's not an unimaginable edge case, and integrating Apple/Android pay into the app would be a huge win, but it's hardly a daily, or even annual, event even for the people it affects.

@shouldwest

Are really saying road signs informing you of a toll are causing you to crash? Hang up your keys. Why do you need to think about where to stop? Surely you pull over at some point within 24 hours?
Some the excuses on this thread are just hilarious.