Introduction to Toll Roads

I just received a toll notice in the mail yesterday which made me laugh when I got it. When I came back to Sydney at the end of January, I had one of the most nerve wracking driving experiences of my life. I guess it really was my fault for thinking that it would be a brilliant idea to rent a car, but rent a car I did.

I had it for the weekend and at first things didn't go too badly. I just had to remember which side of the road to turn on and the rest came naturally. So it was pretty painless considering the worst I did was continuouly put the wipers on rather than the turn signal when I had to turn, which was very distracting to say the least. Plus the roads here are scratch-the-paint-off your-car-at-each-light narrow and I managed an entire weekend ding and paint chip free. However what I did not manage was making it the entire weekend without a ticket. :-)

For those of you reading this at home, think of a highway like... I-93 or even a a small one like Rt.44, which occasionally goes through back roads and has stop lights. Well most highways here have 24 hour speed cameras. The reason this is a problem is that if you've been driving for a while, you know what certain speeds feel like without even glancing at the odometer. That being the case, you probably know what 65mph feels like. Unfortunately for me, driving in another country 65mph is considered very fast and dangerous. You'll be lucky if you get sections of the highway that are that fast and most areas are 50-70km which translate to 30-45 miles per hour!!!! Only US drivers can appreciate how slow that is. And if you go just one km over the speed limit, BAM! The speed camera has you and boy will you have a huge ticket. So you reeeeeally have to concentrate not to relax when you're driving and go faster than you should on ANY road. Which brings me to how I got the ticket.

On Saturday morning I decided that it would be fun to drive to my church which is just 15 minutes by car away. It definitely beat being on a bus for 45 minutes so I borrowed my friends GPS, jumped in the car, and headed off to my destination. On a side note, looking at a GPS, concentrating on not going too fast, and making sure people don't scratch your car is NOT a good combination. Anyways, before I left my friend had told me to watch out for the toll roads and I'm thinking yeah ok, like I can't go to the booth and pay... Whatever. :-) So back to the I-93 and Rt.44 senario. Imagine if you're on the highway and BAM out of nowhere the highway turns into a toll road THAT ONLY PEOPLE WHO HAVE AN EZ-PASS (or epass here) HAVE?!!!! AND if you don't have an e-pass then there are five million signs and cameras telling you the kind of fine you'll be getting. :-) The first one I went through I was thinking OMG there goes my grocery money! But after the third one I had figured it to be a few weeks of rent already so I might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. Needless to say, between the toll roads that have no actual toll on them, making sure I drive slow so I don't add a speeding ticket to the list of things to pay, and the GPS that kept telling me I was in Brisbane (which is like saying I'm in DC when I'm really in Boston), I never made it to church. Vowing never to drive in Sydney again, I proceeded to get completely lost, and have the road trip of my life. :-)

So here I am today, smiling and remembering as I look at the toll notice I have to pay, hoping that next time I rent a car, it won't be a hard-knock-to-my-wallet kind of experience. :-)