Posted on 09/16/2007 8:15:23 AM PDT by buccaneer81
Man Jailed Over 50-Cent Toll Mass. Resident Considering Lawsuit
POSTED: 6:49 am EDT September 14, 2007 UPDATED: 1:18 pm EDT September 15, 2007
ROCHESTER, N.H. -- A Massachusetts man who insists his New Hampshire highway tokens are still valid just spent three days in jail because he insisted on using two tokens to pay a 50-cent toll.
Thomas Jensen, 68, of Braintree, said the state broke a contract with him and everyone else who bought tokens by refusing to accept them after January of last year. He was convicted of theft of services for continuing to use tokens after they were phased out.
‘‘I gave the state of New Hampshire money for the tokens, and I expect to be able to use them,’’ Jensen told The Patriot Ledger.
Jensen was driving to his New Hampshire summer home when he tried to pay the 50-cent toll with tokens, as he had always done.
The toll worker refused to take them and a state trooper at the plaza gave Jensen a citation.
‘‘(The trooper) said, ‘Just give him the 50 cents.’ I said, ‘I did, I gave him two tokens,’’’ Jensen told the newspaper.
Monday, a judge told Jensen he could pay a $150 fine, do community service or go to jail for three days. He choose jail.
‘‘Over my dead body was I going to give the state another dollar for the tolls,’’ Jensen said.
He told the newspaper that the jail was a clean, new facility and that the food was better than expected. He said he spent his time in jail talking with other inmates.
Jensen never told his wife he was in jail. Beverly Jensen said she only found out when asked by a television news reporter.
After being set free Thursday, Jensen said he's considering a lawsuit. He said the state should just accept tokens until they're all used up.
‘‘I just get offended by people trying to do me wrong,’’ he said. ‘‘They stole the value of these tokens from me.’’
Tolls are a rip off anyway. I already give 30% of my salary to the feds, and then more to the state and cities. If these “officials” can’t maintain infrastructure ( a VALID expense of govt dollars) they should cut down on all the other junk & international give-aways. God bless this man, if we all stood up as he did we’d have a better, smaller, more honest and conservative government.
I'm a US citizen, not a citizen of the US. Money is money, regardless of what it's made of. I said this token was essentially money issued by the State, because it's was a token that could be used to pay for the priviledge of driving on their road a certain distance. It was obtained by a monetary consideration, and had a monetary value for use on their road. The State refused to honor it's original obligation, as promised at the time they recieved payment. That's fraud and theft. No State, or agency thereof can pass a law to wipe out it's own debts.
Not true.
If a highway is financed, built and maintained via revenue bonds, then those tolls are the way in which the highway collects income to pay off those bonds.
On the other hand, if a highway is financed, built and maintained via fuel taxes, then you have a valid grievance when you say, "I paid for it twice."
In the case of the New Hamphire Turnpike, a first generation toll road, those revenue bonds have to be paid off.
Jensen never told his wife he was in jail. Beverly Jensen said she only found out when asked by a television news reporter.
WTF?
LOL! See post #39.
...as the train goes rumbling through.
But Scullay Square is now Government Center, thanks to the work of the good archbishop (shor-and-begorrah) who cleaned up the square, removing all the carnal sin going on in the neighborhood -- and moved it to the Combat Zone.
In 1970, during a trip to Boston, I was wandering through the Government Center station when I walked into an abandoned section with the Scullay Square signs still intact.
It's a bit more interesting than that.
In 1975, a Connecticut Turnpike bridge over a river collapsed, killing nearly a hundred people. In response, the Turnpike Authority had one of the big engineering consulting firms look at the Turnpike's physical plant. The conclusion was that a massive amount of money would be necessary to keep the Turnpike up to snuff.
The Connecticut Turnpike, by lucky coincidence, was also I-95 for most of its length. In those halcyon days, the federal-state split on interstates was 90-10, both for building and maintenance. By contrast, the cost of money in the Carter era was horrendous, so issuing new bonds for the Turnpike was a bad bargain. Thus, the Connecticut legislature decided to pay the Turnpike's bonds off early and free up the highway. Now that it was a garden variety interstate, the Connecticut congressional delegation went to the appropriate people with palms extended and got federal funds on a 90-10 basis to fix the highway.
Ain't this a great country or what?
I rode the "T" a few times in the early 80's and thought for sure I saw a "Scullay Square" reference somewhere, probably one of the overall route maps. Orange line?
“Not true.” said Publius.
_____________________________
True enough, Publius. Toll roads are unconstitutional.
Toll roads impede the free movement of citizens on public lands. Egalitarian societies can’t equalize road fees.
If we had Supreme Court Judges with brains and balls they would rule so.
There is absolutely nothing in the US Constitution about free movement. The closest you get is the Interstate Commerce Clause.
The Constitution gives the federal government, as one of its 5 explicit powers, the authority to build and maintain "post roads", i.e. roads on which mail is delivered. That is as far as it goes.
Traditionally, counties built roads and paid for them via property taxes. Roads that crossed county lines in that era were often built by private entrepreneurs who charged tolls on them.
As the country expanded, internal improvements became a hot issue in the years right after the War of 1812. The federal government financed free roads that crossed state lines, but there were controversies over this in the Monroe years. (Read States' Rights and the Union, by Forest McDonald, for the details on how this played out.) Andrew Jackson vetoed an appropriation for a road that both began and ended in Kentucky, stating that a non-interstate highway was not eligible for federal funds. The fact that Kentucky was home base for Henry Clay, one of his many archenemies, of course had nothing to do with it.
Toll roads have been a part of our history for nearly 200 years. There is nothing remotely unconstitutional about them.
You must be a cop...
His fate is still unlearned...
ML/NJ
Yes Publius, toll roads have traditionally been a part of our history. So was slavery.
Think a minute... access to the rest of this great country is a prerequisite to freedom and liberty. What are you to do with a freed man who has no money and is not allowed to trespass on private lands? Shoot him?
Government is best that stays out of the affairs of the people but building and maintaining free roadways is one of the three things that government does that justifies general taxation.
real sense of perspective here sarcasm ON
Good enough place to bump this thread.
Just curious, but how many days have you spent in jail for refusing to pay a 50-cent toll? If that’s the hill you want to die on, be my guest, but I suspect you’d fork over the 50 cents. It’s always easy to tell other people what principles they should have.
The customer bought first class postage stamps. Time and government policy created inflation changed the penny enumeration of that service. The post office does not pay interest on the stamps they sold - they ought to honor them as first class postage stamps whenever they are used.
When a private business did this to me (Blockbuster - prepaid rentals, expired after 6 months in the fine print) I never visited them again (been 10 years now). Pure fraud.
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