Personally I am willing to pay a toll. I always do. It never crosses my mind to toll dodge because I enjoy the peace of mind that motorway-driving brings. This comes from the reliability and safety of a motorway/HQDC. Toll dodgers annoy me. And by toll dodgers, I mean people who are on a long-distance journey who get off a motorway to avoid paying 1.90 or whatever the toll is, usually less than the price of a Mars bar and coke.
Then you have fellows like this chap:
LAST Saturday I had reason to drive from Dublin to Shannon. Of course, conventional wisdom dictates that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Not so, in the case of the National Roads Authority.
Having been relieved of my toll somewhere in the vicinity of Portlaoise, I carried on in a straight line -- only to be met by diversion signs around 10km later, taking me off the M7 back on to the old Limerick Road.
Perhaps someone in power (if anyone cares) can explain why taxpayers are being asked in advance to pay for roads that are not completed.
It is an outrage that we are being forced to pay tolls to public/private partnerships at all when we already pay road tax, but being told to pay for a road that is not finished is tantamount to highway robbery.
Michael Kelly
Dublin 15
Irish Independent
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/highway-robbery-and-road-tolls-2357095.html
This man is ill-informed about the tolling system, which isn't necessarily his fault in the first instance. But rather than writing an error-fuelled tirade and sending it into the newspaper, you think he would have googled the road in question. Instead he made an arse out of himself.
A certain cohort really resents tolls in this country. If they choose not to use the tolled section, fine: just shut up about it and stick to the old trunk roads whose bends and potholes inspired satirical songs in the 80s and 90s. I'll reserve the right to call you a miser who puts your own safety at risk by stubbornly taking to the backroads, all for the sake of avoiding what is effectively less than the price of a bag of chips.
[/rant]