TollBoothGuy
5 Years Experience
Brooklyn, NY
Male, 33
I spent just short of five years as a toll collector on the western end of New York State. Ask me anything, but please don't pay me in pennies.
Congrats on the job! I didn't find the training at headquarters particularly difficult. The instructors are thorough but a lot of the information won't sink until you get out on the road. It's been almost nine years since I went though it, so things may have changed, but from what i recall it's a lot of sitting in conference rooms and listening, paperwork, fingerprinting, and OSHA videos. It's a good forum for questions and for running through hypothetical questions with instructors that have been through it all.
At headquarters the onus is on the instructors. Once you get on the road, the onus will be on you. Good luck!
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I'll be honest, I'm not sure if anyone can be held liable in that situation. Usually when any kind of incident happens out on the road, drivers can request to make a report to whatever law enforcement agency has jurisdiction. Personally, I'd never instruct a car to back up out of a lane unless absolutely necessary and I would physically get out of my booth and back everyone up so that this kind of situation has as little chance of happening as possible. Sorry to hear about the damages to your vehicle.
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I took no extra security precautions while I was out on the road. I never felt particularly unsafe, even during solo shifts.
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I tried not to think about it, honestly. I know some coworkers have had money thrown at them in the past but nothing much beyond that. I think the only time I actually felt unsafe at a station was when I was working solo and the power went out in the middle of the night. When you lose all the lights and the hum of the electronic ticket machines, all these fun scenarios start running through your head.
I took no extra safety precautions on the job. State police units were never particularly far away, and the vast majority of conflicts with drivers are verbal and last a few seconds at most.
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Nope! In our system, collectors are audited based on what they their expected cash total is versus what they deposited. A deficit that small would not be flagged for review. Through the course of a shift, collectors are often shorted by some amount of change by a number of cars and conversely sometimes cars drop too much in our hands and drive off. Oddly enough it generally evens out well enough. There were a couple times where I got shorted a bit and threw a dollar or two in my tray because I never made it back.
Don't sweat a penny though. Trust me, we ALWAYS have pennies laying around.
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While roads do close in emergencies and during particularly adverse weather conditions, it is correct that toll roads do need to remain staffed at all times. If relief cannot make it to you, unfortunately you will generally be expected to remain at your post until they can safely make their way to you. In more general terms, you always try to arrive at least 10-15 mins before the official shift start time so that you can relieve earlier shifts by the time they are scheduled to leave. Some lanes will close/open depending on the time of day, but to maintain continuous service collectors generally cannot close their lane before relief is in place.
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I don't really know anything about operations at the Triborough Bridge but this might shed some light on your experience:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triborough_Bridge_and_Tunnel_Authority_Police
It looks like these officers may collect tolls from time to time, which might explain the potential ticket. Pure speculation from my perspective, though.
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