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.
I'm both impressed that you found this AMA while you were on the road and a little regretful it took me over a year to answer. Regardless, I worked in Western New York so I would have been of no use to you. Hope you figured it out!
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Can’t control how people treat you. Nobody wants to pay tolls, so I get it. Just have to figure out a way to ensure you don’t take it personally and kind of compartmentalize those unpleasant interactions. It’s not an easy adjustment and it’s not for everybody. I had no intention of making it a career and 5 years was plenty.
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I don’t know, probably. You’re using pennies to pay a 15 dollar toll? I’d just take them to the bank.
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Great question! Traffic typically doesn't allow for long conversations but on my section if you were covering overnight hours at small stations there would be long stretches without traffic so you could chat with people for longer. Usually if you both felt like talking you could get 3-5 minutes in if you wanted to, sometimes longer. I feel like sometimes the late night drivers could sense that we could use someone to talk to so they were generally more talkative. The transaction just feels too rushed during the daytime hours as it seems like there is ALWAYS someone behind the car you're currently processing. All that being said, I have had VERY long conversations with VERY confused drivers in the middle of the day. I've had people in my lane for 10 minutes with maps and questions and issues. So much so that I've briefly had to shut my lane down to signal to traffic that they should avoid my lane.
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I'm sure you'd get a myriad of answers from different collectors so just speaking solely for myself- the interpersonal aspect was by far the most difficult for me. Nobody is happy to see a toll collector, and toll collectors aren't particularly jazzed that they have to spend the whole day dealing with people that don't want anything to do with them. Honestly it got to the point where saying nothing was sometimes the safest option. And I can definitely understand why people might find that rude, but it was mostly self-preservation. It's just one of those jobs where finding your center is crucial because if you react to every outside stimulus, you just won't last.
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If you're asking who physically comes and gets the money, a service like Brinks is typically utilized.
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Possibly. Pictures are generally taken of cars that go through E-ZPass lanes without tags and bills are mailed out. The collector was probably upset because we're trained to keep all traffic moving in one direction if possible. You really don't want to be backing up at a toll barrier while traffic continues to come through. Even if there aren't cars behind you at the moment you start backing up that can change pretty quickly as cars coming through sometimes accelerate through the barrier as they just don't anticipate someone backing up.
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