There are endless things to complain and wine about CityLink and other toll road companies. And I’m sure many of them are the same around the country and possibly the world.
“Why should we pay tolls when we already pay road tax?”
“We were promissed there would be no tolls, when the road was being built!”
“Wasn’t that road a public road and free to drive on before?”
But I would like to focus on two issues that I haven’t heard mentioned before. I don’t claim to be a lawyer and have limited legal knowledge, but these issues seem to go against what I would believe to be legal.
I became aware of these issues after returning home from a recent trip. I had been on the road for three months and, as you can imagine, all I wanted to do was to get home. I had been driving for a number of hours as I approached Melbourne and as I got passed the Tullamarine airport I realised that the roads had changed quite a lot since the last time I had been on them. Somehow, in the confusion, I found myself on the CityLink tollway. I was irritated but thought, at least I’d be home quicker.
I personally believe that being tolled to drive on roads when we pay road tax, petrol tax, and a number of other taxes that should go towards road upkeep, is wrong. So I protest the best way I can and normally avoid the toll roads completely. On the odd occasion when they just can’t be avoided, I will purchase a Daypass.
On this particular occasion I figured I would call up when I got home and purchase the pass. They allow you three days after the travel time, to purchase a pass. Anyway, five days later and I realised I had forgotten to call them. I jumped on the phone and spoke to one of their customer service people. I was told I could no longer pay for the daypass and would have to wait for an invoice to be issued with an additional “administration” fee.
Several weeks passed and eventually the invoice arrived by mail. At first I didn’t think much of it and put it in my ‘bills to pay’ tray. Then, a few days later, I started thinking about it. How did they get my address? I have never given it to them. When purchasing a daypass over the phone or online or even at one of there touchscreen kiosks, I have never had to give my address or any personal details.
Now, of course I know how they got my address. It’s registered to my license plate. But how did they get access to this information? A normal person like you or me can’t get someone’s personal address just by presenting a license plate number. As far as I’m aware, it is illegal for the government to hand out that kind of information. So why does CityLink, a non-government, commercial entity, have access to our personal information. Isn’t this a breach of privacy?
But it doesn’t stop there…
I returned to the invoice to eventually pay the damn thing and read through it. In big bold type at the bottom of the page was a warning. If this bill wasn’t paid on time Victoria Police would issue me with a fine.
How on Earth had they managed this? Remember CityLink is a non-government, commercial entity. They are just like any other big corporate company run by a CEO and owned by the share holders. How have they got the Victorian Police Force to handle their debt collection? Do they pay Victoria Police for this service, or is it another burden on the tax payers? I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t get the Police to fine any of my late paying clients, as I’m sure you couldn’t either. Although I think we’d all agree that it’d be nice to have them backing us up.
Like I said earlier, I have little legal knowledge but I’d love to see some comments from anyone that knows how CityLink is able to do this. I have sent an email to CityLink to ask them directly about these issues. If they respond I will write a follow up post as well as endeavour to find out more information.
