Paige Mistak drives a Pontiac minivan.
Or at least she used to. The van has been sitting in her Geneva garage for more than a year.
So you can imagine her surprise when she started getting toll violation notices last summer from states along the Eastern Seaboard.
New York. New Jersey. Connecticut. Massachusetts.
Some of the notices included a picture of the offending vehicle.
Mistak doesn’t dispute the attached Illinois license plate matches her license plate number.
But the vehicle — a semitruck — clearly isn’t hers.
“I am a librarian and I love igniting the passion for reading in others,” she said. “However, I can assure you I have not been touring America in a makeshift semi loaded with books.”
By Mistak’s estimation, she has received about $1,000 worth of tickets and fines from East Coast toll authorities. Almost all of them are for violations incurred by a semi driver. At least one other was for someone driving a Nissan sport utility vehicle.
She said she has contested the tickets, arguing that her license plate is on a nonfunctioning minivan that hasn’t left her garage since early 2013.
Mistak, who works at a middle school, said nothing seems to convince the other states that she is not the driver.
“I have suggested they contact my school district to verify that I was at work on the days of the violations,” she said. “This is all to no avail, and now I have been sent to collections.”
In early May, she received three more violations in the mail, one from the Delaware River and Bay Authority, another from E-ZPass in New Jersey and the third from something called the Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau.
Unsure what else to do, Mistak emailed “What’s Your Problem?”
“I don’t have the money to pay this,” she said. “I’ve got three kids in college. I don’t have money for that either, but if I have money for one of (the bills), it’s going to be college.”
Mistak said she could not fathom why the toll authorities did not look at the make and model attached to the license plate.
“When you call, there’s actually no way to talk to a human,” she said. “You have to go online. It’s frustrating, especially when I’m broke. I wish I just had the money to write them a check.”
The Problem Solver contacted Dave Druker, a spokesman for the Illinois secretary of state’s office.
After some research, Druker said the toll authorities in the other states simply misread the plates.
“It’s obvious it’s a truck, not a passenger car,” he said. “There are indicators on the plate.”
Druker said Illinois often issues several different types of plates with the same number, and toll authorities should know how to tell the difference.
The semitruck that is driving around the Northeast, blowing through tolls without paying, has a commercial truck plate, not a passenger vehicle plate, Druker said.
“There are indicators on the plate,” he said.
Druker said his office would reach out to the states that have sent Mistak a violation notice and tell them she is not the scofflaw they are looking for.
The first letter, dated Monday, was addressed to the Delaware River and Bay Authority. The secretary of state’s office forwarded a copy to Mistak.
It identifies the semitruck in question as being registered to a Wheeling trucking company.
In addition, the secretary of state’s office stripped all of Mistak’s information from the passenger plate number, Mistak said she was told.
“Going forward, should the other tollways run the semi plates in the wrong format, my information will not be pulled up,” Mistak said.
Her work is not done. Even if the other states dismiss the violations against her, she must also make sure they remove any negative information from the credit agencies.
“I’m hopeful,” she said. “I have to say, I won’t be convinced until it actually gets taken care of.”
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