There were at least four accidents this week at the toll booths along the Garden State Parkway, with vehicles crashing into the cement barriers.
Years ago, back in the coin days, the driver approach was slower. Now with E-ZPass, the approach is faster, apparently contributing to the accidents, or at least to the severity of them.
Many other toll booths around the tri-state area are now barrier-less, having switched over to the bridge-like overhead system.
Should New Jersey consider removing the old barriers to enhance safety?
At the GSP north tolls in the area of mile marker 129.
This is third accident this week involving the barriers at GSP tolls.
Back in the coin days, the driver approach was slower. Now with E-ZPass, the approach is faster.
Should @NJGov @GSParkway consider removing the old… pic.twitter.com/lnlRWyCiks
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) August 10, 2023
Here in New Jersey, we’re head over heels for tolls…
Moments ago at exit 98 southbound on the GSP.
(SpecGen) pic.twitter.com/BlKm02rvxF
— The Lakewood Scoop (@LakewoodScoop) August 7, 2023
The simple answer we should remove the barriers and make it cashless. But not because people crash, people need to pay attention!
No. Don’t remove the barriers. Driver’s need to put down their phones & pay more attention to what’s in front of them.
That is ridiculous. We should take them down and make our roads safer. To “punish” people for not paying attention by leaving a danger in the road is not ok. Rather give them a ticket for not paying attention.
Yes, if you aren’t paying attention and get yourself into an accident the barrier has nothing to do with it. They have been there for years, and all of a sudden there are 4 accidents. So lets remove the barriers so we can text more while on the parkway. Want to talk about ridiculous?
Respectfully, taking down the existing barriers would prove to be cost prohibitive. Not taking them down is in no way punishing drivers. Drivers do need to pay attention to what’s in front of them, including toll barriers. Enough said.
Have a wonderful weekend. From me to you. You.
What makes you say that this had anything to do with phones? See how you jump to conclusions?
You’re patently correct. I should not be jumping to conclusions. There’s no way to know for sure what the contributory factors were leading up to the crash. What about not paying attention to the road ahead?
Could that have been the cause of the accident? You be the judge.
Take away the toll boths altogether!!!!!
No. People need to pay more attention.
As they use to say back in the ’70’s, “Right On”, Mary. Have a super weekend.
People have to drive more carefully. The state shouldn’t be shelling out more unnecessary money, unless they do away with all the tolls.
People drive 60 mph thru these – the speed is 15
Removing the barriers will be very costly – but only for the industries that benefit from crashes. The government is the one that will pay to remove them and they will benefit $ greatly from the removal. They won’t need to pay people to be in the booths and they won’t need to send law enforcement to crashes.
There can still be a booth at each side of the highway. The problem is mainly the ones in the middle of the highway. Also, it is not so necessary for there to be a booth between every lane. There can be one booth between every two lanes, and every one booth can serve the lane on it’s right side and the lane on it’s left side. If it is necessary there can be two people in the booth, one for each side. But one person might be enough for both sides. Although the driver is on the left side of the car, most people don’t need the assistance of the person in the booth anyways, so if you need assistance and you don’t want to raise your voice or you are hard of hearing and you don’t have a passenger to help, you can just go to the left lane.
They should switch to the bridge like overhead system statewide. The barrier is not the only problem. The bigger problem with toll booths is the merge of many lanes after the toll. Those wide toll booths on the way to monsey are so annoying.
Instead of crashing into barriers, they’ll crash into other cars. Keep the barriers
Excuse ‘Me’, the fact is that there are many more crashes by the barriers. I think the main reason why some people don’t want the toll booths removed is that they are used to there being toll booths and they don’t like change, even change for the better. The booths might even be considered national historical landmarks. But the fact is that with most people using E-ZPass today, the original purpose is not enough of a reason to keep most of the booths. There is still some benefit of booths that they are kind of security checkpoints. I also want to suggest a theory that if people would be able to drive straight without ever having to stop for toll booths, the drive would get boring and people will be more sleepy which is dangerous for driving.