Citizens Against Tolls (CAT) has released data clearly illustrating the high number of accidents at or within 2.8 miles of the 11 Garden State Parkway (GSP) toll plazas. This information, extracted from a New Jersey Department of Transportation data base based on police reports, covers four years, 1997-2000. The total accidents are 11,427.

This report shows toll booths are a massive generator of accidents — even up to 2.8 miles in either direction north or south of the toll booths, as drivers search for the right lane and/or try to merge after paying either a manual or E-ZPass toll. As our group has consistently said, GSP toll plazas are deadly.

The data shows the largest number of accidents, 2,192, occur at or within 528 feet north or south of the plazas. The report also clearly indicates the introduction of E-ZPass not only did not improve safety at toll booths; rather, it resulted in a slight increase.

For some unknown reason, raw accident data for 2001-2002 has not been posted at the NJ DOT Web site, so this data has not been included in the study. CAT wonders if this data will ever be posted, in light of the controversy regarding GSP tolls.

The Web site also mentions the "secret" numbering of the Garden State Parkway as "Route 444," which is the number apparently used on police reports, rather than GSP.

The Union County 1998 data file contains an unusually large number of records (159) with a missing mile marker, as compared with four for 1997 and 10 for 1999. This results in an artificial drop in the number of Union accidents for 1998.

"This study does not take into consideration the stress on drivers that tolls cause, nor does it measure the effects of wasted fuel and wear and tear, the potential for fatalities (there were two in 2002), and the economic cost of accidents, especially those with injuries caused by the paying of a toll. The average cost per accident is unknown, but even if it were $1,000 per accident, the total cost to society would be $11,427,000 for these accidents in the range of this study alone. And this could be an understatement," commented CAT President Ray Neveil.

"We would think the governor and the legislators would find this as unacceptable as we do," said Neveil. "Yet they continue to procrastinate on taking the correct remedial action."

"There is an obvious answer for this dilemma — immediately begin the phasing out of parkway tolls, which would preclude the need for spending additional hundreds of millions of dollars on any expansion of E-ZPass and thus avoid any more massive debt. Installation of high-speed E-ZPass is not the solution," said Neveil.

"The physical dangers at toll plazas will remain, or possibly become worse. Toll plaza elimination is the certain way to prevent any further accidents or injuries such as are shown by the collected data," concluded Neveil.

Citizens Against Tolls is indebted to supporter Edward Heeren who did the extensive work necessary to compile this data which again proves the massive cost to society of collecting tolls.

John Millett is a member of Citizens Against Tolls, Manas-quan