The Scofflaw Menace: Out-of-State Toll Dodgers Are Also Reckless Super Speeders In NYC

It’s a gateway drug.

Out-of-state motorists who don’t pay their tolls doubly abuse New Yorkers by also speeding and running red lights across the five boroughs and even causing serious crashes, according to a first-ever Streetsblog review of legal efforts against the toll scofflaws.

The Port Authority, which operates the six bridges and tunnels that connect New Jersey and New York, recently sued multiple drivers and companies who spent years dodging tolls, calling defendants “toll evaders” who committed “multiple trespasses” and “theft through fraud.”

Streetsblog analyzed the driving records of the defendants and found evidence of something safe streets advocates have long argued: The same rogue drivers that dodge tolls also endanger — and sometimes seriously injure — everyday New Yorkers.

Take JGM Trucking of Parsippany. The company owes more than $143,000 in unpaid Port Authority tolls after driving through the EZ Pass lane and failing to answer mailed invoices at least 1,966 times since 2020. Once in the five boroughs, the company’s drivers have collected 94 speeding tickets and 52 red-light tickets over the same period. JGM owes the city more than $15,000 in fines — far past the $350 threshold for the city to simply tow away the trucks.

Streetsblog found that one of the company’s dump truck drivers, Andres Ocampo, was involved in two different crashes — one when he hit another motorist and another when he and crushed a pedestrian in a crosswalk on Ninth Avenue in 2021.

The pedestrian, Robert Fox, spent a week in the hospital with a destroyed ankle and pelvis, and he he had to “learn how to walk again,” according to court papers.

Commercial trucks are notoriously dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists. They make sweeping turns and have large blind spots. At 60 mph, they require nearly two football fields of space to come to a complete stop.

JGM’s two crashes and larger pattern of reckless driving — those 146 reckless driving tickets average out to more than two a month every month since 2020 — is particularly concerning given the company’s cargo. According to federal Department of Transportation filings, JGM transports stone and asphalt — loose materials that shift a truck’s center of gravity.

These materials also pose a threat to nearby vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians in the event of a sudden change in speed or direction — such as when a truck driver speeds or runs through a red light.

Jonas Mieres, a representative for JGM Trucking, expressed shock at being accused of toll evasion. “We are constantly replenishing the EZ Pass and we don’t understand how we owe that amount,” he said in an email from Streetsblog.

Mieres added that the company has “no record” of any tickets incurred in New York City, but was “going to investigate.” He then did not respond to several follow-up emails.

Interstate outlaws

Streetsblog identified numerous scofflaws by analyzing every toll-evasion lawsuit the Port Authority filed in February 2026 in New York Supreme Court. Along with many small suits, we identified 17 large lawsuits involving six drivers and 11 companies that each owe over $10,000 in tolls and tens of thousands more in fees.

The Port Authority switched to cashless tolling in 2022. This change gave drivers a choice: Attach an EZ Pass transponder to their windshield and pay discounted tolls, or wait for mounted toll cameras to capture their license plate and mail them full-price invoices. The Port Authority said the drivers in these suits did neither option — they drove through the toll booth over and over without a valid EZ Pass, and then they failed to answer the numerous letters sent in the mail.

Together, the agency said that the lawbreakers owe $1.5 million in lost money and fees.

We then pulled the driving histories of the 204 vehicles identified in these lawsuits. The good news? Forty-nine of those vehicles did not appear get any camera or parking tickets in the city.

The driving histories of the remaining 155 vehicles demonstrate what street safety advocates have long suspected: Drivers who fail to pay tolls are often the very same drivers who speed, run red lights, park illegally and refuse to pay city-issued tickets.

We found more than 460 speeding tickets and 100 red light tickets issued to these 155 vehicles. Over and over again, these motorists show up in New York City, endanger and inconvenience its residents, and skip town after automated cameras catch them in the act.

Many of their tickets have long been in judgment — the legal term for a ticket that has been fully adjudicated: These drivers currently owe the city around $92,000, according to Streetsblog’s analysis.

Garden State resident Yannette Short, for example, owes the bi-state agency more than $16,000 for unpaid tolls. Streetsblog’s analysis shows that she has qualified as a super speeder not once but twice — first after receiving 30 speeding tickets in her grey Mercedes Benz in 2022 and again the following year after getting 26 speeding tickets in her white Lexus.

On top of the Port Authority tolls she has repeatedly dodged, Short hasn’t paid many of her city tickets, meaning she owes the city around $11,000 for speeding and red lights tickets and scores of parking tickets issued mostly in The Bronx, according to data.

It’s unclear why the NYPD or the city sheriff have failed to tow away her car.

Another scofflaw is Pennsylvania resident Joseph Rodriguez, who skipped out on more than $26,000 in unpaid tolls on his fleet of 28 passenger vehicles and one truck, according to the court papers.

Rodriguez’s drivers have endangered countless New Yorkers, city records show, with 172 speeding tickets and 22 red light tickets issued since 2020. Two of Rodriguez’s vehicles qualify as super-speeders.

Rodriguez owes the city nearly $34,000 for many of these speeding and red light tickets along with over 120 parking tickets issued to his 29 vehicles, mostly in Queens and The Bronx. It is unclear why his vehicles have not been towed.

Neither Rodriguez nor Short responded to phone calls requesting comment for this article.

“It’s no surprise that the small universe of recidivist drivers endangering New Yorkers by speeding through school zones are also flouting other laws,” city Department of Transportation spokesman Vincent Barone said in a statement.

What can be done?

Advocates are demanding that Mayor Mamdani crack down on such reckless scofflaws.

“Mayor Mamdani didn’t create the situation,” said Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance. “But he is the person who can bring folks together across government to solve the persistent lawlessness of a subset of parkers and drivers.”

Thanks to a change in state law that passed earlier this year, New York City will soon be able to require drivers with 16 or more speed or red light violations within a 12-month period to install a speed limiters that caps their maximum speed based on the posted limit.

But that bill won’t apply to the many out-of-state drivers speeding, running red lights and running roughshod over the city. Only two of the 204 vehicles identified in the Port Authority lawsuits are registered in New York, so the law will have little effect on these toll dodgers — including the four super speeders found in just one month of Port Authority lawsuits.

Pearlstein called on the city to crack down on the prevalence of reckless and dangerous drivers with out-of-state plates.

“We should restrict street parking to people with a valid New York front plate and a valid back plate,” Pearlstein said. “You shouldn’t view it as a freedom to break our traffic laws, evade tolls and take up public space.”

The Port Authority says in one lawsuit that it could “utilize its police force to arrest toll evaders on sight and without warrant” but that it has not done so “for safety reasons and so as not to unreasonably interfere with legitimate EZ Pass users.”

The Port Authority could also ask the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to intervene — but that’s only if a scofflaw driver resides in New York.

“DMV has no jurisdiction over toll bills or parking tickets, but can suspend a vehicle registration when directed to do so by a tolling authority because someone has failed to pay, tolls fees or other charges,” said Walter McClure, a spokesperson for the agency.

The Port Authority declined to comment, citing “active litigation.”

William Connolly, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, called his agency’s role “administrative.”

“As soon as a ticket or violation is adjudicated and transferred to MVC, MVC takes the required administrative action regarding the license or registration,” Connolly said.

Connolly did not reply to a subsequent email from Streetsblog asking about the status of the 81 New Jersey license plates identified in our analysis.

The city Department of Finance did not respond to requests for comment.