Tolls and AutoExpreso: paying and fines

It is Article 22.02 of Act 22-2000, which governs paying tolls and using the electronic AutoExpreso system on Puerto Rico’s toll motorways: what you must do, what it costs not to, what they may not charge you, and what the government must tell you.

It applies to everyone driving a motor vehicle who wants to use the toll motorways. The payment exemption applies to fire-extinguishing, rescue and salvage vehicles, emergency-response vehicles, official vehicles of the General Court of Justice when transporting inmates, ambulances of the municipal, state and federal governments, and military convoys of the Armed Forces including the National Guard, in the cases and on the conditions the Act sets.

• Carrying the corresponding AutoExpreso tag or device to use that lane. Using the Auto Expreso lane without that tag is prohibited (Article 22.02(1)(b)).Verified against the official source
• Registering the tag, keeping sufficient balance in the account and travelling at the speed set for the AutoExpreso lane being used (Article 22.02(1)(c)).Verified against the official source
• Keeping the vehicle’s registration information current, including contact information: the Act itself makes it the titleholder’s responsibility.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: The AutoExpreso user’s four duties

   Article 22.02(1)(c) lists them together: “It shall be the AutoExpreso user’s obligation to hold the corresponding tag or payment device, to register it, to have sufficient balance in their account and to travel at the speed set for the AutoExpreso lane they are using.” That is four duties, not one. Having the tag stuck on is not enough if it is not registered, and having balance is not enough if you go faster than that lane allows.

2. 2

   Step 2: The tag has come deactivated since 2019

   This is the part that catches out anyone who buys a tag and drives on. “From 1 January 2019 all AutoExpreso tags or payment devices shall be sold deactivated. Once acquired by the user, it shall be their obligation to activate and register it as provided above.” Buying it is not using it: you must activate and register it. Registration may be done by telephone, electronically, in person or any other way the Secretary establishes.

3. 3

   Step 3: A deactivated tag is the same as no tag

   Sub-subsection (i) gives the Secretary the power to deactivate unregistered tags, and requires adequate notice to the user of the action taken. Then comes the sentence that decides your wallet: “Travelling with a deactivated tag shall be equivalent to travelling with no tag.” That is, a hundred dollars. The good news is in the same line: “If the Secretary deactivates a tag, any balance shall be frozen and may be used once the tag is later registered and reactivated.” The money is not lost, it is frozen.

4. 4

   Step 4: A hundred dollars for the lane, fifteen for the rest

   The Act separates the two sanctions and they are worth not confusing. Using the Auto Expreso lane without the tag is an administrative fault “punished with a fine of one hundred (100) dollars”, and it sits in subsection 1(b) itself. Everything else in the article — subsection (2) — is an administrative fault “punished with a fine of fifteen (15) dollars for each infraction plus payment of the unpaid toll corresponding to each infraction”. Fifteen dollars per infraction, and the toll separately. Article 22.08 closes the chapter saying that, save where a different amount is set, breaches of Chapter XXII and of the Secretary’s motorway regulations are administrative faults of a hundred dollars, and speed-related ones go under Chapter V.

5. 5

   Step 5: They may not charge you extra fees

   Subsection (3) is a short line worth a whole paragraph: “Neither the Highways Authority nor any natural or legal person representing it or authorised by it may charge additional charges of any nature beyond those established here, related to the use of tolls and the Auto Expreso system.” The prohibition covers both the Authority and whoever operates the system on its behalf under contract.

6. 6

   Step 6: If the car is financed or rented

   Subsection (4) solves a real problem. Where the vehicles used to commit the violations are under financial-lease, daily-rental or retail-instalment contracts, “the fines to be imposed shall not constitute a lien on the title of the vehicles with which the infraction was committed, nor a bar to transferring that title or to transferring or releasing the plate registered with that vehicle”. In those cases the fines are adjudicated to the identity records of the owner of the certified driver’s vehicle and/or of the AutoExpreso user in whose name the tag adhered to the vehicle is registered.

7. 7

   Step 7: Ambulances, fire engines and military convoys

   Subsection (5) authorises use of the duly identified Auto Expreso lane, in emergencies, by fire-extinguishing, rescue and salvage and emergency-response vehicles; by duly identified official vehicles of the General Court of Justice, provided they are transporting inmates; by ambulances of the municipal, state and federal governments when responding to an emergency call; and by military convoys of the Armed Forces, including National Guard units, during periods of mobilisation or state emergency declared by the Governor of Puerto Rico or the President of the United States. The Secretary sets, with the agencies concerned, a special tariff for these cases “which must not be greater than the operational expenses the Authority incurs for the use of the toll”, regulates it, and designates an Auto Expreso lane for the exclusive use of those vehicles.

8. 8

   Step 8: And in a hurricane or earthquake, exempt

   Subsection (6) goes further than (5). The vehicles listed in (5) and emergency motor vehicles as defined in Article 1.106 — which we did not read — “shall be exempt from payment of tolls or AutoExpreso tariffs in all cases of emergency due to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural phenomena producing a state of national emergency and a disaster-zone declaration”. On three conditions: that they are duly marked, that the emergency and the declaration last, and that they are responding to that call, so declared by the Governor or the President. The Secretary of Transportation and Public Works grants a seal identifying those vehicles as exempt as they pass the stations.

9. 9

   Step 9: What the government owes you

   The last two subsections are duties of the State, not of the driver, and that is why almost nobody claims them. (7) requires the Department of Transportation and Public Works, with the Highways and Transportation Authority and the motorway concessionaire where applicable, to install “in a visible place and before the toll, a sign stating the maximum speed set at the toll plazas and in the Auto Expreso lanes as well as the cost of that toll”. (8) requires them to install and maintain a system letting users know whether they have low balance at each toll station — “at least one traffic-light-type notice, and of any other kind” — and to notify electronically the vehicle titleholder registered in the automated system.

The toll is paid at each toll station on the motorways, and through the electronic AutoExpreso system where the station is equipped with it. The tag is registered by telephone, electronically, in person or any other way the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works establishes. The Act publishes no addresses, phone numbers or specific portal in this article, and we read none, so we do not invent them here. An AutoExpreso fine is challenged through the Article 23.08 procedure, which is in the camera-fines guide.

• Buying the AutoExpreso tag and driving off without activating and registering it: since 1 January 2019 they are sold deactivated.
• Believing a deactivated tag is good for anything: the Act says travelling with a deactivated tag is equivalent to travelling with none, and that is a hundred dollars.
• Thinking that deactivating the tag loses the balance: the Act says it is frozen and may be used once the tag is registered and reactivated.
• Confusing the two fines: a hundred dollars is only for using the AutoExpreso lane without a tag; other breaches of the article are fifteen per infraction plus the toll.
• Forgetting the unpaid toll is charged on top of the fifteen-dollar fine, not instead of it.
• Accepting additional charges for using the toll or AutoExpreso: subsection (3) expressly prohibits them, including for whoever operates the system under contract.
• Believing an AutoExpreso fine blocks transferring a financed or rented car: subsection (4) says exactly the opposite.
• Slipping into the AutoExpreso emergency lane: the Secretary designates it for the exclusive use of vehicles responding to an emergency or rescue or transporting inmates.
• Not keeping your address and contact information current in the registry: the Act makes it the titleholder’s responsibility, and that is where notices go.
• Ignoring the low-balance warning: the Act requires a traffic-light-type notice at the stations precisely so you see it before you pass.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP)

  DTOP

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov