More than 370,000 vehicles were reported as repeat offenders for failing to pay highway tolls at least 20 times last year, marking an 80% increase over three years. Nearly half of all unpaid tolls originated from these habitual offenders.
According to data submitted by the Korea Expressway Corporation to Jeong Jong-tae, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, the number of vehicles that failed to pay tolls 20 or more times rose from 210,000 in 2022 to 374,000 last year, a 78.1% increase.
The amount of unpaid tolls from repeat offenders also surged from 22.2 billion won to 42.9 billion won during the same period, a 93.2% increase.
Last year, the total number of unpaid highway tolls reached 38.5 million. Of these, 17.4 million, or 45.1%, were attributed to vehicles that failed to pay tolls 20 or more times. This means that approximately 4.5 out of every 10 unpaid tolls came from repeat offenders.
Some individual vehicles have been identified as having failed to pay tolls thousands of times. The vehicle with the highest number of unpaid tolls recorded 3,550 instances of non-payment since July 2022, amounting to 14.59 million won. After measures including vehicle and bank account seizures and criminal charges, 2,550 instances and 10.3 million won were recovered, but 1,000 instances and 4.29 million won remain unpaid.
The second-highest offender has not paid tolls 3,168 times since August 2021, totaling 9.92 million won. This vehicle has also faced seizure and criminal charges.
Overall, unpaid tolls are on the rise. The number of unpaid instances increased from 25.3 million in 2022 to 38.5 million last year, a 52.4% rise. The total amount of unpaid tolls also grew from 65.59 billion won to 99.44 billion won, a 51.6% increase.
The Korea Expressway Corporation is actively pursuing notifications, collections, and enforced recovery of unpaid tolls, noting that the collection rate reaches about 94% after approximately five years. However, the increasing number of repeat offenders and the total amount of unpaid tolls have raised concerns about the need to address habitual non-payment early.
With the expansion of Hi-Pass usage and the normalization of non-stop tolling, it is essential to quickly resolve simple errors in payments while increasing collection efforts for intentional repeat offenders from the outset.
Jeong stated, "To ensure fairness for citizens who diligently pay their tolls, we must reduce the situation where hundreds or thousands of unpaid instances accumulate. We need to promptly address and resolve non-payments due to device errors or simple mistakes, while implementing effective collection measures for habitual evaders from the early stages."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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