It’s only natural to look for ways to save money. After all, our inclination is to ensure the pennies remain firmly in our possession at all costs.
One such example of an everyday but often excessive money-saving measure is the strategy of purposely avoiding toll roads in order to sidestep the minimal toll payment.
This only leads us into a false sense of financial satisfaction as your fuel usage escalates with every extra mile you travel and your seemingly money-saving detour, ends up becoming more costly in the long-term.
The diversion may seem logical and shrewd but in the greater scheme of things, it’s a time consuming and costly move.
Recently, the introduction of a toll on the A14 in England wasn’t well received. Motorists who refuse to fork out the couple of coins embark on a thirty-mile detour in order to dodge the charge.
In an attempt to assess the level at which Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) are diverting due to motorway tolls, the National Roads Authority in coordination with Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, have lifted all tolls for HGVs on four Irish motorways for the month of November.
As well as being beneficial for hauliers, this initiative will no doubt underline the vast amount of drivers who go the extra mile, literally, to dodge the toll.
Varadkar admitted he wanted to see if the lifting of the tolls along four of the countries busiest roads would significantly increase the amount of trucks using them and therefore reduce the traffic on regional roads.
In truth, official confirmation will only tell us something we already know. But the question is, why do so many drivers opt to detour, often clocking up extra miles and adding to their journey time, instead of utilising the infrastructure in place? These motorways are built to make their journeys efficient and economical.
Instead, fuel usage and costs are increasing for the haulage company, perhaps obliviously to the supposedly frugal driver. The uncomplicated reason for avoiding tolls is simple economy - tolls cost money and it’s human nature to save it where possible. However, it’s a short-sighted strategy which, in reality, ends up costing the driver time and money.
