Meet Thomas Jensen. The state that boasts “Live Free Or Die” jailed him for three days for trying to pay a fifty-cent toll with two tokens. Jensen believes the tokens represent a contract with New Hampshire that was illegally violated last January when the state began exclusively using E-Z Pass. A toll worker refused to accept the tokens and directed Jensen to a state tropper, who issued a citation for theft of services. A judge gave Jensen three choices: pay a $150 fine, perform community service, or spend three days in jail. Jensen chose jail.
Jensen never told his wife he was in jail. Beverly Jensen said she only found out when asked by a television news reporter.After being set free Thursday, Jensen said he’s considering a lawsuit. He said the state should just accept tokens until they’re all used up.
”I just get offended by people trying to do me wrong,” he said. ”They stole the value of these tokens from me.”
Braintree man jailed over 50¢ [The Patriot Ledger]
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now that he’s out, he should go down to the retirement center, distribute his entire token collection to everyone on bingo nite & they should plan a convoy of mass protest. new hampshire could see its first overcrowding jail over 50 cent tolls. HA!
& a big congratulations to the officer that proves yet again that the new hampshire state police are the best douchebags around. *golf clap*
Im from NH and I was wondering when I saw this story if it might end up here. Just a few facts some of which have already been stated:
When tokens were sold you got a 50% discount on them, and you could buy as many or few at a time as you wanted.
They were interchangeable with Funspot tokens (huge arcade with mostly vintage arcade games)
Gift cards sold in NH are required by law to never expire (I was wondering about this angle because you could use the argument that the token is in fact a “gift card” of sorts.)
There was no token buy back program.
There are actually some businesses that will let you use tokens to buy from them. One I know of is The cool moose creamery (ice cream and candy) in Concord NH
At some tolls the attendant leave after 10 o clock at night and one of them doesn’t have a sign stating that it is unattended until after you’ve exited the interstate. So I’m not sure what happens when ppl don’t have the change to pay the toll on that one.
@mac-phisto: “NH could see its first overcrowding of jails over 50 cent tolls” Actually just a few weeks ago a bunch of ppl in a town that has toll booths into and out of it had a protest and paid their tolls all in pennies. Think a few ppl got ticketed for something or other.
Killavanilla:
“Good for you. Way to be an example for your grandkids. Lesson learned – if you don’t like something, act like an ass about it even if it means having to spend three days in a stinky, sweaty jail with rapists, burglers, muggers, and petty criminals. What fun!”
Way to be an example for his grandkids indeed. When you see an injustice, you stand up for your principles and take the consequences. It’s hard to think of a better lesson.
Toll token purchases made in rolls had been discounted by half. You would purchase a 10 dollar roll of token for 5 dollars. So, he spent 3 nights in jail for 25 cents. The big travesty of the New Hampshire toll system is that I live in the only town in the country that requires me to pay a toll no matter where I get on the public highway system. It is more of a pain than this gentleman has to pay 50 ce(oops) 25 cents for his trip up from Massachusettes. I pay on average of 43 cents per mile of travel on the system where the other drivers pay 4 cents per mile. No that to me is more unfair than a lousy 25 cent token.
Gee, I hope when I’m 68 I’ll have time to show the system what they can’t get away with and probably PO my wife in the process. Ah another genius got his 15 minutes of fame.
New Hampshire — 1
Thomas Jensen — 0
@Buckler:
You may think that was the lesson, but I assure you the lesson was NOT that you should stand up for your beliefs.
The lesson was that if you don’t like something, it’s okay to break the law.
Had he taken this to the governor and made a public stink about it in the media, then I’d agree with you.
But here’s what happened:
This decision was made in January. He didn’t like it, so he decided to use them until no one would accept it anymore. When that happened, the tollway worker told him he has to pay the 50 cents in cash. When he refused, he was directed to a state tropper (who has better things to do than argue with an old man about 50 cents) who informed him that non-payment amounts to theft of services (this toll road is a pay-per-use roadway). He refused. He was charged and told to either pay a $150 fine or go to jail for three days.
The lesson he taught wasn’t to stand up for your rights, but that stealing is okay if you think you have a good reason.
He also taught the lesson that if you do get put in jail, you don’t have to let anyone know about it until you get out.
Yes, you are allowed one phone call after arrest (that would have been a good time to call his wife), but according to state law [www.nh.gov]
prisoners can make phone calls collect. All he needed to do was request to make one and they would have allowed it.
So much speculation here without knowledge. It’s no wonder that most folks around here read one side of the story and make assumptive leaps in defense of the person.
Bottom line – this guy wasted 3 days of his life over 50 cents that could have been used to actually change things. he chose, instead, to rot for 3 days behind bars and waste tax payer money.
Did it occur to anyone that maybe he didn’t even have the fifty cents to pay the toll. According to azntg the man isn’t a resident of NH. It is possible that he didn’t have any change on him because he was expecting his tokens to work.
Furthermore, I doubt he requested a trial because he expected to lose so it is incorrect to say that he chose jail time. He chose to fight the citation and lost, that’s all.
@pinkbunnyslippers: Not necessarily.
He paid no $150 fine… Hell, he didn’t even pay the toll as far as the State’s concerned.
Good for him for having principles. You obviously disagree, but still… he didn’t pay a fine.
@persch5: That’s really crappy, not being able to avoid toll roads. Why the hell would anyone pay an average of $.43/mile to drive anywhere in New England? I grew up there & I cannot tell you how happy I am I no longer live there.
@thepounder: uh, new toll roads popping up? the only tolls in MA have been there since the stone age.
it’s sorta sad that people are jumping on this guy for being an ass. he’s standing up for what he beleives in, and NH is supposed to be the live free or die state. i lost out on a couple bucks’ worth of tokens because i stopped dating a guy from NH with a whole roll of tokens left. *shakes fist*
@killavanilla: Good Lord, you’re still arguing over this?
You have no footing to say “what lesson he taught”… that’s up for interpretation.
“he chose, instead, to rot for 3 days behind bars and waste tax payer money.” Wow… just wow. Now you’re being just plain cuckoo.
Apologies in advance if this comes across as pompous, but I feel like this flame war, er, thread, is lacking a bit in empathy? I think this guys’ values are different, and that’s just a difference.
I mean, yeah, give me a choice between paying $.50 and three days in lockup, I’ll probably submit to the brutality of the state there and pay my $.50. But that’s because of my particular set of values. I value my limited freedom over submitting to occasional extortion. But maybe this guy doesn’t?
I am reminded of Walter Sobchak:
Granted, I’m drawing similarities to a ridiculous character, but my point is this guy clearly has some different values than most of us, and his protest is not entirely without merit. To him, it’s very important that when the state takes your money, they do what they promised to do with it. Going to jail for this principle has some merit, too – it illustrates nicely how oppressive the state is willing to be in order to be infallible. It’s a two-way street, after all – “he went to jail over $.50,” but from another perspective, “New Hampshire jailed him over $.50.” The latter seems even more ridiculous to me.
As for those who say he would do better to submit and then raise a fuss later – I would defy you to get the kind of media interest and public awareness this guy has gotten in three days without going to jail. Writing letters to your legislators would not be nearly as effective.
New Hampshire is wrong here. And even if the damages are negligible, to some people the principle is very important when dealing with government. Working in government, which I realize is a very human institution, I don’t always agree. But inasmuch as government sometimes presents itself as super-human, I understand his point.
@thepounder: “but at least he didn’t pay a fine”
You’re right – if I had the choice of paying 50 cents or 3 days in the clink, I’d choose the 3 day sentence. And then I’d get out and laugh in the face of the system and say “boy, I sure showed you! You didn’t get a DIME from me!!” And then, after I came down from my cloud of victory, I’d probably begin to realize that I just valued 3 days of my own life at a staggering price of just 50 cents. But hey – at least I didn’t pay a fine!
Listen, I admire and respect people who stand up for what they believe in, but there’s a diminishing return effect in situations like this. But that’s just my opinion, and he obviously values other things less (or more, depending on the way you look at it) than I do. I don’t look at him as “wasting his time” rotting behind bars like others here might, only because that’s how he values his time and his beliefs. So all the power to him.
*massive eyeroll*
@thepounder:
First of all, I wasn’t aware that we weren’t allowed to discuss posts after we respond a few times.
Second of all, it is a total waste of taxpayer money to jail some retiree to recouperate a debt. It is necessary, but only because oldy mccheapers decided not to float the 50 cents. Yes, it seems odd to think about, but the state has now experienced a NET LOSS. 50 cents, then three days of housing, feeding, and caring for some old guy who has never heard of the phrase “we live to fight another day” as in “I’ll pay the 50 cents, then raise hell later.”
Now he’s considering suing, which also costs tax payer money and floods the overworked court system with yet another stupid docket number.
I’m sorry you don’t ‘get’ that, but when we put people in jail, it costs taxpayer dollars to feed him, keep him safe, give him shower time, and clean up after him.
Again, all this over a fifty cent toll…
what blows my mind is that many people STILL don’t understand that what he did was stupid, unnecessary, and completely irresponsible.
@pinkbunnyslippers:
RTFA. The fine would have been $150.
@sporesdeezeez:
for the record, New Hampshire didn’t jail him over 50 cents. They jailed him in lieu of his desire to not pay a $150 fine for theft of services.
If you use the tollway, you HAVE to pay. Period. He didn’t like it, so he tried to use tokens that were no longer valid.
Going to jail didn’t buy him any sympathy from the state either. He did the wrong thing. It’s quite simple really. He was told that his tollway usage costs 50 cents. He wanted to use tokens that expired 9 months ago.
To me, it sounds like he WANTED to go to jail.
I live in New Hampshire. This issue of the toll tokens’ expiring was annoyingly well-publicized. The state does NOT exclusively use EZ-Pass. They also happily accept cash. My wife and I have never gotten an EZ-Pass and had lots of tokens when this was first announced. IIRC, we had a FULL YEAR to use up our tokens and had no difficulty doing so. There was a small advantage to purchasing tokens in that if they were purchased in full rolls you got more than you would have in a roll of quarters, so this is NOT the same as a gift certificate. It’s more like futures. There were people who would have been happy to buy my tokens for slightly less than face value but at least what I paid for them. This guy is just trying to make a point. That’s the New Hampshire way, and more power to him. He just gets no sympathy from me whatsoever.
Ahem. A break from the fight for a minute…
What if you are from out of state and are passing through? Surely, there’s some way to account for those people.
You know who else from Massachusetts spent time in jail for not paying their tax?
[en.wikipedia.org]
@Buran: Excellent point! Like mstevens pointed to above, they accept cash too.
I think I’m going to take a trip to New Hampshire and see if I can pay with Monopoly Money. Because effectually, that’s just what this guy did.
@killavanilla: you might be the one missing the point, even though you seem to understand it completely. the goal of this type of direct action is to cost the state a whole load of money so they realize (in the only way they understand – $$$) how ridiculous their policy is. in this, he seems to have succeeded. he probably cost the state $1000. as you pointed out, a lawsuit will set them back more. seems pretty successful to me.
whether or not you think it was a good decision is irrelevant – it wasn’t your decision to make.
@mac-phisto:
perhaps, but that’s as ridiculous as any other excuse.
See, it may have cost the state money to jail him (which I find upsetting because ultimately that means that TAXPAYERS get hurt, not the state), but it also cost him three days of freedom.
Now, I can’t judge based on his life, but MY time is worth more than the state has to spend for me to be in jail.
If it cost the state $1000 (that means it cost taxpayers $1000, not the state), that would roughly pay for one day of profit I earn for my company, making it still a loss for me.
Time is valuable. He didn’t “get” the state and it won’t hurt them, even if he sues and wins (which he wont). why? Because states are taxpayer funded. meaning every dollar the state spent on him being in jail came from taxpayers. So all he really did was hurt his fellow taxpayers (including himself).
You are right. It doesn’t really matter what I think about his decision. But it sure makes for an interesting discussion.
@killavanilla:
No. I’m sure that seems very true from your rhetorical perspective, but legally speaking that is not a fact. That would be true if he had been jailed for contempt. He was jailed, as you seem to understand, under the criminal penalties for the charge of theft of services. Value of said services? Fifty cents.
Even from the perspective you’re taking on this, your statement is false by omission. He also had the option to do community service. So they “jailed him in lieu of community service or in lieu of his failure to pay a $150 fine.” Ridiculous sentence, I agree, but who cares, because it’s incorrect anyway.
Well, isn’t his point that he already paid? Indeed, without going into a full-blown contract law analysis (impossible, facts are too scarce) he does have at least one critical element identifying an enforcable contract: consideration.
@killavanilla: i appreciate your opinion – i wouldn’t have gone to jail for a toll. but then, i never paid a bullshit $70 ez-pass fine from the garden state 7 or 8 years ago (& luckily they never caught up to me – nah! nah! jersey). had they caught me, i would have buckled. but i already paid those bastards their 35 cents & all they had to prove i didn’t pay was a photo. “hi! this is your car so you owe us money.” f- you jersey.
sometimes, you have to cost the state (& ultimately other taxpayers) money to obtain justice.
personally, i like this guy’s methods better. check it out, it’s funny as hell:
[www.zug.com]
Kudos to this guy for sticking up for what is RIGHT. He paid for his tokens and the state should recognize that he already prepaid to use the highways. Everybody who’s mocking him for going to jail when he could have easily avoided by forking over a measly $0.50 is missing the point. He shouldn’t have to pay double just because he purchased in bulk from what the state offered at the time.
He stood up for what was right. It’s difficult to place blame but look what it’s costing society. Putting a man away for 3 days, negative publicity on police and judicial branch, and maybe $10 mill.
Seems like the government is more bent on trying to make this guy pay again.
@sporesdeezeez:
Consideration was for tokens, not tolls. The state, according to people who live there, made it painfully obvious that the token would cease to have value at a certain point well in advance. As a result, this gentleman tried to use expired tokens.
Yes, the state had received money in exchange for the tokens, but surely you have to agree that going to jail over it isn’t the most effective way of challenging the state. Simply put, an effective argument in the form of a class action could have been attempted. A protest would have worked better. Heck, contacting the governor would have likely resulted in a real solution.
And the argument about consideration may be moot anyway, as it would have been prudent for the state to include a clause specifying that token purchases are consideration for the tokens, which act as a discount over standard toll charges. One simple line in the purchase agreement likely ends this angle: “Tokens may be revoked at any time and for any reason. There is no implied guarantee of permanent value.”
No?
@jaewon223:
$10 million? Puh-leeze.
This guy barely has a case at all.
He’s not likely to file one and even less likely to win it.
He didn’t stand up for what is right, he stood up for what he thought was right. The state gave him reasonable notice. He didn’t like it.
I know this is unpopular around here, but in a situation like this the best course of action is to try and discuss it BEFORE going to jail. By all means, go to jail if you’ve already contacted the state and asked for relief. But as a first action? Seems like a total waste.
And when I read this, I didn’t think the state was at fault at all. I wondered about the sanity of a man who would go to jail for three days for refusing to pay a 50 cent toll.
The state gave him reasonable notice.
@killavanilla: You mean New Jersey ran ads in Massachusetts about the tokens expiring? Because I don’t see how he’d have been notified of it otherwise.
Excellent point! Like mstevens pointed to above, they accept cash too.
@pinkbunnyslippers: Why would he bring quarters with him if he was expecting tokens to work? He might not have had any cash on him at all.
@killavanilla: Would it have been less insane to pay $150 for not paying the toll twice or doing community service? It’s not like he could pay the toll after losing the trial.
@Rectilinear Propagation:
Well, no. I don’t mean the NEW HAMPSHIRE ads. He had a cottage in New Hampshire he’s been going to for years, with regularity.
And then there is this, from the original story:
“New Hampshire dropped its token system two years ago when it installed the Fast Pass system used in most Northeast states. The state gave drivers until Dec. 31, 2005, to use their 25-cent tokens.
In March of 2006, Jensen was driving to his cottage in Ossipee when he tried to pay the 50-cent fare at the Spaulding Turnpike’s Rochester toll plaza using two tokens, as he had been doing for years.
The toll booth worker refused to take them and a state trooper at the plaza gave Jensen a citation.
”(The trooper) said, ‘Just give him the 50 cents.’ I said, ‘I did, I gave him two tokens,”’ Jensen recalled while sitting on the steps outside his Messina Woods Drive home.
He never had to go to trial, nor did he have to get the citation. The trooper gave him his options.
Additionally, he had been traveling via that toll road for years on the way back and forth from and to his cottage.
Per consumerist reader MSTEVENS attested, they made it painfully and annoyingly clear that the tokens would expire. They gave plenty of reasonable notice. To me, this means this guy just chose to ignore it. He could have appealed for a refund at any point in the last 2 years.
Respectfully, I disagree with the notion that this was the best option.