After a miserable travel day complete with a two hour flight delay and car problems (albeit minor but still stressful) on the way to the airport in the pouring rain, we arrived in Dallas for a funeral. Had no ideas there were toll roads on our path or that Google maps would send us that way, and didn’t know where the hell we were anyway so not like we were going to try to change our route on the spur of the moment in the dark. I wasn’t overly concerned figuring TX had an online pay-after-the-fact like California does, but I find nothing when I Google that gives me any hope I can pay before we are hit with fines, that then are quadrupled when the rental car company hits our credit card. If anyone has a suggestion for us scofflaws, we’d love to here it. P. S. The hotel clerk showed me how to find “avoid toll roads” on her phone, but I couldn’t duplicate it while trying to later in our room.
Your situation was what many people encounter after having rented a car without having that state's toll system transponder. Which potentially allows some rental car companies to happily hit you with all manner of extra fees.
First of all, in response to your Google Maps question, you hit the icon in the upper right corner. Then, hit "settings" followed by "Navigation Settings" (which you'll have to scroll down to find). Then "Avoid tolls" as one of the "Route options".
But "avoiding tolls" should only be done if your car rental company may not already have a transponder in the vehicle and require you to use it (which is the case with many of the larger car rental companies which make their transponder part of your overall charge). If your car already comes with a Hertz, etc. transponder, you WANT to use the toll roads because they're usually relatively inexpensive and oftentimes save you a significant amount of time and are perhaps even cheaper once you figure in the greater amount of gas you'll have to buy to use non-toll roads.
"What about my car rental company wanting to charge me $10 per day for their transponder and giving me the option not to. And my trip is only going to be a short trip and I know where all toll roads are and I can easily bypass them", you may ask. Then, I would agree that perhaps it would be cheaper if you avoided tolls instead. But only under those circumstances.
Here's what second tier car rental companies do as part of their overall business plan: (1) advertise the lowest cost by far relative to other companies but then (2) inform you at the counter that you can choose to not pay their $10 per day for their transponder ("so you'll never have to worry about tolls!") but you'll be charged a $10 penalty plus the toll for each instance of going past a toll collection point without paying the toll such that the car rental company gets a "Pay By Plate" bill. If you accept their transponder, great for them as they earn a significantly greater amount of money from you. If you don't accept their transponder thinking you'll simply not enter into any clearly defined toll road, great for them as well in that you'll invariably do so, perhaps without recognizing you've done so or perhaps you had no other option, and "cha-ching" for them.
So what's your best strategy?
1) Determine through a few minutes Internet search what your destination state's toll system might be.
2) If your home state is part of that same multistate toll system, take your transponder on your trip with plans to leave it above the dashboard or affix it on the windshield somehow.
But what if your home state is not on the same multistate toll system or it is but you don't have a transponder at all, what then?
Call the state's toll system and ask how you can get a transponder. You don't have to live in a state to get a state's transponder. Just have enough time to get one mailed to you and/or get it from some retail location after getting to the state (presumably after using "avoid tolls" until you can get the transponder).
In fact, many people don't know you can get another state's transponder if they live in another state. For example, EZ-Pass is the multistate toll system accepted throughout the entire East coast and even in states like Minnesota. So you can do some comparison shopping to determine what might work out cheapest for you. If you live in Maryland, they charge you an upfront fee for the transponder plus charge you a monthly subscription fee. But in Massachusetts, they charge neither a fee for the transponder (it's free) nor any monthly fee. The fact that most every Marylander buys their transponder from Maryland E-Z pass is a sure sign that people simply don't know they'd be better off getting one via Massachusetts.
And once you get that Massachusetts EZ-Pass, you can travel through Florida (nowadays, anyway, as Florida only recently started accepting EZ-Pass) and never worry about tolls.
