EVERYONE MUST PAY: Mailing Out Bills To Collect A Ten Cent Toll.

If you’ve been traveling the Sakonnet River Bridge regularly without an E-ZPass account, or if you’ve crossed it without your transponder in place, you can expect to get a bill in the mail soon.

The Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority this week enacted a policy to collect the 10-cent toll from drivers without a transponder mounted in their car. The toll went into effect Aug. 19.

Those with E-ZPass transponders had the toll automatically deducted from their accounts. The overhead gantry at the Portsmouth end of the bridge has photographed the license plates of the cars crossing without a transponder, but because of the low toll, the authority has not billed those drivers.

That is going to change.

The authority is set to review the 750,000 license plate images collected since Aug. 19, and will be mailing bills to any driver who has crossed the bridge at least 25 times, Chairman David A. Darlington said. He expects about half those drivers have an E-ZPass account, he said, and the toll will be deducted from that account.

This will go smoothly, I’m sure.