Friday 5 December 2014

Dartford Crossing

Yes, many of us will have been in this situation....
Image from Google Street View
But things should be improving...

After talking to Jean and Nick yesterday and discovering they were unaware of the changes to the Dartford Crossing payment system we thought it would be a good idea to include it as a blog post.

As from last Sunday you now can no longer pay by cash... It is all being done on number plate recognition, the same as the London congestion charge.

And if you don't pay by midnight the day after you use the crossing there is a £70 fixed penalty.... Ahhhh. The other Ahhhh is that they have increased the charge for a car from £2:00 to £2:50.

You can, as we have done, open an online account and place a £10 deposit for future use. The link is here.

You also have the choice to make this auto renewable, which we have done!! There is NO WAY we want a £70 fixed penalty after all it's the cost of an awful lot of crossings if you forget!!!

I am not sure if they let you know by email when you are charged but we will soon find out when we return to the UK for Christmas!

Hope you have found this useful as from what we have seen it has not been widely publicised!

3 comments:

GaynorB said...

Thanks for the reminder. Like you I think we'll make a payment on account.

Jean said...

We're so glad you let us know about this as we could easily have come unstuck and ended up with a hefty fine.

The thing that annoys us is how do they charge all the foreign vehicles, the hundreds that pass through every day?
The cynical part of me makes me wonder if the price has gone up for the British vehicles to compensate for the charges they can't collect from the foreigners. I wonder why they didn't go for card payment tolls like there are in France, which are fairer because everyone has to pay.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

We agree.