New Jersey Turnpike is The Absolute Worst!

Yesterday, as I was driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, my serpentine belt broke. Thankfully, It happened right before a service area and I was able to pull in and not be stranded on the side of the road. I wanted to be back in the office for the day, but life had other plans. I called AAA so that I could be towed to a mechanic and that's when the fun really started.

AAA is apparently not allowed to come on the Turnpike. That seems silly, but I'm not in Florida anymore. This is New Jersey and I'm going to run into a lot of silly issues like this. Once I called the Turnpike Service number, It didn't take long for the tow truck to arrive and take me off the Turnpike. That truck dropped me off in a strip mall parking lot and then I waited about 45 minutes for AAA to arrive and tow me the additional 1.1 miles to Pep Boys. The AAA driver told me that AAA would reimburse me the $160 I had to pay for the tow off the turnpike, so I'm not out any money. I just chalk it up to a silly inconvenience and I'm thankful the mechanics were able to fix it that day and I wasn't stuck for a night. That should be the end of the story. The New Jersey Turnpike disagreed.

It apparently doesn't matter that what I said was the truth. It made the Turnpike look bad and we can't have that happening. The Turnpike decided to play a semantics game with me and claim that AAA actually was allowed. 

They made a solid first move by offering condolences for my troubles and then BOOM, oh and by the way, you're wrong.

I've never dealt with breaking down on the turnpike before, so this was disappointing to hear. Was it possible that the AAA agent was wrong when they told me they couldn't send a truck to get me? Detective Duggs was on the case!

Obviously, I didn't think anyone purposefully lied to me, but the tweet from the Turnpike only moments later changed my mind.

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The ellipsis alone was enough to make me question the Turnpikes tone, but the hedging language they used had me questioning their integrity. Did the Turnpike really believe a AAA agent would be mistaken about such a thing? Did they also believe the two tow truck drivers somehow made the same mistake even though both talked to me about the policy? I find that highly unlikely.

The next tweet confirmed my suspicion. The Turnpike was using semantics to make it appear I was wrong about them having a stupid policy. I bet they aren't even actually sorry about my car troubles. 

We weren't done yet though. Someone in the comments, Tom Feeney, was being way too supportive of the Turnpike. That name looked awfully familiar. Where had I seen that name? And then it hit me. This guys name was all over the turnpike media relations pages. The guy running the Turnpike social media was then using his personal account to backup the Turnpike account and claim it was in the right.

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This was just a completely negative and unnecessary interaction with a New Jersey service. I've never been gaslit before and this seriously made me question myself, but I'm not the asshole, not this time at least.

As always, I'm thankful for the support from my fellow Units.

Somehow, the Turnpike (Tom Feeney) was still trying to play semantics with me. That or they just don't get it, which may be the case as this interaction was concluded with them stating exactly what I did in my original video. AAA is not allowed on the NJ Turnpike.

What started out as a funny tweet laughing about making content with Frank, who is NJ Transit Enemy #1, has turned into reality. Consider NJ Turnpike INCOMPETENT as well. Frank has the trains and Duggs has the roads. Let's Roll!