Grover got a $49 ticket, plus a $25 penalty, because she and her husband didn’t realize they were supposed to get off the highway and pay a $3 toll before crossing the bridge. The Grover family was on vacation in Washington and Oregon in late July.

“Could we have possibly driven through the toll booth without paying?” Grover wrote in an e-mail to The News Tribune. “It is not in our nature to drive through toll booths breaking the law! If there was a toll booth, we would have paid it. Are these toll bridges/booths clearly marked?”

They were marked, but apparently not well enough. At least not for out-of-state drivers and others who are not familiar with the Good To Go logo and the toll plaza.

Janet Matkin, spokeswoman for the Good To Go program, said five big signs have been erected along the seven-mile stretch between the Burnham interchange and the bridge to clarify the need to exit at the toll plaza.

“A number of drivers who received citations claimed they were confused about the existing signage and did not understand that they were supposed to exit at the toll plaza,” Matkin said.

The new signs read:

TOLL PLAZA

EXIT 8

ALL VEHICLES USE TOLL PLAZA

EXCEPT Good to Go! PRE-PAID PASS

Linda Bell, civil division manager for Pierce County District Court, said she didn’t have exact numbers for drivers who were confused by the signs, but it was a lot.

More than 51,000 tickets have been issued since the State Patrol started enforcing the toll violations on the bridge July 22, she said.

About 18 percent of those drivers appealed their citations. Many said they didn’t realize they had to stop to pay a toll, Bell said.

“Even people who sent their (fine) money in also sent a letter saying they were confused by the signs,” Bell said.

Court workers collected a bunch of the letters and sent copies to the state Department of Transportation and its Good To Go program, she said.

Those letters and direct feedback from bridge users is why the signs were added, Matkin said.

Grover, her husband, son and daughter crossed the new bridge July 28. They had dinner in Gig Harbor and were headed across the bridge to get to Kent, she said last week.

Grover said she’s familiar with the concept of transponders because they have an Easy Pass to drive on the toll roads on the East Coast. But she wasn’t familiar with the Good To Go logo, she said.

Coincidentally, TransCore, the private company that collects tolls on the Narrows Bridge, also collects tolls for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

Grover said she wasn’t aware she had been ticketed until earlier this month because her family was using a rental car. Budget Rent-a-Car sent her a letter saying her credit card had been charged $74: That’s $49 for the toll violation ticket and a $25 penalty assessed by the court for not paying within 60 days, she said.

“The vacation cost me $6,000,” she said. “I would have paid the $3 toll if I’d known.”

Grover said her husband refers to their Washington trip as “the vacation that keeps on taking.” The airline lost her luggage. Her husband got a speeding ticket in Redmond. And they got the bridge fine.

Even so, she said, they’d visit Washington and Oregon again because of all the states have to offer: Mount St. Helens, the Columbia River, Portland, Crater Lake, Olympic National Park, dune buggies in Florence, a Mariners game in Seattle.

“It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit,” she said. “I’d do it again.”

And next time, the bridge signs will be better.

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436

joe.turner@thenewstribune.com