Some of the municipalities have that for an appeal process requirement. If you want to question or force them to prove your guilt, they make you put the money up front, but if you are guilty they will accept payments with an added fee, of course. There were a few laws that applied to that challenge fee that took effect on the first of the year but I don't know if it applies state-wide or not as I would have to research it or look it up.
The same thing is done with the toll-road I-Pass, and if you have one they make you put a credit or debit card number up for access to it, and if the transaction doesn't go through they take a long time to notify people, which by then the late fees and penalties are often times in the hundreds of dollars.
They seem to be working towards a toll system without any human participation, and all the tolls will be collected or charged electronically. The only time we use any toll roads is on a bus going into the city, and we don't have an I-Pass, or intend on ever having one. The roads aren't much better than any others and you already pay for the upkeep in motor fuel taxes, and we don't see the value in paying twice for the same thing. That doesn't even include the notion that some of those toll roads have been sold off to foreign companies too.
