Essentially the upkeep of the roads were the business of the Parish, and the Turnpikes allowed them to exact a toll on users of those roads in fit proportion to the wear. As the roads were muddy, rutted swamps in winter and just plain rough in summer, it was thought the toll would improve the roads. There were still complaints on some roads about the state of the road surfaces and much depended on the integrity of the trustees but for the most part the state of the roads did improve. However, it soon became evident that the size of vehicle was not the only factor in causing damage to road surfaces and Acts were introduced to charge tolls based on the weight of the load and occassionally weighing machines would be built by certain gates. This allowed a ticket to be provided indicating the weight of the vehicle which could then be produced each time a vehicle passed through a gate subsequently.
Cattle pay by the score, or by the herd, in some places more.
However they weren't universally popular people rioted against toll tax in 1726. The majority of the turnpike roads followed the ancient 'ridgeways' and have been continuously in use since pre-Roman times. These roads, which formed the principle coaching routes, were maintained to carry wheeled traffic by Turnpike Trusts who recovered the cost through the charging of tolls. Until 1815 only about 700 miles were maintained by the trusts - this out of the something around 6000 miles of roads for wheeled traffic in Devon at this time. But it paid to stay on the Turnpike roads for travelling off them was slow, uncomfortable and risky.