Gas tax on miles, not gallons, tested

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=3dcbc36b06669ad2

Oregon is testing the idea of collecting highway funds through a tax on miles driven, rather than gasoline consumed.

Eighty percent of Oregon's highway money comes from its 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax. If the state promotes reducing gasoline consumption and consumers tend to buy the fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrids, highway revenues would take a hit, The New York Times reported.

The test program uses a global positioning system to track miles driven, using a black box to calculate how many miles are clocked in-state, out of state and during rush hour.

The experiment is designed to increase state revenue for road maintenance without raising gasoline taxes, but critics say collecting GPS records poses new privacy issues.
more...

Wow talk about tracking you... that system has been proven to be wrong so many times... Stupid idea!!!

[Rainscents]

1. I wonder who is coming up with this shit?

[Frank Cannon]

22. Rich people with enormous shitwagon SUVs

Who think that it's just all so unfair that they should have to pay more in taxes when they fill up their gas-guzzling warthawg than the little guy driving the hybrid does.

[Lorien]

24. There it is

:thumbsup:

[thefool_wa]

35. Hummer's should be illegal

There is no reason I can think of for a private citizen to need an oversized vehicle that was designed for combat conditions and drinks gasoline like GW on the sauce.

Anyone who can afford one of those monstrocities and had the concieted tumerity to actually purchase one can not only afford the gas tax, but should be paying it. I have ZERO sympathy for them.

I laughed the day the E.L.F. burned down those Hummer dealers up here in the PNW. That's how you fight the power!

[Frank Cannon]

46. WTF purpose do Humvees even serve?

The back ends are so cramped (with or without the enormous spare tire packed in there), that you can't fit ANYTHING in them. Their centers of gravity are located just south of King Kong's Adam's apple, so high that even mild cornering tips them over (and how many of the Humvee mishaps that we hear about from Iraq involve rollovers?). They also SUCK as combat vehicles, with or without armor. So somebody please tell me, what the hell good are they?

About the ONLY thing I can see them being useful for is fording streams with perfectly flat bottoms. And how many people do that in this country on any given day?

[B3Nut]

51. Most Hummer owners buy the H2

which is an uglified Tahoe/Yukon-based atrocity. It isn't even as good a vehicle...at least the new '07 Tahoe can run on mostly-renewable E85 ethanol blend. The visibility is not all that great, which makes it an even more dangerous vehicle in the hands of Stepford wives or insecure white males. I can't help but feel seething contempt for anyone I see behind the wheel of one of those pieces of trash. I don't see many of the "real" Hummers (H1) on the road, many of those do have the diesel engine and could be powered with biodiesel, but I don't expect the average Hummer buyer to be that progressive or intelligent enough to go that route with it.

An even dumber Hummer is the new H3, which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado pickup chassis. It's severely underpowered (weak inline 6-cylinder) and the undersized engine has to work harder, guzzling even more gas than it would if they would have just put a V-8 in it. Motor Trend recently panned that vehicluar joke as extremely mediocre. Yet the insecure white males looking for phallic substitutes are buying them. Feh. There's no real-world average-user task the H3 can do that an Escape Hybrid or Kia Sportage or Honda CR-V can't do.

Todd in Beerbratistan, compact hatchback afficionado

[Javaman]

55. making up for a lack of self esteem, among other "things"...nt

[ladjf]

32. Oil companies. This is an attack on fuel saving vehicles. If

enacted all over the Country, the movement toward fuel efficiency would come to an abrupt halt. Why pay the extra expense for a hybrid car and then turn around and pay the same fuel tax as the large SUV's? Please America, you haven't gotten this dumb have you?

[MADem]

2. And my 1966 and 1989 vehicles, how does that work?

Must I buy a box so that the state can impinge upon my privacy?

What about shared vehicles? Does one person get stuck with the tax bill? How about if I get my car towed? Do both the tow truck and the car get socked with a bill?

This is amazingly stupid.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. What if the vehicle is on a trailer?

Like being towed it's moving but not being driven. This is common practice when you own a vintage or show vehicle. Even though many are seldom actually driven they can be transported thousands of miles a year from show to show.

[slaveplanet]

49. Here's how It works

and I'm not accusing anyone specific, but people have their facts all wrong in this thread when it comes to this issue.

THEY ARE NOT GOING TO END UP USING GPS except for cars that already come with it from the factory


The real plan

a)They will use embedded readers integrated directly in the road.
b)The RFID will be in the state registration sticker that you place on your license plate and renew yearly.
c) You will be billed monthly.
d) You will be fined monthly if you exceed the time vs distance between particular readers...points will be assigned for moving violations
e)RFID will also be in your realID, It will be illegal not to have it on you because there will also be a checkpoint function to the system.

Here are the specs from Government documentation soliciting vendors

a)RFID-capable of being read from 20 ft. @ a speed of 55mph, up to 55 person simultaneously for busses.
b)Reader- capable of reading from greater than 20ft, to specifications above. Capable of reading multiple vehicles simultaneously. Must be capable of being cast in concrete.


The real and horrifying elements of what's really going on here.

What they are not telling you about this, is they have already been putting in the infrastructure for this. They have done it quietly.
Articles like this one are just the announcement.

What's going on is, they plan on taking all the roads your grandparents already have paid for, the legitimate governmental authority that sits above the roads, the law enforcement and fining authority, and hand the whole lot over to their buddies and choice public/private organizations(PPO's) who will then have total regional authority over your movement. You will no longer have representation, and you won't be able to vote them out. They are working right now to change the law to allow for this in Ohio.

The king of Spain will be operating the new trans Texas corridor through his company Cintra, and many of the key free highways in Texas. This Oregon thing is much the same setup(although the GPS plan is a bit of misdirection), as well as the ones proposed in Ca, OH, IN(Cintra just won the contract for Indiana in mid March) and most of the east coast states.

They will hook into this a point system that will take into account all aspects of your life(yes, child payments and tax scofflaws and more), and use your license as hostage.
The tolls they're proposing begin @ $.15 a mile(multiply that by your MPG, for a per gallon price, mine works out to over $4 a gallon on top of the price of gas...right now fed excise is about $.50 a gallon), that does not include the price of gas and the included federal tax that won't be going away.

Texas is the initial testing ground, but other states are going forward at light speed.

In Texas, despite opinion polls 95% against and overflowing angry city council meetings, citizens ONLY narrowly defeated the proposal to start putting RFID in the registration stickers.

The crooks don't care, they are ignoring the defeat, they are going ahead with a pilot program and putting in the RFID in anyway.
and challenging the people to vote them out.




PS: the TransTexas corridor project has had a whistle-blower go public, and say the concrete mix was totally below spec and is already falling apart before completion. They are cutting the cost every way possible, and are using illegal labor.


People really need to get up to speed on this issue. They have no idea whats in store for them.

[Psephos]

56. Very interesting post n/t

[MADem]

58. Oh, great--that means the secondary roads will be clogged with

people who don't wanna pay these bills!

[slaveplanet]

60. I forgot to add

They plan on charging a bridge fee just to cross over or under these first toll roads. If you look at the Austin plan, It's laid out in a strategic plan so there will be no escaping the fees.
Eventually the secondary roads will also be tolled.

[MADem]

61. Time to get out the portable jet pack!!! Up, up and away! n/t

[AndyTiedye]

3. Oregon is Heavily Forested

GPS doesn't work very well in the forest.

[treegiver]

5. Road usage tax

The "miles driven tax" is supposed to be some sort of road usage tax, to pay for maintenance and improvements. If they were interested in doing anything besides sticking it to conservationists of various stripes, vehicle weight would figure into the equation somewhere, since heavier vehicles induce more road wear per mile driven.

Further, the proposed enforcement mechanism invites abuse of privacy rights.

So how about we leave the gas tax in place for now and make up the (hypothetically) missing 15% in highway funds by mandating GPS tracking for commercial vehicles only. That would remove most privacy concerns. And let's not forget to throw vehicle weight into the calculation.

[tech3149]

7. Welcome Aboard treegiver

Always great to see the community grow

[treegiver]

9. Thanks for the nod

I hope to be an asset.

[intheozone]

26. Nice post. Good ideas, welcome to the DU! nt

[thefool_wa]

37. Great Ideas

Commercial traffic is already pretty heavily monitored on US interstates. I wouldn't object at all.

Welcome to the DU!

[daleo]

45. I have read that road damage goes up as the cube of axle weight

I.e - double vehicle weight and road wear and tear goes up by a factor of eight.

You have a very good point there.

[sofa king]

52. That's a great idea, treegiver.

It occurs to me that law enforcement and Homeland Security types would love the idea of commercial vehicle tracking, too, since a commerical vehicle is required to transport the explosive power needed to level a building. And traffic police get another source of revenue, too.

However, it would also really piss off the trucking industry, which makes its bread and butter by keeping drivers on the road for days at a time and keeping maintenance to the bare minimum.

Welcome to DU!

[MissMillie]

53. I like the way you think.

Welcome to DU.

[tech3149]

6. A complete and total boondoggle

It will take many millions or billions to implement the system. How do you enforce out-of-state vehicles who don't have some sort of transponder installed? Most of those will be over the road truckers (who provide the greatest wear and tear). How do system implementation costs compare to the loss in revenue staying with the gas tax? Why not just bump the gas tax to make up the difference?

It never ceases to amaze me how willing people in positions of power are willing to find the hardest solution to a simple problem. I might not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but I'd never be dumb enough to even speak this idea in public.

KISS Principal..........Keep It Simple Stupid!!!!!!!!

[w4rma]

8. This program will be a total flop. It's easily hackable by anyone.

I can promise that if this is implemented a sizable portion of the population will never pay a tax on miles driven.

[rucky]

10. They'd need another tax to pay for all the GPS devices.

jeez louise

Auto insurance rates are based on miles driven, why don't they just tie the tax to what drivers tell their insurance companies? Sure, people will fudge, but the insurance companies already have mechanisms in place to prevent gross misreporting.

:shrug:

[Love Bug]

54. Better yet, report the odometer reading when renewing license plates

The "road usage tax" could be added to license plate renewal. The states would save money by using the existing bureaucracy in place for licensing.

[Karmakaze]

11. Clever!

I was wondering how they were going to punish people for getting better gas mileage cars! Now we know! The people really hurt by this will be the people who's vehicles get better mileage. A hummer for example may end up paying LESS road tax per mile driven than a hybrid. How exceedingly clever.

[wakeme2008]

13. Right Karmakaze...

When the US went on the stop smoking thing, the first thing the states saw was a drop in cigarette taxes, which they recovered by upping the tax on cigarettes which caused another drop in tax which they recovered by.........

[radfringe]

15. re: cigarette taxes

it really just encouraged alternative ways to get cheap cigarettes

-- buying from "out of state" stores, or out of the country

-- mail order from Native American outlets

-- rolling your own: average price for a carton in PA is between $35-$39. We roll our own: tobacco $9 (makes about 1 carton), box of tubes $1.50 (200 tubes) - so cost for a carton of cigarettes runs us $10.50 savings approx: $24-$28

[wakeme2008]

20. LOL radfringe,,, so ppl really use those cigarette papers and tubes for

tobacco.. who would have guess.... I better go :hide:

[wakeme2008]

12. Crazy,,, but a simple question does Oregon had yearly auto inspections

if so, take milage and send bill based on milage from last year... No costs for crazy electronics for each car.

[pitohui]

28. people would just roll back their odometers EOM

,

[thefool_wa]

36. That's already illegal in most states

However, they could install special odometers in the same way they are planning to install these GPS devices (i.e. black box). Hell, this is 2k6, they could black box it and put a small transmitter in there so all you have to do is drive up to the tax station and it reads it remotely.

[radfringe]

14. car rentals?

how will it work if you rent a car?

currently, rental car places require you to fill the tank before returning it or they charge you big time - so if you rent a car and drive through several states -- which one gets how much of the tax?

the only way to "divide" it up is if the GPS follows you and records it you entire trip

let's say you drive from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania -- you start in MA, go through CT, NY before entering PA -- which state gets the taxes?

Big Brother is not only watching you, he goes with you on road trips

[rfkrfk]

16. who made this decision?

these whores need to be made into internet celebrities.
get personal

I'm kinda tired of,

"pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain"

edit, speling

[NobleCynic]

17. Not feasible

Maintaining such a system would destroy any cost benefits it would provide through increased tax revenues. More over, gas tax revenues from truckers and tourists would disappear as well, further eroding the worth of the plan. Do this and overnight every trucker or commercial driver will register his vehicle out of state if at all possible. Privacy concerns aside, it is too uneconomic to actually be implemented.

[pitohui]

29. well it seems to be feasible in europe

thought they'd already started implementation of GPS tracking of vehicles in some parts of europe, such as great britain

like it or not, i doubt our programmers are really all that much stupid-er than european programmers

[NobleCynic]

40. Yeah, but there is little economic reason to remove them in Europe

If the GPS tracker is what your taxes become based on the incentive to remove or alter is introduced. Enforcement is problematic to say the least. Within a month you would see a black market rise specializing in the alteration of these trackers. A program like this has to be introduced nation wide all at once or not at all. Otherwise people, especially truckers, will register vehicles out of state. Federalism makes this an impractical proposal for Oregon. On the other hand Britain is a unitary system. If they're phasing GPS tracking in they're doing it nationwide, and not for tax purposes but security purposes. They have not phased out gas taxes for per mile taxes in Britain last time I checked.

[HereSince1628]

18. Anything that puts a GPS record of my movements in gov. hands

is a bad thing.

If they want highway tolls, which is what this actually amounts to, why not just put up the highway barriers and the collection devices?

[cornermouse]

19. And would they also be able to track the speed you're traveling

at? Gee, I wonder what they would do with that?

[ConcernedCanuk]

44. Actually many of the newer cars already do that, a factory item

.
.
.

That keeps a running memory of sumwhere about ten seconds or so.

There is a a time period that will be available to investigators for x amount of seconds before and after an airbag is deployed.

Gives them information as to what gear you were in, engine speed, vehicle speed, whether or not the brakes were applied before and/or after the accident(deployment of airbag) how long the brakes were held or number of times pumped, etc., etc.

Most interesting feature about this "black box"?

Most vehicle owners don't even know it's in there.

Surprised?

NOT

[MadHound]

21. Wow, this is some serious BS that I hope never spreads

Sorry, but taxing miles people travel penalizes those of us who have really efficient vehicles. I have a Bajaj scooter that gets 100 mpg. I have a round trip commute of fifty two miles a day, yet every other day I fill the tank with aprox 1.25 gal. So going by this tax scheme, I would be penalized for driving a fuel effecient vehicle further than my co-worker's Cadillac Escalade SUV. His round trip commute is around twenty miles, and he uses up two gallons of gas a day. Yet he would be paying less taxes:wtf: This surely isn't a program designed to promote conservation and fuel effecient vehicles:crazy: This is designed to put more money into the pocket of the government.

Oh, and yes, there is that huge issue of privacy. No way in hell am I putting a GPS unit on any vehicle of mine voluntarily.

Oregon is worried about losing revenues due to more fuel efficient vehicles on the road. One thing that they're not taking into consideration is that with lighter weight fuel efficient vehicles, there will be less wear and tear on the roads, hence there won't be as much money needed to take care of them, d'uh!

This is a horrible idea, and whoever came up with it is insane. It penalizes those who either can't afford to live in the urban areas, or those of us who choose not to. However it does nothing to promote fuel economy, rather it rewards those who are well off enough to live close to urban areas, no matter if they drive a Prius, or as more likely the case, an SUV. Crazy, just plain crazy.

[Lorien]

23. SUV and Hummer drivers would love this

Some Hummers only get six miles per gallon, so I'm sure that they're cheering this idea.

In BushCo's America, thou shalt not encourage less consumption of oil, regardless of whether it's peaking or how fast the planet is warming!

[Occulus]

25. I will learn how to disable these

and do it as often as I can.

I would suggest everyone else do the same.

[thefool_wa]

34. Hmmm

a crowbar should work nicely.

[Sgent]

27. I really don't see the problem

Raise the gas tax, sales tax on new vehicles, or include Gross Vehicle Weight as part of the road tax.

Raising the Gas Tax seems to be the most equitable -- it continues to promote feul effecient vehicles while making gas guzzlers share more of the payment.

Maybe institute a method whereby state residents can get a refund on their first X dollars if worried about the regressive nature.

[pitohui]

30. problem w. refunds

your ideas overall seem reasonable but residents who have financial problems repaying their student loans will never see the refund, the student loan company has first grab at the tax refunds

[Strelnikov_]

31. Offshoot Of Intelligent Transportation System Funding

Make a big pot of money available, some really impractical ideas will inevitably emerge.

If they want to diversify the funding sources, one way would be to add a component of road use tax to yearly registration, taxed at the recorded odometer reading, similar to any other utility (which is what roads are), instead of a $500+ per unit boondoggle (talk about diminishing returns on technology).

Highway projects can be roughly grouped into two classes, capacity and preservation (note that capacity projects are often masked as preservation for political/permitting purposes). In the era of looming peak oil, capacity improvement makes no sense, yet the far largest pot at work is for this type of project (adding lanes/reconstruction in urban areas is expensive).

Capacity projects are generally in urban areas and are generally driven by the number of personal transport vehicles. Preservation projects are generally driven by load cycles and age.

Therefore, keep the fuel tax structure the same, as heavier vehicles consume more fuel and result in more load cycles. Diversify the tax base to address capacity projects by either a mileage based or flat fee at registration.

Bottom line for me, though, is when I see planning and details for these $1 B capacity project boondoggles, I just shake my head. For about 1/10th of the price the worn out features could be replaced, and the balance of the funds spent on reconfiguring the transportation infrastructure for an energy starved future.

[thefool_wa]

33. No way!

Not only is taxing a person for every mile they drive ludicrous, any government agency that says I have to wear a GPS device to tell them where/when/how far I am going can get bent.

Do any legislators actually think about what they are suggesting before wading into these issues. Its not like our right to privacy is a new thing.

on edit: Maybe per mile tax isn't a bad idea (if it is low enough), but maybe they should just do an odometer inspection when you renew your tabs, transfer title, etc.

[lovuian]

38. Why not have a toll road... the person who uses the road

pays... you have a toll booth and probably a EZ tag that people when they go through pay automatically and don't have to stop...

No tracing peoples whereabouts and gets money for the roads with no penalties to gas reducers... its purely alarm rising up from the gas companies...

[northzax]

47. private roads?

so rich people can get places faster, right?

The thing is, this is a real problem for states, along with the reduction in the tobacco tax revenue. States get huge sums of operational monies from these taxes, and when they go down, people still expect the same number of services.

[ConcernedCanuk]

39. Would you get a rebate if someone stole your car

.
.
.

and put x amount of cliks on it before you got it back? (just keep a log of the mileage every time you park the damm thing I suppose?)

And what about people who spend 90% of their driving on back/country roads?

Take the car to your local racetrack?

And does the "tax" REALLY clik off as soon as you cross the state line? (better keep your own log, not that Big Bizness or the Guvment would cheat you of course)

And what happens if neighbouring states start popping into Oregon just to buy gas, then pop back into their own state?

Whatever else . .

OREGONIANS! DON'T LEND YOUR VEHICLES!!

Ah - I get it now

This is how they're gonna tax solar/electric/alternate fuel vehicles in the future

(sigh)

[Sgent]

41. It may depend on the state

but at least in mine you can buy feul from a distributor directly if its not going to be used on public roadways w/o paying tax. Many farmers, hunters, racetracks, etc do this regularly.

That being said, its colored differently (has a dye), and if you are ever caught w/ it in a road bound vehicle they back tax you on everything you've bought.

[progressivebydesign]

42. My husband drives great distances for his job... he'd be penalized.

But the people with the gas guzzlers would not... bad logic. And rural folks who must drive great distances to get their kids to school, to get food, to get to work, will be penalized...

[TX-RAT]

59. More fuel efficient cars by less gas, less gas = less tax revenue.

I guess this is Oregon's way of making up the loss in revenue.

[depakid]

43. This story resurfaces about every 6 months

It's the pet project of a couple of guys at Oregon State university and it's not going anywhere.

[WhiteTara]

48. so I won't be moving to Oregon any

time soon! What a stupid idea, unless of course the idea is to track our every move.

[sendero]

50. I thought Oregon..

... was a fairly progressive state. This is the worst idea I've heard in a while, and I've heard a few.

Let's reward people who drive econoboxes, not punish them.

[TriMetFan]

57. Don't worry. We here in Oregon Vote for everything

and this will not pass. Why because we are a pretty progressive State. And if they try and slip it in through the back door I can tell you'll that we the people of Oregon would protest so fast that the State Government would be kneeling to us.