The State of Oregon is exploring the idea of taxing mileage instead of gasoline.

[Winterblues]

How is that not Regressive. People that have bought economical cars that get good mileage would be punished while those driving Huge gas Hogs would be rewarded...Wake up Oregon..This is not a good idea..

[HeraldSquare212]

1. But even cars that get good MPG pollute more if they are driven more, no?

But you are right, it should at least be a mix of the two so the disincentive to buying gas-guzzlers is not lost.

[jobycom]

3. The pollution is proportional to the fuel they use.

So someone who has to drive a lot pollutes less if they buy a more efficient car.

Hope that plan fails big.

[Why Syzygy]

2. Are the taxes used

to maintain roads? If you drive more miles don't you require more maintenance?

[jobycom]

5. Interesting point. I'm sure, though, that a Prius causes less damage than a Hummer

over the same distance. Lighter, less drag on the road...

Seems like a terrible idea. Then again, I drive a lot more than average, so of course it would seem terrible to me.

[Fumesucker]

7. Road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight..

If your car weighs twice as much then it causes 2^4 or 16 times as much damage on a per mile basis.

So this idea is total bullshit.

[Kolesar]

9. "roughly", in that it could be anywhere between the zeroth power and the fourth power

Where did you get that formula, anyway?

[Fumesucker]

10. Here...

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iRqNpmrn66IJ:engrwww.usask.ca/entropy/tc/publications/pdf/irdtraffictechwhyweighv2finalpostedpdf.pdf+road+damage+vehicle+weight+fourth+power&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

When overloading is occurring, the number of trucks and the magnitude of the
overloading is the key issue. As documented in the past, the relationship between vehicle
weight and pavement damage follows an exponential geometric relationship closely
resembling a fourth power. Recent research in the area of mechanistic-empirical
pavement performance predictions indicates that the exponential factor used to predict
damage may be considerably higher than a fourth power relationship, especially on thinner pavement structures in adverse climatic conditions such as freeze thaw. As aresult, a slight increase in truck loading may result in orders of magnitude more damage
to the road structure

[ogneopasno]

4. MPG, not miles driven?

[Taverner]

6. If the want that, why not make all highways toll?

[OregonBlue]

8. Also plan to install GPS tracking devices in ALL Oregon cars to track usage.

Regressive and violation of privacy. The State needs money. That's why they want to do this. We already pay really high gas taxes. Our governor is a DINO. Has been gung ho about Homeland Security issues.

[SoCalDem]

11. Tax by weight of vehicle & mpg combo would be fairer

* with an appropriate allowance for people who business requires them to use a big truck or specialized vehicle..

[pdxmom]

12. I'm in Oregon and my husband's daily drive is a full electric. I understand

the state's desire to make people like us contibute to funds to maintain the roads, but I totally balk at their method of doing so. They want GPS systems on the cars to determine your mileage. They insist that this information won't be used for anything other than tracking mileage, but I've heard those arguments from government before, and don't believe them now any more than I did before.

No way do I want them mandating installation of a tracking device on my car.

[AndyTiedye]

13. Much of Oregon is Heavily Forested

My GPS often loses the satellites in the forest. It can then get quite creative about where it thinks I'm driving.
Sometimes it also thinks I'm doing so at an impossibly high speed, for the same reason.