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Transportation Technology

New Tolling Systems Are Poised To Hit Highways (axios.com) 324

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Electric vehicles might be good for the environment, but they're terrible for state budgets, which depend on fuel taxes to pay for road maintenance. So states like Oregon and Utah are experimenting with new road user fees -- known as "vehicle mileage taxes" or VMTs -- that reflect changing mobility trends. From a report: By charging drivers for the miles they drive -- instead of taxing the gas they use -- states can ensure that everyone pays their fair share for public roads. But some drivers might wind up paying more than they do now, and the preliminary technology involved is raising privacy concerns.

In Utah and Oregon -- where EVs and increased fuel efficiency are blowing a hole in road repair budgets -- drivers are being asked to enroll in voluntary experiments in pay-as-you-go tolling. Under a VMT system, drivers report their mileage electronically, using a plug-in device in their cars or a smartphone app. Per the Deseret (Utah) News: "Users are given the option to pay 1.5 cents per mile traveled or an annual flat fee of $120 for electric vehicles or $20 for gas hybrids." Oregon is testing several potential funding models based on the time of day and other factors. Under one potential scenario, a driver could pay a statewide 1.8-cents-per-mile fee, plus a 20-cent metropolitan Portland surcharge, plus a virtual toll on Interstate 5 and another fee for entering downtown Portland.
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New Tolling Systems Are Poised To Hit Highways More

New Tolling Systems Are Poised To Hit Highways

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  • Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:31PM (#61801689) Homepage
    Having a tracking device installed in your car isn't really necessary. I mean yes, it gives you can accurate count of exactly how many miles you drove in that state or that area, but it's overly invasive. You could get 95% accuracy just by charging you a mileage fee when you renew your plates at the DMV and adjust the rates roughly based on what municipality you live in. For those people who do mostly out-of-area driving and really care about saving the money you could offer an alternative of installing the tracking device. This just seems like a back door to increased surveillance. Remember, the status quo is the gas tax, and it doesn't know where you drove your car, and it works fine. I would argue it still works fine as it encourages the adoption of less polluting vehicles. :)

    • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:33PM (#61801707) Homepage
      Another option: tax tire sales instead of gas.

      • Re:Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thegreatbob ( 693104 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:37PM (#61801731) Journal
        Has the potential consequence of encouraging people to run a set of tires until they basically disintegrate.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by Ostracus ( 1354233 )

          You mean like people currently do? Cheapskates are cheapskates no matter the reason.

          • It does encourage more people to behave that way than who otherwise would though. Unintended consequences are a bitch and additional blown tires are probably going to cause more damage than the taxes could make up for.

            • It also punishes people who use winter tires which have softer rubber and don't go as many miles before needing replacement (not to mention the up-front cost of two sets of tires).

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by RobinH ( 124750 )
          That's a good point. A simple odometer reading is *much* better.

          • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Insightful)

            by FuegoFuerte ( 247200 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @01:23PM (#61801999)

            That has the unintended (or maybe intended?) consequence of unfairly taxing those who spend a significant amount of their time driving out of state. So, perhaps Oregon gets the tax revenue from 40k miles of driving, when said driver commutes regularly from the Portland area to Centralia (in WA). WA gets none of the revenue. With gas taxes, that person is likely to fill up in Washington at least some of the time, and hence pay taxes there.

            Perhaps since this is for electric vehicles, the taxation should be built into the chargers. $0.01/kWh or whatever goes to the government wherever the charger is installed, and all home chargers are required to have a meter fitted that reports this information. Commercial charging stations just collect the tax as part of their fee to the user based on where the charger is installed.

            • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)

              by spitzak ( 4019 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @05:11PM (#61802783) Homepage

              I think an odometer reading would work fine. There could be an option of installing a tracker on your vehicle if you think an accurate measurement of how much you drive in the state would reduce your tax, there could even be a guarantee that you are taxed the less of this measured distance and the odometer reading so you can't lose. You thus gave up some privacy in exchange for tax savings. But the vast majority of people would opt out of such a tracker.

              Also when driving out of state, you are using some other state or countries roads and they may feel they should get your money. It may work best to just collect for the distance and assume the people driving across borders balance out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        Every Native American tribe will setup tire manufacturing and/or tire re-conditioning on their reserves. Sounds like a plan.

        • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)

          by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:51PM (#61801815)

          Every Native American tribe will setup tire manufacturing and/or tire re-conditioning on their reserves. Sounds like a plan.

          Which isn't as far fetched as you think. OT but Tesla just opened up a showroom on native land in NM in order to skirt the NM state law that says a manufacturer can't sell a car directly to a consumer.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Another option: tax tire sales instead of gas.

        And then you'll have to give me a rebate for every time a replace a tire due to a puncture that can't be repaired.

      • Re:Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:45PM (#61801779) Journal

        I think taxing tires is less appealing than the registration tax. Taxing tires incentivizes people to not buy new tires, which is a hazard to all drivers on the road (not just the people with old tires).

        I agree with applying the tax at the time of vehicle registration renewal. It provides the greatest level of privacy isolation while still collecting the desired funds based on miles driven, and it has no negative impact on the greater community if individuals elect to "forget" to participate in the process.

        • There should be an incentive to encourage fuel efficient vehicles, and the gas tax does that. So flat out removing it could backfire, especially in those rural states where driving big ass trucks can be a status symbol. But then if you want to tax EVs because they don't pay gas tax, and you have to maintain the roads, then what about those in the middle? If you've got a plug-in hybrid that's half gas and half electric? Or a really really fuel efficient hybrid that's getting 100MPG but isn't electric?

          And

        • Re:Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Nugoo ( 1794744 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @03:11PM (#61802485)

          I'm not sure I see why road maintenance should be paid for by drivers. I don't own a car (or any other vehicle), but I benefit enormously from a public road network. Why not just pay for it out of the general tax fund?

          Or, if we want to charge based on use, heavy trucks should be paying the lion's share, since road wear is so dependant on the weight of the vehicle.

          • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)

            by DarkVader ( 121278 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @04:55PM (#61802739)

            Exactly. There's absolutely no reason to pay for roads with user fees, whether that be a gas tax or mileage tax. An income tax, preferably combined with a wealth tax, is the way to go.

            And right now is a TERRIBLE time to start taxing electric cars more. We need to get gas clunkers off the roads first.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )
        Unfair to me and my performance summer tires that last only 15K miles. Not that I drive any longer with Covid...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by OzPeter ( 195038 )

          Unfair to me and my performance summer tires that last only 15K miles. Not that I drive any longer with Covid...

          The tax would just have to be prorated to the nominal tire lifetime.

          What would have to be addressed is rebates for tire replacement due to un-repareable conditions

          • No such thing with high performance summer tires. Even if it says it's a 20k mile tire, you may only get 10k. The mileage you get on a tire really depends on how you're driving. Besides, this idea is needlessly complex. Just trust the people at registration, as others have said. The trouble is, living in Oregon, I can tell you they don't like to trust their citizens and rarely treat them with respect. Oregon has an incompetent government.
      • The problem with that is a person (especially if they are close to a state line) can easily go out of state to get tires installed and avoid the taxes (which will have to be very high to replace gas taxes). Or they will just have them changed if they happen to be traveling somewhere out of state. This idea is too easy to avoid.

        • That's already true for buying gas so that's not really a major concern.

          =Smidge=

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by EvilSS ( 557649 )

            That's already true for buying gas so that's not really a major concern.

            =Smidge=

            Gas is something you need to buy in small amounts relatively often. Tires are something you buy all at once after a long interval. I live close to a state line with a state with much lower gas taxes. I don't drive out of my way to get fuel to save a couple of bucks. I would definitely drive out of my way to get tires to save a few hundred dollars.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        Another option: tax tire sales instead of gas.

        Followed shortly by the opening of "Jack's Discount Tires" just across the state line.

      • Wouldn't be fair as not all tires have the same tread life, and tires that do have the same tread life can vary greatly in price due to the tire size.

        Then you have some people who will end up buying more tires than others due to poorly maintained roads (potholes) causing damage to tires. This can be particularly burdensome on lower income people / those living in poorer neighborhoods as (from personal observations) cities tend neglect these areas more vs wealthier areas of the city.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      While not an electric car issue right now, one of my vehicles has a busted or otherwise non-working odometer. That might need an app or dongle.

      In speaking to my real estate agent recently, she has an app on her phone that tracks mileage so she can ride with us over rough roads vs trying to take her car.

      [John]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RobinH ( 124750 )
        I suspect a working odometer is probably required by law. If I recall, there's a method where you can replace them and notify the DMV of the odometer switch and record the new mileage. I doubt it's really necessary now that they're all digital. That said, I drove and old Buick that had a busted odometer at 262,000 and never fixed it, and nobody cared.

        • Is it really the odometer itself that's required though? Before SiriusXM sank their fangs into the company and shut it down; I used to have a little dongle by automatic.com. It plugged to my car's diagnostic port and sent data like miles driven, speed, braking, mileage, et cetera, to my phone. With third-party apps, I could even build dashboards with things like the exact fuel and air flow (Which is what the the dongle itself used to calculate mileage more accurately than the vague readout on the dash.),

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            It really depends on the age of the car. These days, for the vast majority of still operable vehicles the "odometer" is just a readout of information in the computer. In older cars, it was a physical count of rotations of a physical cable connected to the transmission.

            If they implement an odometer based tax, I'm guessing slightly over-sized tires on the drive axle will become popular to make the odometer read slightly lower.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        "While not an electric car issue right now, one of my vehicles has a busted or otherwise non-working odometer. That might need an app or dongle."

        In some other countries commercial vehicles are taxed based on the readings of a hubometer. (A sealed tamperproof unit in the hub of a wheel.

      • I know that real estate agents and others that have to drive for business track their work related mileage and use that data to get a tax deduction.
        That mileage is for their car, not for any one else's mileage.
        That would be tax fraud, would it not?
        You trust this person? Okay, fine.

    • You could get 95% accuracy just by charging you a mileage fee when you renew your plates at the DMV

      Really, just read the odometer and assess the fee. And while you're at it, demand no fault liability insurance.

      • And while you're at it, demand no fault liability insurance.

        Why? Why protect bad drivers? What's the upside of doing that? Increased insurance rates for everyone?

        Now, I understand why Florida has a system like that. Old people get into many fender-benders and I understand that old people vote for their own self-interest.

        But for the rest of us, such a system doesn't make much sense.

        • Why? Why protect bad drivers? What's the upside of doing that?

          No-fault insurance makes the claims process easier and quicker. It also cuts out the high cost of lengthy legal battles. Less money for ambulance chasing lawyers is definitely an upside.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          Old people get into many fender-benders and I understand that old people vote for their own self-interest.

          I think you just answered your own question.

    • and rent a car people get hit with big admin fees? Like $4.99+ per day for each day of the rental? ontop of the per-mile fee?

    • Re: Unnecessary (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bitwraith ( 5044201 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:59PM (#61801859)
      Not only is mileage tracking a privacy problem, but it's also not one-size-fits-all. I drive a Smart car that's about half as long and half as heavy as the average American car, with very small tires (I had to special order the front two - 165/65R15). Presumably, I'm using less road resources than a land yacht; It wears less of the road surface, takes up less space in stop-and-go traffic, etc. If you charge micro city cars the same tax as SUVs, effectively I will be subsidizing larger vehicles that place more demand on the road per mile. As other commenters have said, a tax on tires would be a better approach, that accounts for both driving habits and the size of the vehicle.

      • The current system isn't fair either. Lawn mowers, generators and off-road vehicles don't do any damage to roads but still pay the gas tax. There is no perfect system.

    • You could get 95% accuracy just by charging you a mileage fee when you renew your plates at the DMV

      Agreed 100%. I've never understood why the whole tracking/toll/latest stupid-overly-complex idea gets brought up when this idea is the clear and obvious solution that has minimal cost and overhead associated with it. Then I read:

      Under one potential scenario, a driver could pay a statewide 1.8-cents-per-mile fee, plus a 20-cent metropolitan Portland surcharge, plus a virtual toll on Interstate 5 and another fee for entering downtown Portland.

      Ah, yes, they just want more control over where/when you go. Same ol' government, just a different scam to get more power over you. It never ends...

      ...and adjust the rates roughly based on what municipality you live in.

      Disagree 100%. Gas taxes are the same throughout the state, so I don't know why you would adjust the tax that is going to replace

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      Yeah, I'm not clear on why they don't have an option to just check the odometer when you renew. That would cover most people's needs just fine, and I'd sign up for that.

      I can see the argument that if you drive a LOT of out of state miles your paying an odometer VMT in your home state AND fuel taxes in the other state... but that's fairly short term problem as electrification of the fleet all but ensures VMT replaces fuel taxes in the long run. And we're talking less than $100 per YEAR so this is hardly a cr

    • Solving a problem that doesn't exist (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @01:56PM (#61802147) Homepage

      This is solving a problem that doesn't actually exist; there are not enough electric vehicles on the road that it affects highway budgets enough to notice. This is purely a publicity ploy by oil companies to attack electric vehicles.

      It is also grimly stupid that the government is rebating taxes on people who buy electric vehicles, but then adding a tax because they say electric vehicles don't pay their share of taxes. If you want a simple solution, instead of offering a tax rebate for electric vehicles and also a new tax to get money from electric vehicles, the government could just pay into the highway fund of states proportional to the number of electric vehicles in the state, but only if the states don't have this complicated additional mileage tax.

  • tracking people (Score:3)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:31PM (#61801691)

    so we need to track you to tax you. nice.

    • This needs to be done but in a progressive way. Some people really have nothing to hide, eg. delivery trucks for big corporations like Amazon. They're also the people who pound the roads all day long in big trucks and pay the least taxes in general. I have no problem in charging them a lot of money and GPSing the hell out of them.

      The average commuter? Not so much.

      I'm not sure there's an easy way to measure real mileage in a car. People will put tinfoil over the GPS, they'll disconnect the odometer, they'll

      • They're also the people who pound the roads all day long in big trucks and pay the least taxes in general.

        How do you figure? If it is a large truck doing a lot of stops, they are going to burn way more gas (and pay more taxes) that the guy commuting in a Prius.

        I'm not sure there's an easy way to measure real mileage in a car.

        Hi, I'm an odometer. Apparently we haven't met before.

  • GPS or not, trackers like this are bad news - and if the rates vary by location there would have to be some level of location tracking whether it is GPS or beacon-based.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Anyone that opposes tracking is a racist transphobe with something to hide. Biden 2024.

  • For Gas Hybrids, not worth the extra BS and giving up your privacy. I just pay the $20 and grumble on.

  • Just say no to regressive taxation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:32PM (#61801699)
    This is a good opportunity to do away with gas taxes and other per mile taxes altogether and replace them with a progressive tax system. We all benefit from the roads and the more money you make the more you benefit because the roads are what keep our economy going. Do away with gas taxes and tolls and use federal income tax instead. It needs to be Federal so that states like Florida won't depend on these kind of taxes to take advantage of their tourists.

    • Re:Just say no to regressive taxation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:42PM (#61801753)
      What an idiotic idea. Charge for road use based on actual road use. It's the only sane way to encourage less road use. Otherwise you wind up with extensive road use by low profit industries being subsidized by more profitable enterprises that have found ways to avoid it. Directing cost away from where it's incurred is terrible for an economy.

      • A gas tax is already a mess in that sense. Large commercial trucks do exponentially more damage with linearly more gas. A large percentage of maintenance on roads is due to damage and wear by trucks passing through the state - and maybe skipping that state when buying fuel.

        Old inefficient compact cars do not do more wear on the road than larger, more efficient cars.

        The only way to encourage less road use is better public transportation. Gas taxes are a small enough percentage of total fuel cost that the

      • What do you think gets used to bring your groceries? Either to the store or when you have them delivered. And it doesn't decrease road usage in the slightest. If it did our entire transportation system wouldn't have been built on gas powered cars.
        • A vehicle that can pay for its use of the road that can be added to my bill for said groceries. If someone figures out a way to avoid that (Be it by rail, riverboat, drone, or some kind of teleportation device) then they should not have to pay the costs. You're essentially saying that road users should get to externalize theirs costs on the rest of society, even that part which doesn't use roads to the same extent as others. That's why it's utterly foolish and won't accomplish any good. The people who make

    • Do away with gas taxes and tolls and use federal income tax instead. It needs to be Federal so that states like Florida won't depend on these kind of taxes to take advantage of their tourists.

      Oh, sure... the biggest road pounders are companies like Amazon who deliver stuff all day long. They pay zero tax at the moment, it all goes overseas leaving the little people to pick up the tab (as usual).

      Make them pay by the mile.

    • What about poor people? For those who take the bus there's the fare. For those who walk or ride bicycles there's sales taxes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      Just keep increasing gas taxes! Gasoline and diesel are heavily subsidized (mostly upstream so most people don't realize it). Fossil fuel needs to be more expensive to encourage people to move to electric.
      Most advanced economies have much higher gas taxes than the US and they get along fine.
      Before you say "whatabout poor people"... You can buy cheap used EVs, hybrids, and fuel efficient cars. No need to drive a clapped out Buick polluting gas guzzler from the last century.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        Uh OK, great! Now in hypothetical where everyone is using an EV, how would you pay for the roads? Are you OK with this tracking?
        • When that day approaches, start taxing based on milage AND type of vehicle. A small EV does less damage than a large truck or SUV EV. Until then, just increase the gas tax as an incentive to switch to a vehicle that uses less gas. I see enough oversized vehicles on the road and in the parking lots to indicate that gas prices are not a problem.

      • Fossil fuel needs to be more expensive to encourage people to move to electric.

        You actually have it backwards. Alternative fuels need to be more affordable to encourage people to move from fossil fuels. I'm making double what I did four years ago, but my fuel costs (per gallon) have tripled. If cost of living grows at a faster rate than our income, people will complain.

  • Or we could change the tax structure. We could get rid of fuel taxes and regressive sales taxes, and move to progressive income taxes.

    • And make sure the corporations who pound the roads all day long in big trucks actually pay the taxes instead of moving all their profits offshore.

      Tax avoidance is one of the biggest single things that needs fixing right now. The EU is moving on it, let's hope the USA follows them.

  • Wonderful way to de- incentivise electric or hybrid vehicles. I live in Washington State, they're rolling out a $75 fee for hybrids. Guess what, my next car won't be hybrid (or electric)
    • Is $75 really enough to dissuade you from an electric vehicle? I did a calculation with my yearly mileage and what gas taxes amount to and came out ahead. Not by a lot, but that was just on the taxes. There's still a lot of that cost of gasoline that isn't tax.

    • All for the sake of $75? Sheesh.

    • $75 compared even to just the tax on the last used vehicle I bought is literally nothing. Not even pennies on the dollar. As much of a cheap ass as I tend to be, I wouldn't bat an eye at a $75 fee for a hybrid or electric vehicle, if I could afford the vehicle to begin with.

      If that $75 prevents having a tracking device shoved up my ass, so much the better.

    • So to save $75, you will switch to a less efficient car that will cost more in gas than the fee you are trying to avoid? Sounds legit...
  • How about all the extra taxes and fees that is being collected because of the extra electricity usage? So now the drivers of these cars are not only shafted with those additions, they have to pay for road usage which the other taxes they already pay are supposed to support. This is the true meaning of nickel and diming people.
    • How about people who use primarily solar to charge their cars. Now they are getting hit with electricity costs and arent paying for roadways to be kept up.

  • Why complicate things? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:40PM (#61801741) Journal
    The basic idea is good. Tax them by miles driven. Fine.

    Why this complex device, monitoring and reporting? We are expected to disclose our income voluntarily and pay income tax. All these tax deducted at source, info from employers to IRS are all simple paper document, and they come into play only when IRS picks you for an audit.

    Do the same damned thing here. Self report the odometer reading along with registration, and pay the tax based on self reported miles. Government is very powerful. It can simply make it a crime to report false odometer reading to DMV and put the onus on the driver. Set a reasonable punishment, not draconian.

    Trust the citizens, treat them with respect and assume the citizens will not lie. The insurers collect odometer info as part of policy. They will report that number to the state government. Randomly verify some fraction. Trust, but verify. Done.

    Somehow it seems to be a cash grab by the device maker.

    • I doubt it's a cash grab by the device maker. I'd say it's an info grab by the government(s) involved. It seems everybody wants to track every little thing we do, and the government doesn't want to get left out. I know that storage is cheap, but I have to think there are literally terabytes of data being collected that will never, ever, EVER be used for anything at all at this point. Just data, data, and more useless damned data, just so we can have every moment of our lives captured "just in case."

    • The risks is making the mileage tracking into a surveillance tool are too high, so I agree with you. Although you could cheat in any given year, eventually you will trade in or sell the car, and since the dealer/new owner won't want to get stuck with the back taxes, they will want the correct mileage recorded. So the seller would get a bill for the last year's mileage.

      You could defer the road tax for a few years, but eventually you would have to pay it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      The basic idea is good. Tax them by miles driven. Fine.

      Why this complex device, monitoring and reporting? We are expected to disclose our income voluntarily and pay income tax. All these tax deducted at source, info from employers to IRS are all simple paper document, and they come into play only when IRS picks you for an audit.

      Raw per mile tax is extremely biased against smaller vehicles given that it's generally well known that road damage is proportional to something like the fifth power of the vehicles weight.

      With your system a mini cooper is paying the same amount of tax a full laden Peterbilt - even though the latter is causing about 10,000 times the road damage.

      At least with taxing the gas, you get some effect of heavier vehicles consuming more, so paying more tax.

      • It is not my system.

        It is a simply better alternative to installing a tracking device in every damned car.

        Your point is well taken about heavier cars doing more damage. So the miles will be self reported by the car owners at the time of registration. Insurers and car sales odometer reading provide cross checks for verification, if and when needed.

        The actual tax can be based on vehicle weight categories. Calculate something simple like tax = X $ per 1000 miles per 1000 lb. Of course the lawyers will wr

    • Why this complex device, monitoring and reporting?

      Control. They want to charge fees based on WHERE and WHEN you go. Governments just can help themselves but to control you as much as they think they can get away with. This is done under the guise of "What about gas tax revenue!", and then try to implement the most cumbersome system (tracking) to replace it.

  • This is all totally unnecessary.
    Should states (or provinces) in my case try and capture revenue that they will miss out from the 'gas tax'

    I have no issue with that. There are much simpler solutions.

    1. Toll highways. In Ontario, we already have our 407 (electronic toll highway). Just toll more and more highways to get the revenue (keep it public this time ) It keeps things closer to the source and one hopes that money stays to maintain the highway system.

    2. Local roads I think should be thought of as ordinar

  • Portland, Oregon recently passed a ban on facial recognition software, ostensibly because it was an invasion of privacy and could be abused by the government. And now they want to install electronic devices on every automobile to allow the government to track where and how much you drive. No doubt this technology will be quickly supplemented with license plate recognition cameras just to be certain that all revenues are "fairly" collected.

    How quickly attitudes change when the technology is used for the "r

  • I own one of the more efficient cars pretty much ever produced.... 1st Gen Insight 2000 model year.

    1800lb Aluminum Monocoque chassis, with a 3 cylinder 1.0 liter engine making 68 horsepower. 5 speed manual trans, 30hp hybrid battery but it's disabled as it failed already. 68mpg city, 74mpg highway and I easily get in the 80mpg range lean-burning at 20:1 AFR down the highway with crazy tall gearing and 3 overdrive gears.

    My transmission is geared so tall, my 3rd gear is already past a 1:1 ratio which most veh

    • Go buy a 1st gen Insight if you want to stick it to them.

      And if you want to stick it to yourself.

  • > "states can ensure that everyone pays their fair share for public roads"

    I thought ICE owners were dirty climate deniers who deserved to be punished anyways. Sounds like the current system of making gasoline consumers shoulder the burden aligns with idealists anyways.

  • What a surprise! When the government incentivised a certain behaviour with tax-breaks, people take advantage of them and the tax-revenues drop.
    Who would ever have thought about this? This must be a totally new concept!

    And how surprised are we, that now there's a hole in the budget, they want to fill it with taxes on the stuff they promoted? That never happened before, hasn't it?

    In short, things happen as predicted.

    Next surprise will be the totally unpredictable development that all those electric vehicles

  • The average car does 12,000 miles per year. If you do the math some of these proposals want to add $180 (1.5c/mile) - $240 (2c/mile) in tax. I doubt they will drop existing gas taxes, either.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      The problem isn't the type of cars we drive, the problem is government policies which encourage, even mandate suburban sprawl. That's why the US can't afford to maintain its existing infrastructure; as huge as our economy is, our road network is relatively speaking even huger.

      Example 1: The US has 6.8 million km of road; funds to support that come from a 22.6 trillion dollar economy. For every kilometer there's 3.3 million dollars of economy to tax in some way to pay for it. The US spends about 0.7% of

  • The argument that it's not fair for non-drivers to pay for the roads is BS. There's literally no one in a state that doesn't benefit from the roads in this country. It's pretty dumb to just rely on drivers to pay for their maintenance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Confused ( 34234 )

      Not everyone is benefiting the same amount. Someone commuting every day 50 miles and back on the highway benefits more than the guy living and working in the same neighbourhood, going shopping by bicycle. Thus a flat tax wouldn't be fair in many people's eyes. It also reduced the benefits of living locally instead of driving over to Walmart across town.

      So overall, this is a very political decision and depends on which development the government wants to promote.

  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that road damage scaled with how massive the vehicle is. Like most of the road damage done to highways is done by semi-trucks.

    A gas tax scales with the size of vehicles because bigger vehicles guzzle more of it, but if we're only changing to price per mile, it shifts the tax burden unfairly towards consumers and away from the corporations fucking up the roads.

  • The slashdot crowd really gets upset over tracking and privacy, but if you can afford a prius or tesla, you can afford $120/year or $20/year. Just pay the tax and you have nothing to worry about.

    Someone has to pay to keep the roads in shape. Prior to my city's gentrification, we had notoriously bad potholes. You could tell when you entered our city by tactile sensation alone. Cross the boundary and the car started violently vibrating. It can't be good for your car.

    You have 2 choices: pay taxes or
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If the data are kept secret and deleted in short order, then taxation for use of nearly all roads is close to the perfect feedback loop. You pay for the roads you use, and that's it. No paying for what you will never use. No paying for bridges to nowhere. No corruption. No outside hands dipping into road funds. No pork projects. No political parties attempting leveraging. Roads with heavy use get the most maintenance money, as it should be. Perfect fairness.

    I think any privacy concern is minor i

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