You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Home Front: Tech
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile
2005-02-15
College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just. So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW. And what kind of mileage does he get? "The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just. And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas.
That's in the lab, real world milage is a lot less. But I digress...

It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs.
Just like raising taxes on cigarettes, the law of unintended consquences rises up and bites politicians in the piggybank
As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead. Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile." Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea. "Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
Or you won't be allowed to drive it on a public road.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use.
With GPS, they'll know where you drive and when. With a high enough sample rate, they can tell at what speed you are driving. I'm sure the police and insurance companies will be interested in that data along with a whole bunch of other people. Remember, if you build a database, they will come.
That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways. "We're getting a lot of interest from other states," says Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. "They're watching what we're doing. "Transportation officials across the country are concerned about what's going to happen with the gas tax revenues."
Privacy advocates say it's more like big brother riding on your bumper, not to mention a disincentive to buy fuel-efficient cars. "It's not fair for people like me who have to commute, and we don't have any choice but take the freeways," says Just. "We shouldn't have to be taxed." But tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road.
First they try to force us into these hybrids use less gas to save the planet. Then they tax you more for using less gas to save the roads they don't what you driving on in the first place.
Posted by:Steve

#17  ZF -- Excellent point! I drove from Cincinnati to New Orleans and back and didn't spend that much on gas.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-02-15 5:40:44 PM  

#16  anyone evefr drove any roads in South Carolina? The roads suck anyway
Posted by: Thraing Hupoluper1864   2005-02-15 5:30:00 PM  

#15  In the olden days, tax-by-the-mile was known as "toll roads." No modern technology required -- you are given a price card when you get on, and pay the appropriate toll when you get off. Even easier and lower tech, you pay a set fee when you get on, and another when you get off. Big deal.

The highways in New York State still operate that way, because of the high expense of maintaining the road surfaces due to the harsh Upstate/Western New York winters.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-02-15 4:46:52 PM  

#14  tu4031 - Laura Ingraham, the rascal, played tapes today of all recent water metaphors used by His Excellency, A. Filobuster Bagogas.

...including yesterday, when he used the expression, "Dead in the water". I wonder if the Kopeckne family cringes when they hear that.

Owing to the circumstances, this is the ultimate in bad taste. But Teddy-boy is the definition of bad taste, so why am I surprised!
Posted by: BigEd   2005-02-15 4:17:23 PM  

#13  Perhaps they shouldn't raid the gas tax money to pay for other things.

This is the problem in a nutshell. Gas tax money can and does go elsewhere besides road upkeep/contruction. Quite frankly, it seems to go everywhere BUT road upkeep/construction.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2005-02-15 4:07:25 PM  

#12  Ted's lucky we didn't have these hybrid cars back in '69. He might've been electrocuted when it hit the water.
Posted by: tu3031   2005-02-15 4:03:50 PM  

#11  11A5S--

Quote attributed to Teddy Kennedy?
Posted by: BigEd   2005-02-15 3:50:21 PM  

#10  Most states require long-haul truckers to buy gas in their states already and have for a loooong time.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-02-15 3:41:00 PM  

#9  Article: College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.

Assuming that gas costs $2 a gallon, this kid would have to be driving a car with a fuel consumption rating of 8 mpg, to be paying $500 for just 2000 miles. Even a Ford Expedition doesn't use up gas at that rate.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-02-15 3:37:49 PM  

#8  If they want to see high voter turnout and a bunch of politicians thorwn into the street and the law replaced at the first possible elections they should really consider this great idea.

Since politicians are into self-preservation this is all foolishness.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2005-02-15 3:32:13 PM  

#7  And just when you thought it wouldn't get any funnier; the testicularly-challenged Washington State Legislature is considering a 6.5% 'vanity' tax on plastic surgery, botox and the like, rather than face up (no pun intended) to budget problems and cut spending. I can see it now: A car crossing into WA. from another state or Canada: " Excuse me miss, but I am the booby police. Are these perky breats yours? Do you have papers"
And for guys who get 'enhanced,' maybe a new version of a 'pole tax...'
Posted by: USN, retired   2005-02-15 2:59:24 PM  

#6  this is bad in so many ways, many of which you guys already touched on. The proposals now in SD area are to build "HOV" (multi-passenger car pool lanes) and allow paying 1, 2, and, yes, 3 -passenger cars to use them via Fastrack pay/toll. The idea is to subsidize the bus service (which only covers 20% of their cost via paid fares) with these tolls. As I pointed out, much to the other task force member's displeasure, you're now building freeway lanes with public gas tax money and then charging them additional tolls to use them, in order to subsidize a non-economically feasible alternative. *crickets*. LOL
Posted by: Frank G   2005-02-15 2:45:54 PM  

#5  "First they try to force us into these hybrids use less gas to save the planet. Then they tax you more for using less gas to save the roads they don't what you driving on in the first place."

This reminds me of when I was a young'n in the Fey Area. A drought had been going on in California (DROUGHT! END OF THE WORLD! SKY FALLING!), and East Bay MUD told everyone to conserve water or else they would come take your firstborn child and shoot your dog for good measure. So, needless to say, we all conserved like the Dickens. Dead lawns, water collecting buckets in showers for flushing toilets, etc., we did it all. The response from East Bay MUD when the drought was over? They raised our water rates because we weren't using enough water and they couldn't make a profit.

As for the GPS/odometer thing, that's so un-Merkin I don't know where to begin. Oh yeah I do! I went out and registered as a Republican yesterday! (Yea4me!)
Posted by: Dr August Balls of Nice   2005-02-15 2:43:41 PM  

#4  This is bad in so many ways.

Oh, sure, they'll "replace" the gas tax. Then, they will "need" to add the gas tax back on to fund some idiotic light rail plan or something. It happens everywhere. All the states that added an income tax to reduce property or sales taxes soon had those taxes right back where they were.

Perhaps they shouldn't raid the gas tax money to pay for other things. In California about 15 years ago, a proposal to limit the use of gas tax money to just transportation (not just roads, but anything that could be called "transportation") was defeated after a huge ad campaign to "save our schools!" Gas taxes go into the general fund, you see, so whichever lobby is greatest gets the money.

Big-brother. "We have you travelling to Nogales 5 times last month. That's considered possible drug activity, so we are going to impound your bank account while we check you out. You can apply in court in 6 months to try to get it back. Oh, and you were doing 76 in a 75 zone, so we're going to tack the speeding fine on to your tax."

Interstate commerce. What if you commute from New Jersey to New York every day, but always fill up in New Jersey. How does New York get its share of the money? I've driven from Michigan to Indiana through Ohio, but never bought gas in Ohio. Will they send Me a bill? Should Michigan and Indiana be able to claim those miles as "theirs?"

Safety. It's very late, you are driving home from a long trip and stop off for enough gas to get you home. You only have so much cash and maybe you don't believe in credit cards. The pump says you have to pay $20 in tax before it will sell you any gasoline. There are no ATMs for miles around.

OTOP, I might as well buy that Magnum SRT-8. I won't pay any more tax than if I had a Prius.
Posted by: jackal   2005-02-15 2:24:10 PM  

#3  Seems his problem is similar to my two apartment mates when I was working in Portland, Oregon back in 1991. We lived 1/2 mile from the office we worked in. I walked, they both drove in separate cars. When I aked why they drove instead of walking they both told me, "Because I can drive. I don't have to walk". Saving wear and tear on their cars and saving money on gas didn't enter the equation for them.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-02-15 2:18:22 PM  

#2   College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.

I managed to have an apartment two doors from campus for that much. That included meals and utilities.

What's this guy's problem?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-02-15 2:07:49 PM  

#1  If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Posted by: 11A5S   2005-02-15 2:05:19 PM  

00:00