Posted on 02/15/2005 10:18:28 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile CORVALLIS, Ore., Feb. 14, 2005
(CBS) 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. 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. 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.
"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. 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.
the whole idea is foolish - if the complaint is that greater fuel efficiency lowers the revenue, just raise the gas tax. why attempt to install some massive sensor based mileage collection system everywhere - just raise the friggin' gas tax 5 cents a gallon and be done with it.
And if a Republican were proposing this, not only would there be (justifiable) cries of Big Brother, but also he'd be accused of being a pawn of the oil companies and discouraging fuel-efficient vehicles.
That takes the downside of problem #3 of my last post. This would suck if I lived on the CA-NV border and drove 90% in Nevada. I'd be getting taxed for thousands of miles not driven on California roads.
where?
Generally speaking, the more fuel efficient the vehicle, the lighter it weighs and the less wear and tear it puts on roads. Big, heavy loads are hardest on the roadways. The big rigs pay more taxes now, but I doubt they pay enough to compensate for the wear and tear on the roads.
Location also makes a difference. Here in Ohio wear and tear on the roads is also a factor of weather, the winter time freeze-thaw that causes a lot of damage. Most of California does not have that problem, so vehicle weight is a primary factor. However, even the freeze-thaw damage that occurs is a function of vehicle weight.
Speed may also be a factor, but more to do with acceleration-deceleration speeds, and this also directly relates to weight.
European highways built to specifications similar to Germany's Autobahn are designed to last forever, no matter the weight of the vehicles running on them. The British use specs like this for their Motorways. We should have done so in this country 50 years ago when we started building Superhighways, when costs were much less. We would not have to be continually rebuilding them.
This whole idea is wrong for several reasons:
1. Big Brother encroachment - GPS devices should not be mandated by law for any reason. Liberty lost to Liberal Big Govt.
2. Economy of operation should not cost more. If higher taxes must be charged, do it by vehicle weight - a once a year fee. (Many states used to do this.) The sliding scale maybe needs to be an exponential curve, with the big vehicles falling into the exponential part of the curve. I believe one big rig weighing 80,000 lbs gross does a lot more damage than 20-4,000 lb cars - maybe as much as 80 or 100-4000 lb cars.
Parts of Long Island. My wife is from Huntington and they are not allowed to pump their own gas there.
Please, somebody make sure Jennifer (the Canuck) Granholm doesn't see this!! She really doesn't need anymore lame ideas to fix our budget. Now, if she'd just sell a house on Mackinac Island, she could pay some bills with that. Hey, I bet it might even be enough to paint the stripes back on our roads...we are currently driving by memory!
ALL of the People's Republic of Oregon require that a gas pumping professional pump your gas.
*Sigh*
More "nanny state" proponents of genius-legislation from the Socialist Workers' Paradise of Oregon. I am swiftly finding my home state more and more unrecognisable. We in Portland already have among the highest tax burdens in the U.S., what with gas taxes, city, county, and state income taxes (with low to no deductability of Federal taxes).
And they are among the most inefficient at operating a government ( $1 billion budget deficit right now) to boot.
Gee, I wonder why so many businesses have left, or reduced their workforce/presence in Oregon?
Well, someone will invent a "Mod chip" for your car, just like with a XBOX or PS2.
I live on long island, I have never seen this - unless its some crazed local nanny-state municipal regulation in a particular town.
You're thinking too intelligently, not politics and greed. Politics because raising the gas tax is a big no-no. Greed because that raise would be again undercut by the next generation of fuel efficient cars. Remember, they don't really care about fuel efficiency, they just want their money, but they can't say that or the eco-weenies would kill them.
Could be. We live in NC and rarely go back to NY.
this makes me so mad that I would leave the country if I could......
this must be stopped in its tracks....unfortunately, the leftists have control of much of the West coast....
oh you lovely, lovely college students....the future you're making for yourself will be hell on earth....congratulaions....
but this new tax is going to be even more harshly viewed by the public, as opposed to a modest increase in the existing gas tax. and if the next generation of cars gets 20% better mileage, raise the gas tax another 20% at that time.
"...if I lived on the CA-NV border..."
Anyone living on the CA/NV border would be foolish to live on the CA side.
No doubt the next US revolution will be a beaut, and with very little gunfire. ;)
Wireless, not cable. Just like my PC recognizes when my cellphone comes into the room ...
They do last a lot longer, but they still need lots of maintenance where they completely re-do entire sections. This is paid for in part by a 200+ percent gas tax that goes up almost every year, plus a car tax. The average fuel efficiency over there is so good that even that much tax doesn't cover the cost of road maintenance. However, politically, that's not a tax for road maintenance, but an environmental tax -- at least that's what they say every time they raise it.
A 80,000lb big rig does does a lot more damage than (20) 4000lb SUV's. In fact, if there were no big rigs and no cars with studded tires, there would be no damage done to the roads at all, except by the elements.
You could throw billions of stones at the WTC, and it would never come down. Crash a plane into it, and it comes down. You could use a ladder rated for 250lbs probably for nearl a lifetime if you weigh under 250lbs. Have a 350lb guy try and use it and it breaks instantly.
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