GPS Coming To A Car Near You

[Lloyd Danforth]

Gas tax charge may be by mile

Published in the Home News Tribune 05/9/05

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By LEDYARD KING
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON ? Instead of taxing you on every gallon of gas pumped into your vehicle, the government is considering charging you for every mile you drive.

Why? With fuel efficiency on the rise and more people buying cars that run on alternative fuels, states are worried the gas tax revenues that help pay for roads and mass transit will shrink.

The idea is about to be tested in Oregon. Congress has proposed spending millions to try it in several other states.

Although it's years from happening ? if at all ? questions already abound. Would the new system be fair to the fuel-efficient? Would it hide a tax increase? How would the government know how far you drive?

Privacy could be the biggest concern, said Greg Cohen, president of the American Highway Users Alliance, which represents

a variety of groups from AAA to bus companies.

"It's a new technology and people are fearful of being tracked by the government," he said.

This new "distance-pricing" method is being explored partly because Congress and many states are reluctant to raise gas taxes despite growing demand for more money to ease worsening highway congestion.

Here's essentially how the new model would work:

An onboard computer in a car would record how far it traveled. A global positioning satellite would tell the car's computer when it crosses state lines. That's important because each state would charge its own mileage fee, as it does now with gas taxes. Periodically, the driver would have to visit a service station or possibly some other location to pay the mileage fees, which would be divvied up among state and federal governments.

Among the potential benefits:



Researchers say the model could ? and should ? be tweaked to charge trucks and sport utility vehicles more than compacts because heavier vehicles wear down roads faster than lighter ones.


States also could increase the mileage rate during rush hours to try to reduce congestion, as the Oregon model will do.


The new system is fairer because it would reimburse states based on where a vehicle travels, not where it gasses up.

"The gas tax is such a blunt instrument," said David Forkenbrock, director of the University of Iowa Public Policy Center, which has spent five years studying the issue.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, an amount that hasn't changed since 1993. State gas taxes range from 7.5 cents in Georgia to 32.9 cents in Wisconsin.

Environmentalists could resist changing the current system, which rewards those driving fuel-efficient cars.

Taxpayer groups already fear this could be a backhanded way of raising taxes on motorists.

"The more complex they make the formula for determining who pays what, the more opportunity the politicians have to increase burdens without drivers necessarily knowing it," said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union.

But the fear that federal and state officials are most sensitive to is invasion of privacy.

Forkenbrock, whose research is being financed by 15 states and the federal government, said he has been working with an encryption expert to ensure that the only information that would be kept is the number of miles traveled in a state since the last payment.

"We've worked on privacy protection more than anything else," he said. "We know that people's reaction is, "The government is putting a device in my car to track me,' and nothing could be further from the truth."

Oregon's experiment begins this year in the Portland area with about 20 drivers and will expand to about 300 next year, said James Whitty, manager of the state Transportation Department's Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding.

Drivers will be exempt from paying gas taxes and instead be charged about one cent per mile, more during rush hour. Only cars built after 1996 will be used because electronic odometers are necessary to count miles traveled.

Whitty said the system protects privacy because there will be no transmission of vehicle movement. He likens the device in the vehicle to a television that receives signals but doesn't transmit any. It will count miles traveled in a given area but won't store any data on where or when the travel occurred, he said.

Even if Oregon's trial is a success, no one expects immediate change. Revamping the entire highway finance system, allaying fears from the public and equipping millions of cars and thousands of locations with new technology could keep the gas tax around for at least another decade, according to transportation experts.

But some in Congress are eager to start looking at it.

"If it works right and it can be proven to be secure so that privacy concerns are allayed, this could . . . lead to greater efficiency in the system," said Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wis., who chairs a key highway subcommittee. "We'd be negligent if we did not explore (this)."

On the Net:

http://ppc.uiowa.edu/itsroad.html, University of Iowa Public Policy Center

www.oregon.gov/odot, Oregon Department

of Transportation.

[Russell Kanning]

For big rigs they already tax you by the mile, not by the gallon. In Oregon it is a big deal because they don't charge you at the pump at all I recall and they have one of the higher mileage taxes for trucks. Truckers say they drive on the Washington side of the Columbia river and actually they drive on I-84. So the cops patrol and look for license plate numbers of offenders.

[Ron Helwig]

Researchers say the model could ? and should ? be tweaked to charge trucks and sport utility vehicles more than compacts because heavier vehicles wear down roads faster than lighter ones.

This is plain BS.

Roads are designed for the heaviest vehicles to use them. Anything less than the largest vehicles does virtually no damage.

A Hummer does the same amount of damage, that is none, to highways that a bicycle does.

I learned this from a civil engineer who worked on airport runways.

[SWilliams]

it's bad enough that in Oregon, it's against the law for you to pump your own gas (well, except when the pump jockeys are cute 16 year olds in the summer, but I digress...LOL)..

What about out-of-state traffic? They won't be paying any gas tax, and they sure as hell aren't going to keep track of their mileage and send Oregon some money... Or, they'll just avoid Oregon... I won't be making m once every three year trip to Ashland anymore if this goes into effect...

[Russell Kanning]

Well they already keep track of the trucks....but with gps and proper registrations and connections ....they could send you a bill for driving in OR
You can't pump your own gas in OR? are they afraid you will spill and ruin the environment?

[ravelkinbow]

A global positioning satellite ...."so Mrs. Coffey I see you have attended numerous FSP meetings so are you a member or a sympathizer to the cause...you know they are anti-government".....

And people say that "big brother" will never happen that it is a baseless fear......privacy rights will soon be non-existent

[libertyovertyranny]

Aside from the obvious privacy concerns, this plan is a good idea.  People don't realize how much roads cost.  Yes, a tax on gas is closer to a true user fee than, say, an income tax, but roads aren't completely paid for by gas taxes.

In order for roads to not enjoy a de facto subsidization, their true costs must be known to consumers.  Then, people can make educated choices about which mode of travel (air, rail, road, bike, walking, etc.) is truly the most economical.

Think about healthcare.  We libertarians understand that one of the huge reasons that healthcare prices keep rising is because the true costs are unknown to consumers.  People with "free healthcare" from their employer or even the government tend not to consider the price of going to the doctor, and consequently make unnecessary visits to the doctor.  Plus, a whole, almost completely unnecessary bureaucracy exists (the health insurance industry) to channel money from one big entity (the company you work for) to another (the healthcare company).  All in all, the true costs are *buried* and therefore the healthcare market is not a free market.

Right now, transportation is not a free market.  This GPS plan would move it one step closer to becoming one.

The privacy concerns can be dealt with...can we (should we?) really stop a useful technology from making things freer just because it has the potential to be abused?

[Pat K]

We should, I hope we can, I hope we will.

[Kat Kanning]

Much of the high costs of roads and healthcare come about because of the government's involvement in them.  I worked in a drug company for many years and the astronomical cost was directly related to getting FDA approval.  I've talked to road building contractors who tell me the astronomical pay they get when they do a government job, as opposed to any private work...plus there's all the graft at every level of government included in the price of those jobs.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Much of the high cost of Healthcare is due to: licensing and lack of competition in medicine, because of the stranglehold the AMA has on it.
All methods must be approved by the AMA. The AMA limits the number of medical students, thus limiting the number of doctors, ensuring their high incomes.

[Michael Fisher]

Do I really need to say this?  Okay, here it goes...

Being tracked is definitely bad.  Being tracked by the government is even worse.

Being voluntarily recorded through Progressive's TripSense program is bad, even if you think it's not.  The driving data can be subpoenaed by the government.

The government regularly uses any information it can get against people for victimless "crimes", including Black Box data from cars, mobile phone records, receipts, healthcare records, e-mails sent, websites visited, video or audio recordings, and anything else it can get its grubby hands on.

Here's an idea:  to protect our privacy, we should eliminate the largest violator of our privacy - the government.

Some libertarian types have argued that, because we cannot stop the government from tracking us, we should instead work toward a system in which everyone is tracked, including politicians, and all information is available to the public.

This is clearly a bad idea, and I'm not sure why these libertarians have lost all hope for privacy in the future.  Hope is all we have left.  When you lose hope, you come up with bad ideas like this.   

We will be free.  It is only a matter of time now.  The timid may refuse to fight, but I'm sure most of us here will never give up our moral and just cause.

[libertyovertyranny]

We should, I hope we can, I hope we will.

The internet?  Cellular phones?  Webcams?  These all have the potential to be abused (and have been) by the government.  Should we make these illegal?

Being voluntarily recorded through Progressive's TripSense program is bad, even if you think it's not. The driving data can be subpoenaed by the government.

I wouldn't support the GPS tracking thing unless it were accompanied with permanent legislation that prohibited the government from subpoenaing records without probable cause under strict scrutiny.  Of course, things like the Patriot Act might conflict with such legislation, but we shouldn't let the presence of the Patriot Act get in the way of improving society.

Here's an idea:  to protect our privacy, we should eliminate the largest violator of our privacy - the government.

Good idea.  I say, sell the roads to private companies and let them track vehicles or implement whatever method they see best fit to pay for the roads.  But does anybody think this will happen?  Maybe if the connection between road costs and road revenues is more direct, road privitazation will be more feasible.  Right now, the only way roads could be privatized would be with tolls.  Nobody likes tolls, and they probably have as much potential to be abused as this GPS thing.

Besides, if you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about 

Just kidding....whenever I hear that line used in an argument I know to oppose whatever position the person using that line is defeding.

Anyway, why couldn't a GPS system be implemented that doesn't save the data?  It simply tallies up the mileage and road types travelled on, but doens't actually keep track of position.  There are ways to engineer the system that make it impossible for the government (or whoever) to collect and store data of everywhere anyone's ever driven their car.

[Pat K]

Well hell then lets just let them do what they wan't.

I hope that boot stomping on your face is not to much of a burdon.

[libertyovertyranny]

Well hell then lets just let them do what they wan't.

Huh?

[Michael Fisher]

I believe tolls are the best way to pay for roads.  If you want to use the road, you pay for it.  It works well for New Hampshire's government, but it could easily be done by a private company more efficiently.  How much more common sense could possibly be applied to this subject?