Pilot programs use GPS to charge road taxes
If you think the government is planning to track your car by GPS, keeping tabs on you everywhere you go, it looks like you're right — if you live in Oregon or the UK, that is. The Beaver State is running a federally funded test of a GPS-based system that replaces state gas taxes with pay-at-the-pump road usage tax. In the UK, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling says he'd like a similar system on a nationwide basis, with per-mile taxes of as much as £1.34. Our bet is that the UK plan will eventually fly, while in America, an alliance of civil libertarians on the left and anti-tax conservatives on the right, will torpedo any growth of this beyond the pilot stage. (Of course that doesn't mean the government won't still use GPS to keep tabs on you everywhere you go.)
