Researchers from the University of Iowa Public Policy Center have developed a system for charging drivers federal taxes by the distance traveled rather than on gallons of gas purchased. The study is being conducted with 2,700 drivers from states like Maryland, Texas, Iowa and California to gauge public reactions and experiences with the system. The basis for the study is the declining tax dollars being paid for car use in the States; as fuel prices rise, cars get more efficient, and alternatives like ethanol and hybrids gain ground, our 18.4-cents-a-gallon tax on gas (which was set in 1993) remains static, thereby making it harder for The Man to get paid. Eventually, the government will have to find another way to generate tax dollars from drivers -- and researchers think this might be it. Instead of paying a constant fee on the fuel we purchase, drivers cars are equipped with a taxi-like meter, and users will be given a monthly bill for the miles that they've driven. We can only hope this is avoidable, perhaps due to the spontaneous existence of a free, plentiful, environment-friendly fuel source... or another revolution.
[Via
Autoblog]
posted Sep 25th 2007 1:56PM
If they pull this crap they better do away with all the toll roads too.
They better make the software and the hardware tighter than my granny's ass after losing at bingo. Otherwise, hackers are gonna be all up in her shit...err...I mean their shit...ew
I for one, don't care! All you rural/suburban bastards weep your little hearts out. I've lived downtown in a major city for years and haven't had a car since 2003. Suck It!
The toll roads are being sold to private companies now because the gov't needed to balance the budgets, so they just sold the roads. It doesn't look like the toll roads are going anywhere until the 75year leases are up. Sorry Frank. And you thought people hacked the iPhone a lot... ha.
http://www.progressivestates.org/blog/203/more-on-private-toll-roads
http://www.goofigure.com/UserGoofigureDetail.asp?gooID=6724
just you wait till they make any type of circumvention of this system a federal offense.. Then we'll see how many geeks are gonna try and save a few bucks when the consequences will be a couple years in jail and being banned from use of a computer for a couple more years.
I forsee a thriving underground market for circumvention tools if this ever goes big time.
My first thought was on how quickly this would get hacked. Apple, Sony and Microsoft can't keep their electronics hack proof. What chance do the Feds really have? Nobody is going to see this as fair, and in real life, when most people think something is too unfair, they work around it, legal or not.
if it's mechanical, just change the sensors/make the software on it register 1/16th the distance
if it's gps, just take the gps unit out or something.
i'd like to play with this.
***or just drive a car without this device***
what. the. fuck?
The same three words that came out of my mouth after I read this.
So... let me get this straight: the government sees that the gasoline tax is no longer paying off and sees the need to tax drivers continuously wherever they go to fill the gap?
Is this government greediness or plain stupidity?
Gas taxes and Licensing fees don't cover all of the costs of roads. It's a massively subsidized public service.
Yes - even a perfectly fuel efficient car that runs off of Champagne wishes and Caviar dreams won't replace the need to build and maintain roadways, signs, lights, etc. That is a big part of what the tax is for, and is a big reason why EVERY road isn't a toll road.
So I don't get rewarded for having an efficient car?
yup total bummer, what they should do is just increase the tax on the gas smartasses
Yeah, you save money on gas. And think of it this way, they can only tax one, not both, otherwise the public will go crazy, so chances are, your gas will drop by almost 20 cents per gallon.
Yay, cheaper gas, time to put my own personal hole in the ozone. V24 Baby, rollin' on 50" rims and um, flamethrowers! Maybe our government should focus on rewarding people for being environmentally conscious instead of profiting from oil companies. First order of business: Get Bush out of the oval office. No really, this isn't a Bush bashing thing, it's a common sense statement. The Bush family has a vested interest in oil companies, and over the last several years President Bush has been involved in several changes in US policy that has resulted in record profits for major oil companies.
While I realize Bush didn't develop pay as you go driving, this is something that would be very appealing to people interested in oil profits because the price of oil could go up, and the price at the pump could go down. All while discuraging people from buying efficient vehicles.
well, im ready to unplug the module from my car... seems liek it would be hard to enforce. although, i suppose they could check if the milage matches when they test emissions
If the unit is unplugged, I'd bet that there is a flat fine that is some ridiculous number.
This is a thinly vailed attempt at keeping tabs on US citizens.
Having the government track your every move is not good period.
I propose that they quit giving my tax money away to other people, and then there won't be an issue with fees for roads.
amen
I propose that they quit giving my tax money away to stupid oil wars, and then there won't be an issue with fees for roads.
Personally I'd support the system, but then again I ride a bike.
I hate to trip up your perfectly good diatribe with facts, but if we were in a war for oil, we would secure the oil source and take the oil, right?
We have not secured any oil source and taken any oil, so where is your oil war?
Or did you just get caught spitting out leftist propaganda?
Well put, Andy.
he meant failed oil war. Like everything else Mr. Bush touched.
You can't argue the fact we are spending $100,000 per minute in a war with no progress for over three years. That could build a lot of roads here....
So what was the war for then Andy?
Was it to find the weapons of mass destruction? Oops, haven't found those yet.
Maybe it was to free Iraq? Hmmm... last time I checked ethnic conflict wasn't rampant in free states I'm used to.
My point is that it's a failed war. Your arguments don't make sense because NONE of the pre war objectives have been met. Well, I guess we got Saddam. Make that 1 objective.
Anybody ever think of just increasing the fuel tax? Why should person 'A' with a fuel-efficient car get screwed just as much as person 'B' in the gas-guzzling SUV when they drive the same number of miles?
If you want to pay out the nose every month to fill up your SUV, knock yourself out, but don't drag me down with you.
A higher fuel tax is a regressive tax on lower income people who depend on their car and are already hanging on by a thread. So while it would be wonderful to screw the idiots who drive Escalades and Hummers, you'd be screwing poor people as well. I personally can't abide that.
"A higher fuel tax is a regressive tax on lower income people who depend on their car and are already hanging on by a thread. So while it would be wonderful to screw the idiots who drive Escalades and Hummers, you'd be screwing poor people as well. I personally can't abide that."
god bless you.
How is that poor people will be effected by any tax related on vehicles or the fuel for them? Oh, you mean those poor people who have a car, a warm house with a bed in it, and a refrigerator with some food in it, which qualifies them for being in the upper 8% of the wealthiest people in the world? Let's get some perspective folks. I don't mean to belittle the daily strife of those less fortunate than me, but the bottom line is that we all have a great deal of choices to make in this country, and those choices determine our personal conditions to a great extent. Anyone who has a vehicle is not lacking in options to pursue; it is only the lack of will that is in question.
Everyone, no matter what kind of car they drive, makes some kind of maintenance demand on the public roads. Now Hummers and Escalades cause more damage to roads than your Prius sheerly because of their weight. If this tax took into account the weight of the vehicle as a factor for the tax, that could make sense.
Typically poor people have to drive the furthest and the most often. They have to drive their kids to school, and then commute from their cheaper housing in the burbs into the business centers for work. Better off people can afford the more expensive places closer to where they work, and can afford the hybrid cars. Poor people can't afford either, so they are going to be double taxed for being poor.
It's like saying the state isn't making enough in sales taxes off well made shoes that don't wear out in a few months. so we are going to tax the number of steps you take.
And about paying for infrastructure: Most infrastructure problems are caused by the ever increasing number of big rig trucks on the roads. Right now trucking is like a subsidized industry. The roads trucks use are being paid for by tax payers. Its not fair that trucks do the most damage to roads, clog them up with their slowness, and are involved in fetal accidents, and just pay the same kind of taxes normal businesses do. If anything, these devices should be put in trucks and they should be taxed for the amount of public infrastructure they use to make money.
@Chris
Car registration fee in Hawaii is based on vehicle weight.
Pay per mile defeats the purpose of the tax to get smaller more efficient cars on the road. Of course nobody with a SUV wants their pump cost to go up, so they want to tax drivers of smaller, efficient cars more. Like another poster said, cars used to pay by weight class... until small, light expensive cars got popular in order to meet efficiency... so they changed the fees to "cost" based in addition to size.
Frankly with $3 gallon gas, taxes on gas for transportation have been too low for too long. Considering record industry profits the measly 28 cents collected for gas tax is not enough. In most places they could take another 20 cents and the consumer wouldn't notice it due to the high prices. Of course that wouldn't fix ROADS because the money they collect now is not going to roads.
No, no, no!
Seems fair: you use the infrastructure, you pay for it. I work as an infrastructure analyst and I can tell you that we've been drastically under-funding infrastructure in north america for far too long. There's a good reason that we've had at least two fatal bridge collapses in the last 12 months in north america (Montreal and Minneapolis). If this is what it takes for road users to pay their fair share, then so be it.
Though i would hope there would be a sliding scale to account for those that use heavier vehicles and incentives for those that drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.
do you REALLY believe that all the extra tax that comes from pay as you go driving will go on fixing up the roads?
of course it'll all go to fund our roads!! Or at least 1 penny out of every dollar, the other 99 cents needs to help fund the war on terror. If you're for infrastructure, then you're helping the terrorists win!
Actually the highway trust fund was setup to ensure that the money goes into spending on roads and mass transit. Only about 20% of the money goes into the general treasury.
I wish the U of I policy center would spend as much time researching ways NOT TO SPEND tax dollars they no longer collect......
I understand the idea behind a road tax, but as mentioned previously it had better be either this....OR tolls, not both.
And I don't know about the rest of you but I find this, I don't know, a bit creepy.
yeah no kidding talk about big brother peeking over your shoulder...whats the next leap you get it used against you in court b/c it could cast reasonable doubt on your alibi? This is truly something that will make my white ass move to another country
You're thinking like I am: if this is pulling GPS data, one month your bill comes in a little high because they've shared the data and the state has tacked a speeding ticket onto the bill.
Ohio used to do that with Turnpike fare tickets: If you drove the distance faster than the speed limit, based on distance/time elapsed, they just tacked the fine right onto the toll.
This is way too intrusive I doubt that it would ever catch on.
[We can only hope this is avoidable, perhaps due to the spontaneous existence of a free, plentiful, environment-friendly fuel source... or another revolution.]
Run cars on water and you still have to pay for roads and bridges somehow. Either you tax users (what the gas tax tries to do) or you raise local and federal taxes.
If you don't want to pay for roads, that's fine too...get a flying car...
yeah... thats F'ed up! I bought a house that is near where I work so I don't drive many miles and I also bought a fuel efficent vehicle so I don't waste much gas doing that but occasionally I go for a trip here and a trip there and its going to suck if I have these huge spikes where I owe "the man" because I was visit my parents.
I personally don't see this happening because this means the state will probably have to buy one of these devices for every car, truck and motorcycle regestered. Plus my bike has no room on it for anything, you think they are going to make one to go in it that also won't void my warranty.
Why doesn't the government just stop beating around the bush and go straight to their master plan? The air tax. You breathe, you pay.
Attention all elected government officials!!!
Good luck getting reelected if you sign this one!
Tax the mulitbillion profit the oil companies are making. or the mulitmillion dollar stock options but don't hurt the little people anymore!
Attention all elected government officials!!!
Good luck getting reelected if you sign this one!
Tax the mulitbillion profit the oil companies are making. or the mulitmillion dollar stock options but don't hurt the little people anymore!
Problem is most people won't pay attention to that and they'll just vote D or R as they always have.
Sorry system hiccup i hit add comment more than once
I foresee our tax forms getting even more complicated than before - now, adding in line items for mileage for all vehicles owned. I also foresee states wanting to get into the mix, too! If I drive across state lines, I will have to track my mileage in each state driven - separately... I don't f*@king think so!
States already get more than their fair share of tax from gasoline usage to pay for the streets and bridges - they choose to put that money elsewhere! I think it's time for the state governments to start accounting for all the money they receive via taxes and start funding the NEEDS instead of the WANTS of the government.
Well, I'm not letting anyone borrow my car anymore.
The best thing to do is to raise bloody heck NOW before it happens, because like a Vampire once the “Tax Man” starts to suckle its hard for him to stop! Oh, and didn’t a right-wing radio blowhard once say (during the pre war media blitz) that going to war er taking over Iraq will have a “net benefit” of lower gas prices? Yea, how’d that work out?
Stop moaning over here in the UK the fuel tax is over $4 a gallon
Sorry, our petrol (gas) price is £0.969 per litre or $7.39 per gallon.
Who's moaning about the gas price?? We are just concerned with the higher taxes!! Hell...you Europeans should be paying for our roads. How many billions of your taxes are you spending in the war on terror in the middle east??? Yeah....nothing compared to what the U.S. is and yet you will reap the benefits of a terror free world...unfortunately us Americans always pick up the tab for everything.
Who's moaning about the gas price?? We are just concerned with the higher taxes!! Hell...you Europeans should be paying for our roads. How many billions of your taxes are you spending in the war on terror in the middle east??? Yeah....nothing compared to what the U.S. is and yet you will reap the benefits of a terror free world...unfortunately us Americans always pick up the tab for everything.
Terror-free world? Um, what?
*cleans ear out with pinkie*
Please tell me you didn't just say that.
I don't see how this is legal. The Government cannot tax you for how many miles you drive, *only* how many miles you drive on State roads. If this plan is implemented, you'll be paying the government for the privilege of driving on private roads also.
I think the Government will be argumenting in a very different way,rather that you are allowed to burn gasoline and dump the co2 into the u.s. american athmosphere,than saying that they charge you a road-fee
Did you bother to read? Do you understand that this is replacing the gas tax, and that that is for roads?
Have our schools stopped teaching reading comprehension?
Fuck it, I'm moving to Switzerland. I can have my guns, privacy, and not worry about my country getting into a useless war, killing the brave men that just wanted to defend the country, not fight a useless war of attrition.
Jesse. It's you who needs to learn to read *and* comprehend.
The Government has no rights to tell you what you do with your car if you drive it on private land. You do *NOT* need insurance to drive on private land. You do *NOT* need a drivers license to drive on private land. And they sure as hell don't have the right to tax you per mile when you drive on *PRIVATE* land.
Please do go move to Switzerland. God knows we don't need any more retards like you here.
Um, wouldn't it be better to just raise the existing tax on gas? That way the revenue doesn't keep dropping and drivers with more efficient cars get rewarded.
Of course, the real benefit for this type of system is to tax car use according to type of road and time of travel. So you can drive for free in the middle of the night and pay during busy rush hours -- which would really help reduce congestion.
i believe that they won't raise the actual gas-tax because it would over-affect drivers of heavy cars or machinery and that certainly is not what the u.s. economy needs (people running to get cars from overseas that are more fuel-effective and ruining the own car-industry)
If its tax money they need, then maybe they should come up with a overall better tax system then, just trying to move the taxes around.
Something like this *could* happen. Everyone who is saying: "OMG no way no way, too intrusive" would probably think the same idea when they introduced tolls, and FastLane (EZ Pass). At first, it seems crazy, but then it becomes habit.
Granted, the idea is inherently flawed in that you are not charging people who drive around the city, clogging streets, creating traffic, burning up lots of gas but going relatively few miles ---- but you are charging people who drive on easy to maintain highways all the cash. Let's clear this up once and for all: Tolls on _all_ the roadways, congestion pricing in the city.
And I'm a Libertarian, just one who knows we need to pay for the roads.
People in London get used to the CCTV's, it just becomes part of the city.
Honestly, I hate how much people in this (my) country, about taxes and gas prices. Do we not have the cheapest gas in the world? Do we not have some of the lowest taxes of a super power, if not the lowest?
This country could have so much better public crap (health care, infrastructure, schools, etc.) if people stopped freaking whining, and cared about the country at all.
Remember what happened in California, when to cut property taxes, school funding was cut? The majority of public California schools are STILL absolute crap. And that will happen again and again if people don't get freaking perspective.
After this is perfected and implemented all across the country, they'll reduce the size and insert one in every pair of shoes you own!
It's simple really...
Income
150,000+ = 5
75 - 149 = 4
50 - 74 = 3
25 - 49 = 2
0 - 24 = 1
MPG
<15 = 4
16 - 25 = 3
26 - 35 = 2
36+ = 1
.0075 per mile
Take your Income range multiplied by your cars MPG by the Tax per mile.
150k(5) x Hummer(4) x .0075 = .15 per mile is the tax you'd pay.
I think it´s time for the US to either raise their taxes on gasoline to show people that not everyone is blessed with a government which is very greedy for oil and also has oil-companies...
in germany for example 40% of our gasoline prices are taxes,mainly enviromental taxes to stop people from taking the car for a distance which could easily covered by walking 10 minutes or so,which is far more healthier and maybe a little help of the obese people of america..
You Euro's are all the same aren't you? Telling someone to walk is pretty easy when you can fit your entire country in one of our counties (that's a subdivision of a state, which is a subdivision of our country). You guys probably live 3 or 4 miles from work at the most. I can't afford an 800,000 USD loft on a 60,000 USD salary with a family to support, so I have to live 20 miles away. Please bestow your wisdom on that conundrum.
Seriously,
how many miles does the average american walk?
even here in germany fact is that people walk only 2 and a half kilometers every day,thats exactly WHY germany is becomming more and more obese.
btw,iam not talking about totally crazy distances like 2+ miles..
I will have to walk 6 kilometers to the University every morning from October on,and i know people who even have to walk more than that.
and why do you try to explain to me what a county is,do you think it is beyond my knowledge of your country?
please don't put this into the wrong direction with
us > everything - "patrioticm"...
For being a blog full of techies, a lot of y'all aren't so good with the math here. This tax would be designed to replace the gas tax. A dollar is a dollar, and the whole point of this tax is that the government would collect the same amount of money, but that it would collect it in a different way so that it had different effects on the distribution of who pays the taxes.
There's a legitimate argument here, which is that studies suggest that the congestion costs of traffic (i.e. the time you could spend doing something else if you weren't stuck in traffic) drastically outweighs the environmental costs of traffic. Those single-passenger commuter vehicles take up a lot of space on our scarce roads, and the basic idea behind charging by the mile is
Of course, the problem is that all miles aren't really created equally. If I drive 60 miles on an underused stretch of the Utah interstate in the middle of the night, it doesn't really cost other drivers nearly as much as if I circle the DC Beltway during rush hour. We build all these extra roads so that the whole country can work its 9-5 schedule, so the people that commute then should logically pay the most. In that sense, paying by the mile might actually be less desirable than paying by the gallon, because at least that way the government's getting a cut of the pie while you idle in traffic on the highway because you and everyone else thought it was a good idea to live 30 miles outside the city.
The idling is a very good point. They'll probably just end up taxing you per mile *and* per gallon, because they can't/won't be able to think of a better way.
well I live in rural area that in the summertime turns into a tourist trap...so, how is it fair to charge me more to drive on the same road at diffrent times of the year? or am i missing something
And I am sure they would drop the price of gas...
Not bloody likely. They would leave the tax on gas and tax you on your mileage (getting hit twice).
I'm assuming this works on some kind of odometer. Why not crack it open, hook it up to a cordless drill, and spin it in reverse for a few hours?
You could also go Ferris Beuller on it and spin the drill the other way around until the odometer rolls over (or the integer buffer overflows)
Or you could just unscrew the spedometer/odometer cable from either the transmission or the speedometer to begin with. It's illegal, but it's also impossible to detect.
The concept of charging strictly for miles driven is poor, but this could be the first step toward what many economists would consider an ideal system in which all drivers are charged for the negative extneralities they create. In such a system, you would be charged for the incremental wear and tear on the road (probabally based on your cars tires and weight) + impact on traffic (based on time of day/day of week) + noise (based on engine type) + Pollution (based on the actual emissions of your vehicle type).
If you create such a system, drivers would be paying for the REAL cost of their driving to society, the infrastructure and the environment and thus allow people to make better decisions on whether to carpool, change cars or take public transit.
$10 says Hummer or some other big American car manufacturer sponsored this study. Americans, at least some, love their SUV. Move the tax over to milage and BAM. It benefits people who drive fuel inefficient cars. Which in the end rewards people for drive such cars. Brilliant!
My mother loves her SUV, she used to drive small Japanese cars, but she can't go back.
Why is it that people are so adamant to attack SUV drivers? I know it helps my mother feel safe, and she has fun driving it, what's wrong with that?
I know SUV's can impact the environment more than other cars, but still, there isn't a good reason to hate SUV drivers.
I see bad driving come from every kind of car, you can't just say generally that SUV drivers try to force everyone off of the road.
fuck that. i'll just move to canada.
Genius! Give the SUV drivers who burn twice as much gas going half the distance a tax break!
Just try to fit my car with something like this.. I dare you. Will the government try to retrofit my antique 1969 Dodge Coronet that's driven all of 300 miles per year? I'll break someone's fucking legs first. It can't get this personal. What's next? Will they force us to wear pedometers and tax us for every step we take?
I vote we nuke the continent and start over. It's just going to keep getting worse and worse. It's time to rise up and start a Narco-Symacyst Commune. :P
You also forgot to mention that in germany the gov't pays you for having kids! Here in the USA, we can't have too high of gas prices because we actually have to pay for our own kids!!!
yeah,but thats not the really big money and not the matter here..
and 150€ each month is not like you dont have to pay for your kids,right?
I want to know the thought process of the idiot behind this study. How can anyone think it is a great idea to find another way for the government to tax him/us????
I can see it now- "Hey, I'm not taxed enough. How can I make sure the government gets as much from me as possible?"
It's like doing R&D on a device that will later be used to torture you. Moron.
Just another case of the man trying to keep us down...
It's time for a revolution!!!!! I say that jokingly, but we're getting close! Republican, Democrat, Independent, it doesn't matter. Politicians are evil greedy whores!
Not my god on earth, Ralph Nader.
The next thing I can see happening is that we will pay for the time we are in our car the same way we pay for cell phone service. You will get charged extra if your in a certain area during certain times kinda like being charged for roaming or driving at prime times vs evenings. However to impliment something like this would require every car in the US to have an OnStar type device. A system like this would be most effective but would be very confusing for most people. But one problem with this is that you are taxing the car and not the person which is the same reason you can't get pointed when you are cought by a redlight camera or speed trap that is automated because they can't prove who the driver is.
I am not a parent yet, but who pays for when a 16 year old kid takes the old mans car out for a weekend. Does the parent get stuck with a huge bill because they don't exactly have control over how far the car will be driven?
Better yet, what happens if the car is stolen or in a mechanic shop or parking garage where someone else has access and the person drives it around. Who pays then as well?? Guess we will need finger print readers and/or iris scanners in the cars as well. Funny b/c Nissan is trying out a breathalizer so no one drives drunk. lol
good lord. more money spent on finding ways to get more money to throw away. fairtax people, fairtax.
I worked on the pilot project conducted in Oregon last year, and while I'm not going to get too deep into it here, I will address a few things:
* Whether you're driving a Hummer or a PZEV, you put approximately the same amount of wear and tear on the roads. The gasoline tax has nothing to do with emissions penalties in reality - it exists to maintain roadways for all type of vehicle travel. As cars get more and more efficient, they put the same amount of wear on the road while the funding for maintenance declines precipitously. The road user fee is one attempt to study the possibility of redressing a funding shortfall.
* If and when a road user fee is implemented nationwide, it will be most likely be baked in only on new vehicles. Existing vehicles will continue to pay the gasoline tax. You will never pay both fees.
* Yes, congestion-based pricing models are being studied.
Back in Portland, my roommate's dad worked for ODOT. He explained that the roads had to use a less-durable form of pavement to accommodate semis, because their weight would crush a more-durable but also more brittle form of pavement. In other words, semis do the vast majority of damage to the roadways.
The smart thing to do would be to get most of the semis off the roads and use trains, which are vastly more efficient for freight transport.
Personally, I think the best option is to tax by gas mileage: the lower the gas mileage, the higher the tax.
What an idiots ...
People are (in general) not really inclined to adjust their daily behavior to be more environment friendly ... unless it would save them money ...
The motivation to be more fuel efficient is thus taken away with this new approach ... and the "punishment" for being more fuel (and environment) efficient is ... getting stabbed in the back by the government again?
I guess I'll keep driving my SUV (10 mpg) ... (as a figure of speech of course)
Why doesn't the US look at what they do in Europe?
It seems to me that in the US any form or shape to save the environment just a little bit WILL be punished?
No wonder the US is one of the countries with the biggest pollution output ...
So what happens if lets say you drive north from Texas into Oklahoma? Does the counter stop ticking as you pass the border? Doubt it...
Do motorcycles get a cheaper rate?
Should we put odometers on bicycles too? They use the road.
So what happens if lets say you drive north from Texas into Oklahoma? Does the counter stop ticking as you pass the border? Doubt it...
*yes. it does. nearly all new cars have GPS built into them now - building an in-state/out-of-state value in is pretty easy.
Do motorcycles get a cheaper rate?
*they would probably just pay the gas tax, no mileage fee. they put a negligible amount of wear on roads due to their weight.
Should we put odometers on bicycles too? They use the road.
*even less wear than motorcycles...
I love how everyone is talking about the strain on themselves, but not looking at the whole picture. This will make everything besides gas expensive in the long run. Because company delivery vehicles are how they get products to market. So say ONE vehicle out of hundreds in distribution center A in one state. Had to travel to distribution center D across the country. It dosent take very long for that to add up quick. So even if you add weight/consumption clauses to this its still bad . Because semi trucks and commercial vehicles arent exactly a Prius.
I always laugh when Americans start complaining about the cost of driving - especially fuel prices.
Trying living in the UK where the price is now over US$9 / gallon.
yeah, but how often do you seriously have to fill up? everything you need is right next door over there. we pay less because we use more. i drive about the distance from london to paris just to go to college. have any of you even been on a road trip that is over 2500 miles??