Study to equip cars with tracking hardware, send testers faux bills
By Darren Murph 
posted December 14th 2007 8:51AM
posted December 14th 2007 8:51AM
We've been hearing about these highway use tax trials for years now, but apparently, a new $16.5 million Road User Charge Study will be looking for 2,700 mettlesome individuals that won't mind driving around with a tracking unit riding shotgun. The absurdly expensive initiative is purportedly seeking to figure out whether Americans "would accept the idea of paying by the mile, instead of by the gallon." North Carolina-based Innovation Management -- which will "oversee the study" in the Triangle region of NC -- proclaimed that folks who volunteer to take part in it would have their vehicle fitted with "GPS and computer hardware to track the miles they travel through each state and local government jurisdiction." Best of all, however, is the tidbit noting that these very guinea pigs will also receive "make-believe bills" each month displaying what taxes they would owe if they were indeed being taxed per mile. Anyone want to guess how much revenue they could rake in from accidental payments?[Via The Wolf Web, image courtesy of WRAL]
See, and this is different. Insurance companies actually would have a vested reason to track you, unlike the government. They'd want to know if you tend to spend more time driving through a bad neighborhood. There's no reason they should know this.
Government having this data - fine.
Private corporations/individuals having this data - not fine.
Using tracking data to figure out who is burying bodies in the woods - good.
Using tracking data so a wife can see if her husband is actually going bowling or meeting some hussy in a motel - bad.
There's another reason why this is a bad idea. If they want to tax me based on the number of miles I drive instead of how much fuel I spend, that's fine, really. That's a good way of getting the same amount of money out of everyone's miles.
Think about this, though. How expensive would it be to drive on the interstate vs. driving on a state highway, or local roads?
Personally, I don't want thousands of cars a day driving down the city streets just to avoid driving down the interstate because it's too expensive (or, after they find this out, increasing the local road tax so people won't choose them as an alternative.) Furthermore, I don't want everyone driving down the less expensive state highway either, because it's not maintained as well or designed to handle the traffic. This is basically a precursor to adding tolls to any road they want.
Let's push that a little farther. The rich sector in any large city has a lot of influence on the local government, and they don't want hoodlums driving through their neighborhood. How about a 10x tax increase on all roads in that small geographic area? You can't drive there because you can't afford to.
While I don't really care about the privacy concerns of a GPS device in my car (if you're not breaking the law, why do you care?) I do totally disagree with the idea of charging people based on them. There are plenty of other ways to get money out of people.
In cities like Dallas where the mass transportation is a joke, this would be horrible. There are people who can barely afford to drive as it is, if they toss extra costs and fees on top of that we could have some big problems.
wait you mean you live in america where mass trans is a joke
Doesn't saving polar bears require tax money?
Kind of. I think we should enocourage subsidies to gun manufacturers to supply polar bears with military-grade weapons so that the polar bears can defend themselves. That way, we don't have to worry about protecting them with general tax breaks, and help support gun manufacturers who employ thousands of red-blooded americans.
Down the road, we could train the polar bears to collate GPS data, as well as billing and collections. Who's gonna refuse to pay a polar bear with a Browning M2? I sure wouldn't.
The one thing scarier then mileage-based taxation? Polar bears...
Yeah, really missing my Colbert Report.
"There are two things in life that are inevitable: death and taxes*"
*-in the absence of a really good money laundering scheme.
This makes a lot of sense since your contribution to the wear and tear of roads and highways is directly related to the number of miles you drive on them. It has nothing to do with alternative fuels and all that good stuff. Interestingly enough, trucks and other transportation vehicles will get creamed and this will translate into increased prices across the board from all of us.
I intend to go deeper into this discussion on my blog "Jumpstart Your Business" that you can link to from http://www.ychange.com
Ok until goverment uses every red cent they collect for "road Improvements and maintainence" on the roads I will NEVER vote to be charged by the mile. Plus how quickly do you think big oil will re-inflate their prices to match current plus tax prices? I say NO NO NO.
I hate to borrow from the French, but who wants to help me build a guillotine and start collecting politicians???
Drop the speed limit down to 60MPH (cat's outta the bag but you'd be surprised how much fuel you save).
Tax internet sales through credit cards (this is what is hurting the local tax base).
Pave roads to last 30-40 years, not 5.
Test drivers every 5 years, not once.
Build small, self-sufficient communities instead of McMansions in the burbs. Efficient social design with focus on "urban" rather than distant suburban.
I live in the Triangle...everyone thinks its a big steaming load of cr*p. Hell, we don't even have a single toll road in the state... though we may soon.
It seems like most people here are talking about the use tax as an alternative to the fuel tax. I think it's probably more like an addition, not an alternative. Taxes rarely ever go away. Plus, while fuel taxes generally go directly to traffic related expenditures, who's to say a use tax wouldn't a general funds tax which may or may not be used for roads (bait and switch). This is something to watch closely.
Really? Should we penalize the rich for having the gall to be rich? If you were being taxed on 50% of your income, you'd be looking for all the tax breaks you can find. The only fair way is the Fair Tax. A consumption tax.
Consumption tax > currently broken system. I only want Mr. & Mrs. rich paying big bucks in taxes if they're out spending their money on a new waterfall pool and jacuzzi for the summer home, not storing it in the bank for their kids/retirement/whatever.
Fair tax is slightly different than a consumption tax, but it's almost the same basic idea. But it all boils down to the realization that companies do not pay taxes. Ok, companies do get taxed, but you're the one paying the taxes for them by purchasing their goods and services.
Does it say "study" or am I delusional? Being uneducated on the intracacies of this (as is EVERY person who has commented), I cannot really form an opinion, especially since this is just research.
I do know that we need to come up with a more equitable means of bringing in funds for transportation. Right now public transit and general rail users pay FAR more to use those systems than do users of automobiles. Even though autos are the least efficient form of transportation available (even zero emissions/high MPG autos). If car drivers were charged for their actual use of the system, you'd see a lot fewer of them. Just about everyone I know could take public transit to work, myself included, but none of us does. I have no incentive to, driving is cheap.
We need to re-focus our attention on methods of transportation, and equity in funding those methods. If this system accomplishes making users of automobiles pay their fair share (which they currently do not, not even close), then it could be a good thing.
There are of course privacy and other issues that would need to be addressed. That's why this is a STUDY. There would certainly need to be laws prohibiting the data from being used by any corporation for any reason, as well as by the government for any reason other than to tax users. I can see there being a real temptation to use something like this to catch criminals, or in an Amber Alert. I'd call those uses well-intended, but ill thought out.
Anyway, keep your drawers on people, its just research.
It is research, and it's designed to implement the per-mile tax. Because the people will be receiving fake bills, they won't complain nearly as much as if they were actually paying. Therefore, they will report that they don't mind the tax so much. We're screwed.
Don't track every car on the road to pay for roads its overkill and invades peoples freedom to move without being monitored. If you are obeying the law and paying your way you should not be tracked in any way.
Here
1) Raise the tax on petroleum based fuels. Yes low mpg vehicles will pay more for road use. Not fair but neither is wasting fuel on a Hummer. Once alternative fuel vehicles reach 15% of the market we can think of another way to handle this issue.
2) Use gantry based, Fastrak or EZ-Pay style, congestion pricing in areas where congestion is bad or tolls are needed to pay for infrastructure.
3) Allow a cash option for toll system tags so that users can protect ID if they want.
So this would be a tax on those who live in rural areas. I have a 20 mile round trip just to get to a grocery store or gas station from my home. (That also happens to be the closest bus stop)
Taking my kids to school is even further. We have a Prius to be more fuel efficient, but this tax concept would further penalize those who don't live in town.
i still want to know how they are going to implement this. is it going to go into the cars computer? or is it going to be like an analog system. either way its going to be hard. new cars are pretty much all digital (high end) but what about people who have old cars (like me!) i still want to figure that one out.
I haven't read all the comments but this may have been covered all ready - gas taxes arnt for environmental purposes but to pay for roads.