Originally Posted by lars-ss

Heard a very interesting story on NPR today.

Oregon is testing a "GPS" system for calculating gas taxes.

Instead of taxing everyone "equally" by charging Hummer drivers the same gas tax at the pump as Hybrid drivers, they are going experimenting with a system that will tax "based on miles driven" in particular areas. They have setup "GPS Zones" and every mile driven in a particular ZONE is calculated, then when at the pump, their is a wireless system which reads your Zone info and taxes you accordingly.

For example, if you drive during rush hour on the freeways, which are more expensive to maintain because of the high volume of traffic and required repairs, then you pay MORE gas tax at the pump.

If you drive in rural areas, you pay LESS because those roads are used less, thus are less costly to repair.

I think it is a VERY COOL idea. Tax the people more who use the more expensive roads more often, and tax the people LESS who use the less expensive roads. Makes perfect sense to me.