This new taxing system being developed seems to hurt people with fuel-efficient vehicles
Quote:
Mileage tracking could replace Oregon's gas tax
Researchers at Oregon State University will demonstrate in Corvallis Friday two wireless systems for measuring how many miles a vehicle travels. The technology could one day lead to a replacement of Oregon's gasoline tax.
The systems employ wireless technology to calculate how many miles a vehicle travels between refueling, then automatically read this data, compute a total fee and add the fee to the cost of fuel while a vehicle is at the fuel pump. They were developed by OSU engineering professors David Kim and David Porter using a grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation.
"Oregon House Bill 3946 mandates that ODOT develop alternatives to the current system of taxing highway use through fuel taxes," said James Whitty, manager of the ODOT Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding. "One alternative is a mileage fee based on the number of miles driven on roads within Oregon," Whitty said. "According to the research OSU has performed, it appears that a VMT fee is a very workable solution, and Oregon would be the national leader if the Oregon Legislature makes the decision to implement this fee system."
Kim stressed that the systems developed at OSU do not allow storage or retrieval of any location or personal information, or the time or dates mileage was logged. The only information captured is the total number of miles driven since the last fueling.
i just said it at echofans...and ill say it again...THATS GHEY! compeletely pointless. it would actually promote the use of inefficient vehicles. i cant really do it, but im sure one of you bright people could actually graph it out and show the point at wich it would be cheaper to operate a car w/ low mpg's. this tax would make gas expensive for people that had efficeint cars and cheaper for those with inefficient cars.
What I don't get it...are they thinking that they can make people put a device on their car that will let them how many miles they drove between fillups?!? That's not going to fly.
I can understand that the states will need a way to raise money to keep the roads in good condition. And taxing gas seemed like a good way to tax people equally who use the roads the most.
So with less gas being used they think they won't have enough money to keep the roads up? Well here's a thought you freaking geunies....why not raise the gas tax to 35.9 cents a gal. instead of 33.9 or whatever the increase needs to be instead of charging people who are doing the right thing more money for doing the right thing.
But yeah let's spent alot of time and money makeing devices that no one wants..(..it's no ones business how much I drive) making it as hard as possable to find a solution.....If I didn't know better (I know the goverment is just that dumb)I'd start with the conspericy theories about oil, automakers, etc.
There are a couple issues I see with this. First off, if all vehicles had the same fuel economy, this may be an alright system. The state pays for transit expenses (new roads, potholes...) and they're only needed because of transportation. However, the reason why gasoline prices are so high is because of tax. If gas prices drop dramatically, the American public will immediately loose interest in fuel conservation because of their own personal financial interest.
The second problem I see is that this will, in the big picture, downsize the transportation industry. Sure, this sounds good on paper. But the reason the United States transformed into an industrial and manufacturing economy during the 1800's was because of the train. By downsizing transportation, we'll likely kick the ladder from under our economy.
___I believe Nebraska charges a small additional fee for registration if the automobile is a hybrid as well?
___And in the bigger scheme … A Honda Insight weighs just 2,100 #’s with driver. There isn’t a road in the States or Canada that an Insight could damage over 50 years of driving let alone 10. Even an 04 Prius at slightly > 3,000 #’s w/ driver wouldn’t harm a roadway in any way shape or form in comparison to some of the larger vehicles we drive with every day … It is fuel/road taxes alright. Raise them to whatever they want. Some will still drive albeit a lot less and with that, less commerce at the mall, the Home Depot, even the Walmart let alone the millions of tax paying wage earners in Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Marysville, Tokyo, Dresden, and wherever else profitable automobiles are manufactured without a decent paying job to support our ridiculous $500,000,000,000 debt Mr. Bush has helped incur not including the SS borrowing this year alone!
Well this is certnaly retarded, and I doubt it would ever go over, number one, no one wants a tracking device on their car although techinally they are going to be more and more integrated anyway with GPS, etc, the idea of a device that "reports" data about you to some other entity, govt or industry, and that you are forced to use it is quite frankly "un-American".
Secondly, why go to the exptra expense of doing all this instead of just rasing other taxes normally? This has a lot of cost built into it, which of course would be a waste of money.
This idea is just plain stupid.
And as for the cost to maintain raods, this cost should not be paid for exclusively by the use of driving related taxes such as fuel taxes or tolls anyway, because the road systems benefit everyone in society in a variety of ways even if you don't ever use the roads yourself.
Your benefit derived from roadways is not directly measured by the amount of miles you drive on the road. Maintaining a healthy roadway system is in everyone's best interests, from people who rarely drive to those who drive a lot.
So yes, a gas tax and car registration fees, etc are good becuase it does tax based on a relationship to your useage of the roads, but by the same tokin other taxes are used also to help pay for roads too and your benfit from road existance is not directly related to the number of miles you drive on roads anyway.
I'm curious, just how does Ore"gone" plan to tax non-residents who don't have these GPS devices? I think I'll just have to start driving AROUND that state. With that kind of moronic thinking, I just may have to, for my own safety!
