My beef with the whole idea is that a switch to a 'per-mile-driven' tax enables other drivers to be less frugal. The only way this could be circumvented, is if the 'per-mile-driven' tax was adjusted based on vehicular weight. An Escalade, Excursion or Hummer puts far more pressure on road surfaces, and contributes far more to road deterioration than a Prius, HCH, or Insight. One effective way to compensate for this is via a gas tax, since road wear and tear is quite well related to gas consumption. A much more intelligent way to deal with declining gas tax revenues is simply to raise the gas tax.

 

(Emphasis mine)

Which of course is probably why it won't be done. Though you'd think raising taxes would be a natural reaction with government officials.

 

Agreed.

Motorcycles and compacts do not pound the road anything like a 6,000-8,500 pound land barge, nor do they take as much room in traffic gridlock. Besides, the bigger vehicles often are driven by people with big incomes.

 

Politicians -- who as a rule are not noted for their intelligence -- can't seem to grasp the fact that people will use some of their greatest ingenuity to get around taxes and other government edicts. (Otherwise, socialist societies would crumble even sooner than they normally would.) Back in the mid-'70s, the feds decreed that every car have an ignition interlock that kept it from starting until every front-seat passenger buckled his seat belt. People quickly figured out how to thwart the interlocks and the mandate was abandoned after a year or two. In the early '90s Democrat "Lyin' Lawton" Chiles, who never met a tax he didn't like (and once proposed slapping the state sales tax on ATM withdrawals and other bank transactions) got the equally Democrat Florida legislature to impose a $295 registration fee on vehicles brought in from out of state. Immediately, newcomers stopped registering their cars here and held on to their old plates. It got so bad that cops were scouring business and apartment parking lots to ticket "foreign" vehicles. Eventually a Texan (!) successfully sued for discrimination and the state had to refund all that money. (For the record, I avoided the fee by trading in my Texas-tagged Honda for a 3-year-old Toyota.)

It's a cinch that if those GPS units were forcibly installed on cars, a few technologically gifted drivers would soon learn how to disable and/or deceive them, and thanks to the Internet that information would be common knowledge in a matter of days. Or drivers in border areas would simply cross the state line to refuel, if that resulted in a net tax savings. I used to routinely make big-ticket purchases n neighboring counties just to avoid this county's 1% sales-tax surcharge. (I don't do so as often now, since higher gas prices usually make the drive costly enough to negate the lower tax. )

IIRC, Texas bases it annual license-plate fee on vehicle weight (at least it used to). That, IMO, would be the best way to both encourage frugality and fairly charge for wear & tear on the roads. Put a stiff surcharge on Hummers, SUVs and the like while giving discounts to motocycles & small cars. The revenue generated by the surcharges would be used for road construction & maintenance, the same as gas taxes.

 

"Texas bases it annual license-plate fee on vehicle weight (at least it used to). "

I don't know if this is remains the case. I have recently payed more for my HCH than my wife's Chrysler Concorde. Perhaps it is based on age (hers is 4 years older)

 

Actually, the revenue generated by surcharges would go to fund discounts first. Only after the discounts were recouped would anything "extra" be available.

 

Guaranteed after millions are spent implementing all these devices, some guy who is "good with tools" will figure out a way to defeat it. Probably will program it to give a tax credit and get free gas. Leave it to Oregon. If you've ever lived there, this would come as no surprise. I'm actually surprised they're not working on an implant that counts the breaths you take and tax you for using Oregon air. They tax everything else...

Two quotes from this article that were hilarious:

"Mr. Whitty said he had heard of some drivers of fuel-efficient vehicles being upset." You think? I'd say that's usually the result when you get singled out an penalized for doing the right thing.

But the winner is, "Others, though, were feeling guilt about having paid fewer taxes than most drivers, he said." You've got to be kidding. Seriously. I'm sure the DOT will take a donation if someone feels that bad...

You know, everyone has to pay registration every year or two. A lot of states to emissions testing too. Combine the two, check the odometer, apply tax on the miles traveled since the last check and factor in vehicle weight. Not that hard.