Oregon considers subbing mileage tax for gas tax

[mugs]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: mugs
Really, really dumb. The GPS trackers cost money, and the upside to gas taxes is people who drive fuel efficient cars benefit. Why would they want to take away part of the advantage of driving a fuel efficient car? Fuel efficient cars are generally lighter and cause less wear on roads anyway.

They still have the advantage of spending a lot less money on gasoline. I agree with you that fuel efficient cars are generally lighter and cause less wear on roads. However, why should someone with an electric vehicle pay zero in taxes to drive on roads? (not that electricity isn't taxed, but there's no road tax on electricity). It seems that this is the fairest method, when coupled with tax incentives to purchase more fuel efficient vehicles.

You have a good point with electric cars, but there are so few electric cars that it's really not worth implementing this kind of program to tax them. If the goal were to tax cars that don't pay any gas taxes, then they'd be better off adding a flat tax to the registration fees for electric cars. If the goal is to just increase tax revenue from drivers, they'd be better off just raising the per-gallon rate. The GPS units are a needless expenditure, not to mention the obvious privacy concerns.

 

[Viper GTS]

I live in Oregon & I don't have a major problem with this. The simple fact is that as vehicles gas mileage improves we're going to need to replace lost fuel tax revenue. Should somebody driving a Volt or Zap not pay anything at all for road upkeep?

A GPS based system would more fairly distribute the costs. Like it or not hybrid owners have been under-paying. The Civic Hybrid actually weighs more than it's equivalent EX brother, yet would pay less tax. The argument could be made that this hybrid "discount" is incentive to encourage people to switch to more efficient vehicles, but you cannot force the legacy vehicle owners to continue subsidizing road tax forever. Eventually everyone is going to have to pay their fair share, whether that is through a increase on the flat gallon tax or adoption of a more "fair" system.

My preference would be a GPS tracked weight mile system. Everyone pays according to their actual road wear rate, regardless of how much fuel you use doing it.

Originally posted by: Zebo
Seems like a bad a idea- besides privacy it actually penalizes those who drive economical vechiles. Why should someone 30mpg focus pay 3x more tax than someone in their Viper roadster?

Why not just raise pump tax to a flat rate?

I'd love to hear your explanation on how a Focus driver is going to pay 3x more tax than a Viper. Unless you mean the Focus gets driven 3x as much, in which case that is perfectly logical. If you have some other interpretation do share. Please show your work.

Viper GTS

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: mugs

You have a good point with electric cars, but there are so few electric cars that it's really not worth implementing this kind of program to tax them. If the goal were to tax cars that don't pay any gas taxes, then they'd be better off adding a flat tax to the registration fees for electric cars. If the goal is to just increase tax revenue from drivers, they'd be better off just raising the per-gallon rate. The GPS units are a needless expenditure, not to mention the obvious privacy concerns.

I really don't think the GPS expenditures would be that bad. Full featured GPS Nav can be had brand new for under $90, and USB receivers (to be connected to a laptop or PDA) are even cheaper.

As for privacy concerns, I would not support full trip tracking. All you'd have to do is poll every few seconds, calculate the linear distance between the last coordinates and the new, store the new coordinates and add the result to a running total. Every time you stop at a gas station the data gets read, the total reset, and life goes on. If you needed the ability to track regions just split the state up into sections and keep track of how many readings were in each region. 10,000 hits in region 1, 20,000 in region 2, etc.

How about making it a voluntary system? I would happily volunteer. My car doesn't weigh much by modern car standards (3200 lbs or so) but I get around 12-15 mpg tank after tank.

Viper GTS

 

[idiotekniQues]

i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

 

[BarneyFife]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
How about they just restructure and remove government positions to reduce cost just like every other corporation in america.

How is that going to help when most government agencies are already understaffed?

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

Nobody is suggesting that we track your every movement. You can buy a GPS watch to track your running distance, this would work on the same concept.

Viper GTS

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Road Usage taxes based upon how much one uses the Roads seems like a good idea. The Privacy issue would/should be the biggest concern though. I seriously doubt that High Mileage vehicles are driven significantly more than their counterparts and that Owners of such vehicles will lose any(or significant) Cost advantage they have.

Sounds like a toll.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

Nobody is suggesting that we track your every movement. You can buy a GPS watch to track your running distance, this would work on the same concept.

Viper GTS

The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

Nobody is suggesting that we track your every movement. You can buy a GPS watch to track your running distance, this would work on the same concept.

Viper GTS

The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

Care to provide documentation of that? There's no way in hell people will put up with that. The problem is that most people aren't going to understand the difference. GPS is automatically going to translate to Big Brother.

I actually already participate in a voluntary mileage tracking system (Progressive's MyRate). People scream Big Brother about that too, & it doesn't even come close to recording location (just speed, mileage, time of day driven, and rapid starts/stops.). I actually somewhat enjoy reading the reports every six months. I make a point to trigger the rapid acceleration counter as often as possible .

Viper GTS

 

[idiotekniQues]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

Nobody is suggesting that we track your every movement. You can buy a GPS watch to track your running distance, this would work on the same concept.

Viper GTS

The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

Care to provide documentation of that? There's no way in hell people will put up with that. The problem is that most people aren't going to understand the difference. GPS is automatically going to translate to Big Brother.

I actually already participate in a voluntary mileage tracking system (Progressive's MyRate). People scream Big Brother about that too, & it doesn't even come close to recording location (just speed, mileage, time of day driven, and rapid starts/stops.). I actually somewhat enjoy reading the reports every six months. I make a point to trigger the rapid acceleration counter as often as possible .

Viper GTS

i understand the difference.

our government has problems implementing electronic voting, why give them GPS in every car if we dont have to? GPS that could be used to track movement - even if it is 'disabled' with softare initially. we should explore other methods before just throwing mandated tracking information in every new car.

what you are doing is opening up a crack in a door that shouldnt be opened.

go ahead and rationalize it all you want - supporting something like this is boneheaded.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the difference.

our government has problems implementing electronic voting, why give them GPS in every car if we dont have to? GPS that could be used to track movement - even if it is 'disabled' with softare initially. we should explore other methods before just throwing mandated tracking information in every new car.

what you are doing is opening up a crack in a door that shouldnt be opened.

go ahead and rationalize it all you want - supporting something like this is boneheaded.

Do you really think the government could get away with secretly tracking your movement? People will be tearing the devices apart and reverse engineering them as soon as they're available. On top of that, the sheer nightmare of data collection/storage to monitor everyone just isn't going to happen quietly.

If you're really worried that much we can just start inputting odometer readings when you buy gas. That of course won't allow you to use regions, but it would totally solve the tracking issue you're so afraid of.

Viper GTS

 

[idiotekniQues]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the difference.

our government has problems implementing electronic voting, why give them GPS in every car if we dont have to? GPS that could be used to track movement - even if it is 'disabled' with softare initially. we should explore other methods before just throwing mandated tracking information in every new car.

what you are doing is opening up a crack in a door that shouldnt be opened.

go ahead and rationalize it all you want - supporting something like this is boneheaded.

Do you really think the government could get away with secretly tracking your movement? People will be tearing the devices apart and reverse engineering them as soon as they're available. On top of that, the sheer nightmare of data collection/storage to monitor everyone just isn't going to happen quietly.

If you're really worried that much we can just start inputting odometer readings when you buy gas. That of course won't allow you to use regions, but it would totally solve the tracking issue you're so afraid of.

Viper GTS

uhhhhh, well let's see.

the government just got away with illegally wiretapping american citizens. on top of that they gave retroactive immunity to all the corporations involved as well. the government also got away with messing about with habeus corpus.

you should check out our recent history, then get back to me. it would be wise of us to pay attention to history more so we can learn from it.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
i understand the decrease in revenue should be addressed, however, supporting big-brother GPS in every car is just a foolhardy solution.

i am amazed thinking men would support such a maneuver

Nobody is suggesting that we track your every movement. You can buy a GPS watch to track your running distance, this would work on the same concept.

Viper GTS

The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

Care to provide documentation of that? There's no way in hell people will put up with that.

TruePosition

 

[alphatarget1]

Small cars do not cause nearly as much damage to roads than large vehicles/trucks. I have no problem with the gas tax staying in place.

It just shows how clueless politicians are, or they really know what's going on and want to milk the public more?

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
I live in Oregon & I don't have a major problem with this. The simple fact is that as vehicles gas mileage improves we're going to need to replace lost fuel tax revenue. Should somebody driving a Volt or Zap not pay anything at all for road upkeep?

Light vehicles cause hardly any damage to pavements. The difference can be made up in registration fees.

 

[BarneyFife]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
I live in Oregon & I don't have a major problem with this. The simple fact is that as vehicles gas mileage improves we're going to need to replace lost fuel tax revenue. Should somebody driving a Volt or Zap not pay anything at all for road upkeep?

Light vehicles cause hardly any damage to pavements. The difference can be made up in registration fees.

In doing pavement designs, I've determined that even large suvs hardly make a difference. In reality, we are paying for damage done by commercial entities (concrete trucks, haulers, garbage trucks etc...).

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: sandorski
Road Usage taxes based upon how much one uses the Roads seems like a good idea. The Privacy issue would/should be the biggest concern though. I seriously doubt that High Mileage vehicles are driven significantly more than their counterparts and that Owners of such vehicles will lose any(or significant) Cost advantage they have.

Sounds like a toll.

Pretty much, but less cumbersome as one doesn't need to stop or slowdown.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Care to provide documentation of that? There's no way in hell people will put up with that.

TruePosition

That is E-911 for wireless phones, it has absolutely nothing to do with fuel tax programs.

Viper GTS

 

[Fear No Evil]

We should probably just tax people on their carbon footprint. Why stop at gas usage or mileage in cars?

 

[DrPizza]

btw,

gas tax revenue is down $4.8 million a year compared with 2006

They're worried about what??! That's peanuts compared to the state budget.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

Please explain how my USB GPS receiver will transmit my location to the government.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
The system was designed and being used for 100% REAL TIME TRACKING AND STORAGE.

Please explain how my USB GPS receiver will transmit my location to the government.

Heh. I remember this one from a year or two ago.

/grabs lawnchair and popcorn

 

[ArizonaSteve]

This whole idea needs to die quickly.

The biggest problem is not the taxation, but the use of the GPS to determine the time taken to travel between two points and to therefore determine the average speed. Next thing you know, a nice speeding ticket will be placed in your mailbox. It's for this reason that I'll never have anything like OnStar installed in any of my vehicles.

Believe me when I say that GPS tracking and milage taxes are the tip of the iceberg.

 

[BeauJangles]

I can't believe people are getting so worked up over this proposal. Does anyone pay attention to their own state governments? Dumb stuff like this gets proposed ALL the time, 99% of it never even comes close to being a law.

 

[StageLeft]

In other news, sales of retrofit-electric packs for existing cars see a 500% boost as Oregon drivers figure ways around the use of gasoline altogether.

Anyway, I have long thought, but it's a very easy prediction, that all vehicles in time will be tracked via GPS. It would help with crimes, it would help with traffic enforcement (no need for radar traps; get a ticket auto-mailed right to your home!), help with insurance rates (this will possibly be the in; people realize that to GPS their car they can get lower rates and those who resist will pay higher. It's been tried somewhere but wasn't successful at that time).

I actually already participate in a voluntary mileage tracking system

Ah, so it's still going.

I think given that the gov has wiretapped millions of calls illegally and didn't even receive a slap on the wrist that it is indeed overly optimistic to think that GPS will not be used to track movement. Even if it is born without that, it will very quickly morph into it. Initially it will be to fight crime or "terror" (oh noes!). I am frankly surprised England hasn't already done it on a grand scale.