Posted on 02/15/2005 10:18:28 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile CORVALLIS, Ore., Feb. 14, 2005
(CBS) College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.
"I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.
So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.
And what kind of mileage does he get?
"The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just.
And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.
Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.
"We're getting a lot of interest from other states," says Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. "They're watching what we're doing.
"Transportation officials across the country are concerned about what's going to happen with the gas tax revenues."
Privacy advocates say it's more like big brother riding on your bumper, not to mention a disincentive to buy fuel-efficient cars.
"It's not fair for people like me who have to commute, and we don't have any choice but take the freeways," says Just. "We shouldn't have to be taxed."
But tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road.
Please remove dupe post, thanks! Didn't seem to post 1st time.
Will the gasoline tax be eliminated when the "per mile" tax is added?
Translation: SUVs are evil. Gas guzzlers are evil. You must drive fuel efficeint vehicles to save not only America but the planet. But don't dare pay a penny less in taxes by doing so!
I hope you know the answer.
One of the worst ideas since the Stamp Act.
Then perhaps the taxing bodies should tax smokers with a replacement tax as they quit smoking.
That's simply not true. If someone's beef is that the newer cars are more fuel effient, therefore causing more were and tear on the roads per gallon of fuel (though the cars are fuel efficient partly because they are light, thus wearing the roads less per mile), that can be fixed by adjusting the AMOUNT of the per gallon tax. There's no reason to jump all the way to some new technology they could use (and therefore would eventually use) to invade our privacy.
Also, the per mile method "favors the rich" as SUV miles would presumably be taxed the same as Greenie-mobile miles, despite having a differing effect on the roadbed (so liberals aren't supposed to like it).
AND we get to keep tabs on where you drive!
it will never pass. there will be such a huge market for cars with disconnected odometers, it will be chaos.
I'm sure Blob Reiner is already working on that.
It's more like big brother's riding in our pocket.
There's something in my pocket for Big Brother! ;-)
Cigarettes are evil but we won't outlaw them because we love to tax YOU to death (if the smoke doesn't get you the taxes will).
ROTFLMAO. I'm sure you meant that sarcastically.
And then they go and try to confuse us poor tax-paying schmoes with complex mathematical formulae!
Oh, by the way -- to h-ll with this plan for many, many reasons.
FUEL-EFFICIENT CARS ARE EVIL ..... . If you live close to another state, fill up in that state (you may need some auxiliary tanks).
When will they implement the Oxygen tax?
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