State GPS Tracking Your Mileage and Your Movements

CNSNews.com – If a proposal by an Oregon State task force becomes law, the government would be able to use satellite equipment to keep track of each driver's mileage and tax that driver accordingly in order to pay for road repairs. Even the state administrator who proposed the plan thinks citizens "should be concerned" about the possibility of civil liberties violations. And Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the free market Cato Institute told CNSNews.com , "I think it's nutty and I don't think it's ever going to happen."

"I don't think Americans are ready to be subjected to that type of civil liberties intrusion," Edwards explained, "where government tracks them around wherever they drive."

Edwards believes the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) mileage-tracking proposal is the result of overzealous government bureaucrats.

"This is an example of economists gone wild," Edwards said. "Economists often think of these schemes that seem efficient on paper, but they don't think about the real world and the civil liberties aspect of things."

Jim Whitty, administrator of Oregon's Road User Fee Task Force, in an exclusive interview with CNSNews.com , called the GPS mileage tracking tax proposal necessary because "it costs a certain amount to drive on the road per vehicle and people ought to pay their fair share of their usage."

Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and the state legislature set up the Road User Fee Task Force in November 2001 to explore methods of financing transportation costs.

Noting that gas taxes are unfair because of the large differences in the fuel economy of automobiles, Whitty and the task force explored alternative taxing methods to ensure equity among drivers. Seventy-percent of Oregon's road maintenance revenues currently come from federal and state gas taxes.

Commission members rejected the idea of using automobile odometer readings to track mileage because they figured some people would accumulate out-of-state mileage. The idea of raising the existing gasoline tax was also turned down because with automobiles becoming so fuel efficient, gas tax revenues are projected to dry up.

"If everybody had high mileage cars, our road system would fall apart" from lack of revenue, Whitty said.

"You go to technology and you look and say we can calculate mileage electronically, so it can be paid electronically ... That is where the GPS device came in," Whitty said.

Whitty envisions a system that would either send auto owners a monthly bill for their miles or set up gas stations so they could read the GPS transponders and collect the tax during fueling stops. The new tax per mile would be called a VMT fee or Vehicle Miles Traveled fee.

"There is an odometer sensor which can calculate mileage and then data can be transferred by radio frequencies to a fuel pump. We are going to be looking at both," Whitty explained.

Whitty believes that despite the fears of potential civil liberties violations, the new method of calculating road taxes is needed to make transportation taxes fairer.

"[The task force] wanted it to look like the gas tax used to look like back around 1960 when all cars virtually got the same miles per gallon," Whitty said. "What has happened though is that in the 70s, 80s and 90s, some cars became more fuel efficient and others didn't.

"There was no longer a correlation between miles driven and revenues raised," Whitty explained.

When asked about possible civil liberties violations, Whitty admitted that people should be cautious about the state's use of the mileage tracking technology.

"They should be concerned and they should watch this and make sure that is doesn't turn into such a thing," Whitty said.

However, "that is not the purpose of this fee," he added. "The state transportation department has no interest in knowing where people are going either currently or after the fact."

Whitty believes police may ultimately end up using the GPS data for criminal investigations.

"If there was a police necessity perhaps, but we are not looking at that. That is not our concern," he said.

"You can say it's not the purpose, but later on it will be abused and expanded," Edwards said.

"We don't need the government to have Big Brother precise tracking systems to make sure the highways are precisely paid by precisely the right people who use them," Edwards continued. "The gas tax now is roughly efficient."

Edwards also dismissed Whitty's concerns about dwindling revenues from gas taxes.

"The private sector is doing more with less. I don't see why the government sector also cannot continue to improve its productivity," he said.

Edwards also believes the cost of the GPS proposal would be too high considering "all the bureaucracy costs of setting up and installing the system, hiring satellite time, running the computers and having all the analysts looking at data."

And I don't need you to mention your loyalties/opinions on every thread, since over the course of my time here you have proven yourself the ultimate statist...the second to last of the boot-licking tribe to not be banned (KC being the other)

Hmm with your above comment, I don't know who is worse, the GPS demorat tax elitists in Oregon or you.

In closing, I will state that your both about the same, idealougues with the same big egos.

And in doing so creating more and more dependance "by the states, on the fed".
I'm not sure that that was the original intent but it sure is working now aint it?

Yes, it is, to a frightening degree. Last year a bill was filed in this state that would cost the state money. I raised the issue with the appropriate legislators. What I learned was that the bill was driven by the feds, that if the state did not enact this law they would lose about $1 million in federal funds.

It didn't seem to matter to them that the cost to the state of enacting this law would cost much more than $1 million -- the costs would be hidden, never directly traceable to them, whereas the blame for the loss of $1 million in federal funding couldn't be borne.

As a result, the Golden Rule ("He who has the gold makes the rules") won out, D.C. pulled the strings to make puppet Olympia dance, and for the $1 million in federal funds we get we will pay much more that that from the state treasury.

Talk about "dependence"...

So the xmission is passive, I should have read your post detailing the parity situation better.

The broadcast is constant...just need the right stuff to tap into it.

The only thing that could xmit your location would be your receiver? There are no logs of data aquisition generated by the sat?

And finally, are the PN's unique to each receiver or are they floating liscenses?

EBUCK

sneak em in? never heard of "On-Star" ? They can already track where you are, and even open a locked car door for you. This just turns On-Star from voluntary to compulsory.

OnStar is pretty simple. An analog phone. A 103 AFSK modem. A GPS. A simple interface to unlock a door. Basic technology. The FCC is about to give them a major headache by phasing out analog phones. Time to refit the whole customer base.

Will the trucking industry, which does 90% of the damage to the nation's roadways, now be made to pay 90% of the fuel taxes used for maintenance?

Right on. It's not necessarily the miles driven, but the weight of the vehicle on the road. California bases its vehicle registration fee on the value of the car, which declines over time. Other states base their registration fees on the weight of the car.

Big, heavy trucks like dump trucks and cement trucks (even big-rigs and car carriers) will chew up a road a lot faster than a Lexus or an SUV.

-PJ

I don't know where the break point would be... My '65, when it ran, got about 6 miles to the gallon and weighed in at a whopping 2900 lbs. My mom-in-laws Pontiac Grand Prix weighs in at 3200 lbs and gets 25 mgp... And I've got a Samurai that wheigs less than a ton and gets 21 mpg... It would be hard to draw a true corellation.

EBUCK

That was my first thought also, maybe someone in insurance.

Yeah the same ones who are forcing seat belt laws down our throats. Next we'll be hearing that we have no right to drive, it's a priviledge as they try to justify their 1984 schemes. These screwball ideas need to be put in their place right now.

the government would be able to use satellite equipment to keep track of each driver's mileage and tax that driver accordingly in order to pay for road repairs

Who are these guys trying to kid?

We already have a de facto tax on mileage. It's called the "gasoline tax" and it's collected at every public pump in the entire state. You can't run most motorized vehicles without gas. The big rigs eat a lot more gas than the little ones, so it is somewhat proportional to weight.

If these clowns need more money, they can just raise that tax and do it without further individual modifications or useless bureaucracy - and face the wrath of the motorist while doing it. Instead, they want this fancy-pantsy new system which anonymously mandates Big Brother for everyone.

There must be an alternative "something else" up besides tax revenues for roads, but for some reason these guys don't want to tell us what "it" is!

I already described the signal recovery methods in another post. You could put up an omnidirectional antenna. It would be a true point radiator. Every real antenna has a radiation pattern that deviates substantially from a point radiator.

The earth itself provides a block to the signal path of the satellites on the opposite side. A 12-channel receiver is more than enough for most applications.

I can assure you that your desire to damage GPS signals as a means of tax evasion will also incur the ire of people who wish to use them for the intended purpose...navigation. You'll have pissed off GPS owners as well as the FCC, IRS, FAA and the US military looking for you.

"I suppose you are able to back up your contention that trucks cause 90% of the damage to roads?"

Touche. I suppose I should have said "The vast majority of" instead of 90% of.

The fact remains that heavy vehicles (and I don't consider an SUV to be a heavy vehicle) inflict "the vast majority of" damage to our roadways. Cyclic loadings of automobiles over a long span of time will cause rutting; however, semi's will cause worse damage in a much shorter time period, and they are not paying the amount of taxes necessary to account for the amount of damage they are doing.

What is the ratio of automobiles to semi's in this country? I'd bet that it is at least 1000 to one. Who then is paying the lion's share of fuel taxes? And no, I don't have the data to back up these statements, other than the fact that 2 plus 2 equals 4. The fact that semi's do the vast amount of damage to roads is something that is self-evident and well-recognized by a second year transportation engineering student. Arguing otherwise is like saying that 2 plus 2 equals 3.

If a proposal by an Oregon State task force becomes law, the government would be able to use satellite equipment to keep track of each driver's mileage and tax that driver accordingly in order to pay for road repairs.

I thought this was already done through taxes on gasoline.

GPS is entirely passive to the end user. Your receiver contains 1 to 12 receivers that are tracking the PN chipping sequences of the satellites known to be visible. If you do a "cold start" with no clue about your location or time, you can work through a series of PN choices until you lock one. Once the first one is locked, you can use it to download an almanac and set your time. You look at the location of the satellite that you successfully locked vs the almanac data, then try another PN sequence of a satellite that should be visible. You continue doing that until you have 3 or 4 satellites "locked". At that point, you can calculate a fix.

The PNs of the satellites currently launched are usually in the ROM of the receiver. You can update your GPS firmware with many of the higher quality units. This 'cache' of good PN prospects is only needed as a starting point. The almanac will contain the whole list of current satellites...including ones that are newer than your firmware.

"In addition, there is supposed to be a highway trust fund that was to have accumulated funds for this purpose. Like Social Security and other such "trust funds" it has been robbed by the politicians and currently contains only govt IOUs."

BTW, I have no problem with this statement since you are quite correct. I believe the highway trust fund you allude to is known as ISTEA, and you're correct in noting that it has been utilized for purposes which it was not intended to be used for.

"I agree, on I-5 in the valley and metro area I think that 90% of road damage comes from studded tires on PASSENGER cars, not heavy trucks."

I don't know where you live, but here where I live the only vehicles which can legally use (metal) studded tires are the cops and emergency services....

They missed one other flaw in the system. How are you going to charge out of state drivers and Mexican Truckers for their use of the roads?

Forget that, I'm going to find a good half-track, load it down with lead and go drive over Oregon roads and bridges.

Does a motorcycle do as much damage as an 18-wheeler mile per mile?

What in hell is wrong with the Left coast? Washington elects an 5th Column America Hater who waves the Taliban flag and works to subvert freedom and liberty, then Oregon puts to a vote socialized medicine and other police state measures, and California is trying to be the largest debtor state on the planet.

La Reconquista! At least the Mexicans won't screw it up when they retake the land.

You guys know how to jam GPS signals?

Forget jamming GPS, hack the dang thing and run up politician's and government vehicle ID codes. Of course the government will probably exempt itself so the government employees will still be able to go to the bowling alley, the barbershop, the postoffice, the local fishing hole, the mall, and their token job related appearance somewhere while on the clock operating their tax payer supplied vehicle without the same fear of their privacy being taken.

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