Oregon Considers GPS-based Road Taxes

Oregon is considering instituting a road tax - a tax based on the mileage driven within the state. The tax would be implemented with mandatory GPS boxes in each vehicle recording the mileage driven in Oregon. We've done a couple of previous stories on Great Britain's initiatives in this area.

Comments

No reason given?

[bwalling]

The article fails to say why they would do this. Why not just increase the gas tax if you want more money? At least your citizens get relieved of some of the burden of the gas tax because visitors to the state pay as well. With this GPS thing, it will cost a lot to implement, and no visiting cars will pay the tax. Seems like a losing situation for the taxpayers of Oregon.

Re:No reason given?

[ConceptJunkie]

Why? Why settle for a simple, proven, cost-effective solution for increasing revenue when you can go for the technologically-advanced, bureaucratically-unmanageable, intrusive, expensive and utterly ridiculous solution? This is Oregon, after all.

Plus don't forget all the potential for using anti-terror efforts as an excuse for tracking citizens' movements or other bald-faced power grabs.

This is what happens when a bunch of technically- naive (i.e. most) politicians get ahold of a copy of Wired.

Don't gasoline taxes do about the same thing?

[beamdriver]

The more you drive, the more gas you buy and no need for big brother to put his hairy eyeball on oyu.

Re:Don't gasoline taxes do about the same thing?

[Idarubicin]

Maybe the rich snobs in their Lincoln Navigators and Ford Excursions don't like paying more than the poor guy in the Geo Metro?

Right! Because people who drive heavier vehicles don't cause any more wear to the roads...oh, wait...

Granted, people who drive hybrids or all-electric vehicles (or CNG or propane, for that matter) get a free (or at least discounted) ride with gasoline taxes. I think they deserve it for keeping the state's air cleaner.

If Oregon was really interested in going after the real source of wear and tear on the highways, they'd be taxing the hell out of large trucks--but that wouldn't fly with any number of well-funded lobbyists, so this sort of ridiculous overly complicated scheme comes up instead.

Wha?

[rjamestaylor]

• To protect the driver's privacy, it would be illegal to track the driver in real-time.

Good thing no one breaks laws. Good thing that people can't change laws once written. Good thing there is no privacy challenge related to non-real-time data collection.

Good thing I DON'T LIVE IN OREGON.

Anything that can be measured will be taxed...

[Eric Damron]

Doesn't it seem like there should be an absolute limit on the amount of money that the Governments (State, Local and Federal) should be allowed to take from individuals?

Each Government should be able to set an amount of money that is required to provide the services for which they were formed. This is called a realistic budget.

It seems to me that the Government mission has become clouded. Maybe our officials need to sit down and define the scope of government in the context of our State and Federal constitutions. Just because the Constitution does not prohibit government from entering into a particular area does not mean that they are mandated to do so.

Why is it that every time a new technology surfaces that enables something to be measured, government feels the need to use it to extract more money from its citizens?

Taxing the use of our roads seems like a good idea except that whenever you tax an action that is a right you change that action from being a right to a privilege. For example: we have a right to free speech. If your local government made a law that required a permit to speak it would in effect be saying that you do not have a right to speech that speech is a privilege. Rights cannot be taken away without due process.

It has been successfully argued that driving a car is a privilege not a right even though one of our rights allows freedom to travel. The constitution obviously does not specify the method of travel so I guess that's deemed to mean that walking cannot be taxed. Personally I feel that it's very close to the constitutional line. But then what do I know.

Anyway to end this rant I would ask Oregon's Government to consider the question; Just because you may have the technology to use GPS to extract more money from your people, is it really the right thing to do?

There are so many things wrong with this

[frovingslosh]

Boy, it seem like this is a January Fools day article. The obvious issues, already stated are:

Gas taxes work better, and promotes lower weight better milage veichels; this law would do the opposite.

The privacy issues (which I believe to be the real reason the proposal is being made) are huge.

But consider also:

Cars already have a way to measure miles on the road that would not involve a large extra cost to the consumer - an odometer. It could be read when the car's license is renewed, of if Oregon has inspections at that time, and people could be taxed accordingly. For those who do a lot of out of state travel (as if that's a real issue), they could supply documentation of such (such as out of state gas receipts) with their taxes and get a rebate. If you don't like that approach, even remote reading odometers for recording mileage at the boarders (for checking people in and out based on mileage) would be less expensive and less obtrusive than trying to track everyone in the state by GPS.

To protect drivers� privacy...

[EABinGA]

From the Article...

To protect drivers' privacy, using the system to track cars in real time would be illegal.

Right. Just like social security numbers weren't supposed to be used for identification purposes.

Re:Oregon California

[buswolley]

A better idea. Make this road tax, a tax on Gasoline.

Two positives: It taxes road use, and makes SUV's pay more per mile.

So simple. and better.

This goes to show that the real use of this GPS TAX is identification and location of vehicles.