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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.
It's funny because alot of people forget Oregon even exists, but they prove they can create just as many dumb law ideas like California.
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.
The more you drive, the more gas you buy and no need for big brother to put his hairy eyeball on oyu.
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.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Can you imagine having a mandatory GPS in the Pioneering days? The Oregon Trail game sure would have been different:
Travelled: precisely 15.24 miles today.
Health: Pa died of snake bite.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Thankfully, this is a law "being considered" by legislators who haven't yet been hit with the reality that this tax is unenforcable, and therefore won't work.
The problem is, the "Good Faith and Credit Clause" of the U.S. Constitution means that licenses issed by any state are valid in all fifty. What's more, a car with California plates can legally drive on Oregon roads.
The thing is, Oregon cannot require California-registered cars (or cars registered to any of the 49 other states) to have their tracking devices.
Another cause of death: Suddenly every road in the state effectively becomes a toll road. That'll cost them in federal highway funds, as toll roads in theory are supposed to be spending those tolls on their own repairs. And, you can surely bet the neighboring states' representives will see to it that Oregon loses all their highway funds for implamenting this kind of tax.
So, it's a nice chance to beat up a clueless state legislator or two for getting a little too 1984-ish on us... but there's really nothing to fear here. This law is D.O.A.
Just jam the gps signal.
r g/ show.php?p=60&a=13
http://www.phrack-dont-give-a-shit-about-dmca.o
This GPS thing assumes that every mile driven inside Oregon is somehow a public road. I imagine some Oregonians have large ranches, and they can rack up some miles "riding fences." For that matter, would horses have to wear the silly thing?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
It has come to the attention of many of the affluent SUV owners that low-income people and students and other undesirables drive economical cars and drive many miles on not much gasoline and are thus not paying their fair share of gasoline taxes and are thereby beating the system. Thus, the affluent want to change the system to tax miles instead of fuel. Nevermind that the fuel tax is easy and economical to collect. Never mind that road wear increases more than linearly with vehicle weight. Never mind that out-of-state vehicles will ride free. Never mind that dependence on foreign oil because of large vehicles is a huge problem for anyone trying to give the US a rational foreign policy. Let's just help the people with the money.
Installing a jammer (or just disabling the GPS otherwise) should be extremely easy, what will happen then? The car can't very well stop (would be an ugly Denial-Of-Driving attack) and you can't really take them to court and require that you must only drive in places where you can get a signal (e.g. no tunnels) either. Oh well...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As an Oregon resident, I first got wind of this about six months ago... Privacy was my first thought as well. Thankfully, the system they're looking at can't track vehicles in realtime, as it's a GPS receiver unit only. There is no transmitter.
My guess is that, no matter how well designed, this system is doomed from the start- it's just too complex for John Q. Taxpayer to understand. People in Oregon, just like the rest of the country, don't like new taxes. That's why we've managed to be one of the last holdouts for no sales tax, and we just soundly defeated a Canadian-style universal healthcare bill that would have laid ruin to the state's economy.
-M
Taxing cars on the number of miles they drive, rather than the amount of fuel they consume in effect punishes people with fuel efficient cars. With current gas taxes, people who drive vehicles which have poor gas mileage (such as SUVs and sports cars) pay more tax than those who drive more efficient vehicles like Geos and Insights.
Of course the whole idea of using GPS to track mileage is ludicrous. GPS tracking fails in many situations such as tunnels and even heavy weather. Not to mention that they take time to 'lock on' to the satellite signal, often times longer than the trip itself. And of course buying a GPS device for every car would cost an outrageous amount of money.
The whole idea is DOA.
I live near Philadelphia, and we have this thing called the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You get a ticket when you enter the Turnpike, and you pay a toll when you exit based upon how far you drive. It's completely anonymous because it is cash-based. Granted, there's the new EasyPass which could be used nefariously, but you still have the cash option. To the best of my knowledge the money earned from the tolls is used only for the maintenance of the Turnpike, as well as police enforcement, emergency response and anything else related to it. So, it basically takes the major state-wide highway system out of the budget of the state. This doesn't necessarily resolve paying welfare or anything like that, but it makes for one fewer thing for the state to have to deal with. Does this punish fuel efficient drivers? Not really, because they make out on cheaper gas taxes. Does this punish local residents? Not really, because everybody who uses the road has to pay. Does this solve world hunger? No. But neither will anything else government does. I hated the Turnpike concept when I got here, now I think it's the best. It doesn't solve the problems of maintaining local roadways, but it does solve the highway funding problem.
First off, I really doubt this will get anywhere beyond the testing stage and hopefully it won't even get that far as it would be a huge waste of money.
Besides being an idiotic idea technically - costs for the GPS boxen (of course they'll probably want to charge the drivers for the box - why not just have everybody cough up the cost of a GPS box when they register their car and actually apply that money to roads instead of the GPS box, but I digress), tracking all of those cars, trying to make sure people don't disconnect them - it's not politically viable. Remember this is a referendum state. For something this far-reaching the legislature will be afraid to just enact it without a vote of the people - that's pretty much how it works here.
Currently some of the beaurocrats are whining about how they're not getting their gas-tax money from all of those folks driving hybrids (must be about 10 of them in the state by now, so it's a major crisis). Problem is, those hybrids do run on gas, they just do it much more efficiently. One would think that using less gas would be something the state would try to encourage instead of wringing their hands trying to figure out how they can spend $millions in order to make not much more money than they are now.
Hopefully, the bozo beaurocrat that came up with this idiotic idea will be promptly fired.
I am all for use based taxes, but before they implement such a system they need to get rid of all the other taxes, as use based means you only pay for what you use. If you don't drive, you don't pay, if you don't send your kids to public school you don't pay, etc etc etc. But odds are the systems like these won't be implemented in that fashion. I am sure this new "Road Tax" will simply be implemneted on top of all the existing taxes. Oh well, prepare to be taxed into oblivion.
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?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
If you look at the OR DOT preliminary report the basic reason is that fuel tax revenue are declining. Why? Increased fuel efficiency of all things! They are particularly concerned about hybrids which you know get double mileage -- and so pay half the tax. You can imagine what horror electric vehicles would bring.
So I guess they are trying not to discriminate against older and larger cars, who would pay much more fuel tax than hybrid, esp. as they raised the tax rate to compensate. An alternative might be a direct ad valorum tax on each automobile, paid with registration -- that would cut against expensive and new cars, unfortunately discouraging trading up.
I am sympathetic with their need to maintain constant income, it's how they maintain the roads. As for their methods?
A bizarre side effect of a good thing, I'll say.
Ok, I originally come from Pennsylvania which tends to have rather crappy interstate roads, and there's a simple reason for it - large tractor-trailers.
Pennsylvania a while back passed a law to eliminate studded tires from the road. Sad reality is that roads go worse, as there was more heavy truck traffic. Studded tires didn't really do anything.
If you want to cut costs on maintaining roads and raise money to do so, here's my suggestion:
Again, most of the wear and tear on roads in Pennsylvania is caused by out-of-state heavy-load trucks. Taxing your own citizens based on the mileage they drive their passenger cars taxes the wrong end of people and simply creates more excuses to vacate your state.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
"Good Faith and Credit Clause"
:)
Actually, it's Full Faith. Nothing requires states to act in good faith.
Someone else mentions the right to travel, which refers not to travel so much as discrimination against out-of-state immigrants with respect to things like welfare benefits and voter registration. Irrelevant here; there is nothing discriminatory about requiring everyone to pay for the road they drive on.
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.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I was there once and the lady who insisted on pumping my gas for me then drops the gas cap on the ground, getting it all dirty.
God knows how much gunk got in the engine because of that.
Good thing it was a lease.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
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.
If I understand what you're saying, not quite. I can choose to buy a car that's more fuel efficiant, lowering the amount I pay in taxes for the gas that I use for driving the same distance.
Correct - that was my point, although perhaps not properly explained. We don't have to drive at all. We have choice in where we live and what kind of car we drive and what kind of job we have. Taxing gasoline or mileage isn't discrimination (in the negative sense of the word) because it's something we can do something about. It would be like taxing cell phone usage. Is it discriminatory against people who use cell phones a lot? Well, yes, but not in a violation-of-rights sort of way.
I'll stop here because I think that we're arguing the same point. Consider this post a further explanation of my previous post.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
If Oregon wants to give special treatment to selected groups (truck drivers, low income, etc.), they can tax diesel differently, issue identification that would let these groups pay reduced taxes right at the pump, or institute a rebate program.
The use of GPS for this purpose is so stupid that it suggests to me that there may be a hidden agenda: get the GPS into vehicles and start using it for tracking and surveillance. Or, perhaps, it's simple political stupidity: politicians think that increasing gas taxes is political suicide, but voters are too stupid to figure out thie Rube Goldberg proposal. Or maybe it's just heavy lobbying from electronics manufacturers.
What's really sad about this, is that rich people are still less affected (as a percentage of their income) than poor people are. And before you say that poor people can just use Tri-Met or some other public transport, remember how much of Oregon is rural.
By the way, if I still lived there, my first challenge to that law would be to have them prove that my car wasn't on a flatbed truck when it was moving around, with the flatbed truck presumably reporting its own movements for taxation purposes, already. And I'd like to see them try to charge me for building an encasing box for the unit to block GPS reception when I'm not at the inspection site, if they win that battle.
Get off my launchpad!
Actually only two in seven people now in Oregon can read English.
As a long time Oregon resident, let me fill in the slashdotters with some background.
One: Oregonians are poor. We have the highest unemployment rate in the country. When you run out of unemployment benefits, you automatically get taken off the unemployment rolls and become 'employed'. Real unemployment is 15-20 percent. Our forest product, tourist, fishing, and electronic industries are decimated.
Two: Oregonians are dumb. We have the shortest school year in the country and are about to shorten it another twenty or so days. We have one of the highest dropout rates in the USA. Most of the jobs requiring advanced skills and education to people moving here from other places.
Three: Oregonians are cheap. We voted down all major tax increases in the past ten years. We defeated the sales tax proposals put forth by our betters five times in the past twenty years. Being cheap is a direct result of being poor and dumb.
Four: Oregon is big. Bigger than New England. A third of the people live in the Portland metro area; one third live in other 'cities'; and the rest live far out in the country and drive lots of miles.
Five: Our state legislators are either over-educated Jane Jacobs followers from Portland or Eugene (the Dems) or dumb-as-dirt bible-thumping morons from the woods (the Repubs). Each side hates each other and would gladly shut down the state rather than cooperate or give an inch on anything. Both sides pride themselves on coming up with truly dumb laws to show that they are meaner than the other side. For example, get caught with any amount of voter-approved medical mar1juana, lose your driver's license for a year.
Or, drop out of high school at age sixteen? Can't get a driver's license until you're twenty-one.
To point of all this? Don't take anything that the Oregonians say or do seriously.
Oregon has a lot of foolishness surrounding laws. For example, see this: Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash..
A city councilman in Portland, the largest city, tried to promote a law that would require giving people tickets for going through a yellow (not red) light. Of course, the purpose of a yellow light is to warn drivers that the light will soon be red, not to make them stop.
For a while, there was a law in Portland that said you could be fined $400 for jaywalking. This was especially foolish because there are many times when the streets of Portland are empty.
Recently I talked with a programmer friend who said that he had spent a week finding a subtle bug that mildly affected the user interface of one of his company's products.
However, when I talk with people in Oregon government about the major defects in Oregon law, they just dismiss the issue with very little thought. One recently told me something to the effect of, "It would be too difficult to make a more perfect law." Another said, "This is the legislature's responsibility," which I understood to mean, "I don't have to think about it."
Damn. I read through all these comments, and yearn for the days when /. readers used to be SMART.
/.
I am an Oregon resident, and this has been analyzed and discussed locally and all that LONG before it made any national news streams - or
Oregon's laws are no better or worse than anywhere else in the country. Every state has sucky laws. Every state has screwed up government. Every state has bad taxing schemes. Every state has areas with bad roads, crummy schools, or high crime. Every state also has some good stuffs, nice places, good policies - what have you. Portland has some strange laws (It is illegal to ride a bycicle on the streets downtown) and some good ones (they were the first major city to oficially legalize skateboarding and give skateboarders rights and responsibilities).
1. Oregon is looking at this system for the LONG TERM future, not immediate gain. The simple truth is that Petrolium based fuels are going to be replaced with other mechanisms. They are just THINKING of how they will be able to still provide roads when no one is buy buying gasoline any more. (Flashes of "Mr Fusion" powerd cars come to mind). "OUR ROADS SUCK - WE WANT MORE, BETTER ROADS!!! What do you MEAN you want us to PAY for them? Why should we have to PAY for them?"
2. These things you have been reading about are all trial programs to test the viability. They are planning on passing legislation to allow them to TEST these types of systems with voluntary participants. The results of these tests will be used to design the real system. (with the speed of state govt, it'll be a while.)
3. Part of the needs of these tests is to design a system that charges appropriately. Some of the discussed options is having the mileage rate also be based on vehicle weight, size, number of axels, etc... So that a smaller lighter vehicle won't pay as much as a large heavy one.
4. Outsiders will just pay the regular gas tax for now. Just like they do currently. If you buy gas in a state - any state - and you pay their gas taxes, you are helping to pay for their roads. If you pass through the state without buying gas - you are using the roads at a discount. (Some of all roads is paid for with federal dollars and federal gas taxes - so no one gets a completely free ride).
5. GPS is important so that they don't bill people for miles they drive outside of Oregon, or not on Oregon roads. The ultimate goal is for the GPS to only count miles driven on ROADS. We all know that GPS is not perfect, but we have to start figuring out something - and it is a place to start.
6. I do have very real privacy concerns. The system is NOT real-time - but who is to say what info they actually record? Even if it is after the fact, it could be abused. "Lets see, this indicates you were in the vincinity of this crack house - we should search your home for drug paraphanalia." "Hmmm, looks like you broke the speed limit 38 times this month. Here is ticket."
7. Any system would have to have the ability to detect tampering - much like cars computers do now (the dealership can tell if you have a chip or modified system) - and they would have to account for irregularities or weather problems. Our GPS devices we have now work pretty good here - except in forests. And since 2/3 of oregon residents live in the Willamette valley - full of dense forests - this could pose a problem.
8. People REMEMBER: Gas taxes are usage fees THE SAME WAY but just collected differently. Currently, a large heavy vehicle will typically get much less mileage, and thus pay more per mile for usage. A motorcycle that gets 70mpg will pay much less gas tax, but also damages the road much less. If you drive a million miles a year - you pay gas taxes - thus mileage fees - evey gallon of gas you consume.
9. Oregon already taxes trucks heavily. Deisel taxes are higher than gasoline taxes - which sucks for those who drive the 50mpg Volkswagen TDIs. In addition, Oregon taxes trucks on a weight / miles driven scale IN ADDITION to the fuel taxes. Pretty steeply as I understand it. Thats why we have so many weigh stations on our highways.
10. There could be better ways. Toll roads. I always have thought they were a good choice - because then the people who use that specific road pay for it. Transponders. Could work just like toll roads - with less manpower requirements. Maybe a combination of all the solutions. Nothing is perfect.
11. I *like* not having to pump my gas. Last night it was damn cold and raining sideways. I got to sit in a warm car while someone else froze. I always watch them and make sure they don't F up. And AFAIK Oregon is not the only state that it is illegal to pump your own gas, New Jersey the other maybe? One on the east coast anyway.
12. The one most important thing they could do is either get rid of studded tires - or tax them heavily. They freaking destroy the roads! We get nice ruts - so deep you can take your hands off the steering wheel and let the car just steer itself in the "tracks". And they are ABSOLUTELY un needed. I ski regularly, and on a two wheel drive rear drive van - I make it just fine without studs. Have for 5 years now. Only need chains occasionally. People use studs forgetting that studded tires REDUCE your traction in wet or dry conditions. NW Oregon has mostly wet conditions. So by using studs you REDUCE your traction 99% of the time, so that the ONE day a year we MIGHT get Ice, or the once a week you ski, or the one time you need to go through the mountains - you will have traction. Dumbasses. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I love when it is a sunny warm spring day, and I am walking around in a short sleeved shirt downtown Portland, and cars are driving by clacking with studs. Good thing they had them, those bone dry roads can be treachorus.
HELLO PEOPLE. STUFF IS NOT FREE. There is ALWAYS a cost somewhere. (I have heard people complaining that they had to pay a $3 use fee at a state park when before THAT policy they complained that trails that were washed out were not being fixed fast enough.)
One thing (as far as I can tell unmentioned to this point) is the fact that Oregon has the lowest (or one of the lowest) yearly license fees in the nation--just $15. So low is it that the Oregon DOT had signs warning out of state drivers not to come to Oregon and register their vehicles.
/year, and that provides a nice revenue base that the state/local governments can depend on (for road financing) no matter how much people drive, and yet it still is not pricey enough to be severely regressive to the grandma who drives only 500 miles a year.
While some states have a yearly vehicle property tax (like Colorado, Taxachusetts, Rhode Island) that assesses a significant fee per year, most of that goes to local government for schools and stuff.
Most states have a fee of $30-$80
Some states, like Michigan, have an ad valorem, which is based on the value of the vehicle, and so people with more expensive cars pay more (this isn't a property tax because it is a flat percentage, it isn't based on property tax millage, and the money goes to the state for funding roads, not the local government.) It is gently rising, and my friend with a 2002 Corvette pays about $120, which isn't severe for an expensive vehilcle (and it caps off at some value.) That is clearly a progressive system for road financing irrelevant to how much ya drive or how much wear and tear you put on the roads.
New York has a system which has some type of base amount (like $40, but I can't remember what it is) and then adds some surcharge if the vehicle is heavy. That's essentially the same as the fuel tax, but once again, it offers a stable revenue base that fuel taxes can build off of.
Another suggestion is to change the fuel tax system to a hybrid style. Most states that I know of assess a fuel tax on each gallon of gasoline sold (like in Ohio, it's 22 cents...I think.) Instead, Ohio could consider making it 18 cents per gallon sold, then add another 5 cents for every dollar's of gasoline sold. That way, if gas prices go up and sales go down, the revenue stream is a bit more stable (and it still works well if prices go down, and people end up buying more gasoline.
At any rate, Michigan style ad valorem, New York vehicle weight surcharge, hybrid style gasoline taxes or simply raising yearly fees are significantly better ways of road financing than the complexity of a GPS system.)
I actually first heard of this the other night from some friends of mine who are Oregon residents. They're pissed to all hell about this idea.
Still, if they *must* tax drivers for driving, I'm wondering why in gods name the legislators are bothering with GPS? Why not take the route the East went and implement toll roads to increase revenue for the department of transportation? Hell, they could even get creative about it and charge more for road-damaging SUV's, which some other posters have mentioned.
Yeah, this new law seems on the outside that it would raise all kinds of crazy cash, but it would seem to me to be far more expensive to set up and maintain. And then there will no doubt be legal challenges against it. All in all, far more trouble than its worth.
If they really need to levy funds for transportation costs, it would make more sense to me (at least in the near future) to go the Jersey Turnpike route. Make drivers pay tolls every so many miles. The eastern states have been doing this for years, and it seems to work pretty well--i.e. it helps support their highway system, and people there don't mind it too much.
Just a thought!
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Both roads and schools are equally useful to those who don't "use" them directly. Every time you buy a product in a store, you are making use of the roads that got that product to you. Every time you send a piece of mail, you are making use of the roads. And every time you fail to get mugged by gangs of punks roaming the streets with no education and no prospects for respectable work, you are using the public school system.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
Women are prohibited from wearing patent leather shoes in public.
It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday.
It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
The Ohio driver's education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car.
Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited.
Breast feeding is not allowed in public.
It is illegal for more than five women to live in a house.
It is illegal to mistreat anything of great importance.
No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July.
I don't think Oregon has any patent on foolish laws. In fact, they tend to have extremely good ones.
Furthermore, there is a difference between "considering a law" and passing one.
But I guess it's too much to expect the typical slashdot poster or moderator to understand that.
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.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
"The gas tax would remain in effect. In paying the new tax, drivers would get credit for gas tax paid." This is a way to get MORE money! Get real..how long do you think they'll get credit? One year? Two years? Certainly not more then that! This is another law like the seat belt law. They slide it in under the voter's nose by saying: "It's only 15 bucks and we won't enforce it unless you get stopped for something else" Well, guess what? Here in CA that lasted about 3 years. Now it's 35 bucks and they CAN pull you over just for not wearing a set belt! This is how Govt. works. Crack the door open an inch for them and the next thing you know there IS no door!
A Texan, a Californian, and an Oregonian are out hiking in the wilderness and meet each other and decide to share a camp fire. After dinner, in a flash of showmanship, the Texan pulls a bottle of tequila out of his pack, and takes one long swig out of it. Then the Texan throws the bottle up into the air and whips out a large chromed, pearl-handled revolver and shoots the bottle out of the air. His camp-mates are a bit surprised and comment on the waste of good tequila. The Texan explains:"Oh, it's no loss. Where I'm from we've got more tequila than we can drink." Not to be out-done, the Californian fetches a bottle of Chardonnay from his pack,takes a sip, throws it into the air, whips out a Glock 9mm with laser sight and emptys the clip, breaking the bottle, and then boasts: "Where I come from we have more wine than we can drink." The Oregonian fetches a bottle of micro-brewed, bottle-conditioned Inda Pale ale from his pack, quietly drinks the entire bottle, tosses the empty into the air, pulls out a shotgun, shoots the Californian, and catches the bottle before it hits the ground. Then he explains to the stunned Texan: "Where I'm from, we have more Californians than we need, and this bottle is worth 5 cents."
But seriously, no laws have been passed. All they are doing is studying a problem: "If your roads are paid for by a gas tax, how do you pay for roads when electric and hybrid cars start eating into your gas tax revenues?" That is a good question, worthy of some study. I think there must be a better idean than a transponder to record mileage on Oregon roads. What if you drive on private roads a lot?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
You forgot all the old hippies and bomb-shelter freaks who settled in the woods... that Richard Benjamin movie about moving into a bunker in the Oregon backwoods isn't all that wide of the mark. Really no wonder that Oregon has had spasms of weird laws, and doubtless will again.
...1980s bumper sticker
"Last year in Oregon, 963 people fell off their bicycles -- and drowned"
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Why should being an Oregonian determine if we are taken seriously or not. I'd like to point out that we have many good things that come out of Oregon.
Have you ever had Tillamook Cheese? or Oregon Nog?
In terms of intelligence, we have excellent engineering schools (Oregon State University) and liberal arts universities (University of Oregon). Personally, I graduated from Chemeketa Community College (in Salem) with an AS degree in Computer Electronics. The electronics department at Chemeketa is one of the best I've seen from visiting various community colleges.
of course, the job market here sucks right now, so I'm stuck working for the state. =)
Another thing about Oregon is the livability. There's the big city living in Portland, if that floats your boat, but then there's the ROOM to live out on a couple of acres if a rural setting suites you more. I spent part of my years growing up on about an acre and a half with lotsa trees. My work in downtown salem was a 15-20 min drive, even at the height of rush hour.
What else is there to cover? We have the big beautiful outdoors! Little known waterfalls, hiking trails, and wilderness areas abound. Personally, I enjoy Abiqua Falls outside of Silverton, as well as the Opal Creek Wilderness area, up at the end of the Little North Fork road. =)
Oh, and Seaside! The beach there is one of the widest on the west coast! They've had beach volleyball championships there. Lincoln City hosts kite flying festivals a little further south. The dunes near Florence and south are a blast to go running around in (on foot or on your favorite atv veh).
And that's just in the northwest area of Oregon -- there's sooooo much to explore here!
Grandparent post is talking about incentive for the State of Oregon to encourage fuel efficiency.
It's like cigarette taxes - they discourage smoking, but they also raise revenue, and state governments get 'hooked' on the money, to the extent that truly discouraging smoking gets problematic, in a budgetary sense.
That's one way to guarantee a dubious activity will remain permitted for a long time. For example, in Washington State, both timber sales and the state Lotto send money directly to the education budget. That way, if you're against aggressive logging or state-sponsored gambling, you can be painted as against children.
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There are ways around this.
Ask a truck driver. In the state I live in, there is a significantly higher gasoline tax than a lot of other states, especially those around us.
A lot of trucking companies have taken great pains to plot exactly how far out of their way they can go to still be profitable. In other words paying a truck driver extra milage for almost an extra half a day can be cost effective.
This works the same way when the destination is in my state. They plot the gas fill ups so that they have to get as little gas, definitely not proportional to their road use, in the state.
The original intent of blue laws was exactly what you say they were "pretending", but if the law was enforced equally (i.e., small businesses weren't exempt) then it really does sound fair, even if it wasn't necessarily a good idea.
Unfortunately, the real problem is government attempting to right some imbalance by passing a law and then passing another law to adjust for the new problems created and then passing yet another law when that doesn't quite work... that's why the government is constantly screwing the consumer in areas like cable and satellite TV. They are trying to level the playing field by badaging the symptoms rather than curing the causes and are causing more problems then they solve.
It's also how our Federal tax code got to its ludicrous, elephantine state. Just like in programming, sometimes you have to throw the whole thing out and start over. It will be much less work in the long run.
A flat tax or something equivalent wouldn't be a panacea, but it would sure be a better starting place for adjustments than the status quo. Also, not leading people around by the nose through the tax code (incentives, disincentive and other nonsense, social engineering through draconian bureaucracy...) would be a good idea.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.