Slashdot Mirror
More on Oregon and GPS-tracked Gas Taxes
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has an update on Oregon's proposed replacement for their gas tax. Currently two candidates are in development, the first a GPS based system that tracks where a car goes to determine the number of miles driven. The other is a odometer-like device. Both would transmit the data to base stations periodically to determine the tax on a vehicle. There was a previous slashdot article."
I don't get it.
A more important reason is that GPS, which can monitor exactly where a car goes within the state and at what times, eventually could be used to implement different tax rates, according to Whitty.
Followed by:
Whitty said there will be no privacy issues because the machines are being designed to store only the number of miles traveled, not the exact locations visited.
The whole thing sound ludicrous to me. I think people would complain more about getting another bill every month more than raising the gas tax a few cents. I understand that voters have turned down an increase in the tax over the past few years, but this seems like a very stupid way to get around it. Every gas station is going to have to have one of these devices installed. Then the pump will have to be changed so that it will give the user a different price depending on if he has a device or not.
Seems like a high cost plan with lower voter approval to me.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
I'd never want to "be tracked" by anyone when I drive. When do they start sending me speeding tickets because I travelled too many miles in too short a time??
I'm sorry, but I don't want to be monitored that closely.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Isn't tax added on the price of the fuel so much easier to admin?
Why not just record the odometer reading during the annual inspection, compare it to last year's reading, and charge accordingly? No violations of privacy and it's a HELL of a lot cheaper than installing GPS in hundreds of thousands of automobiles or retrofitting yet another odometer.
They don't want to collect taxes at the pump, but want to track your movement all over the world and then charge you taxes for that!? What would be the bennifits of this? With all the infrastructure wouldn't they have to raise the taxes?
I'd gladly mount the thing inside of a cast-iron safe with an extra layer of Mu-metal to make sure it's safe from any "damage" or "tampering".
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
The problem with an odometer soln is what if I live on the border and drive a lot in say, California. I shouldn't be taxed for that?? Also for the GPS based soln, that is going to be quite costly.
Taxing miles driven? Heck no! Tax the gas used so that a person who drives a fuel efficient hybrid gets an INCENTIVE versus folks (like me) who drive gas guzzling Suburbans.
So what happens when someone from northern california, who is not GPS equipped, routienly crosses the boarder to get gas for 20-30 cents cheaper? This seems like it could be a large problem if neighboring states don't implement a similar system as well.
since all vehicles will be taxed on miles driven instead of gas used... less incentive for fuel-efficient vehicles.
It's already expensive enough and this will do nothing more than just piss off state residents. Every state is in financial dire straits right now and every state is trying to come up with lame brain ideas on how to keep the beloved status-quo safe.
Time to tighten the belts and do what everyone else on the face of the earth does when the money is less than the year before. Time for cuts in either pay or in the entire employment pool itself. No one is garunteed job security, so why does uncle sam try so damned hard to never fire anyone? Ohhh yeah I forgot ... uncle sam is the only stupid employer to still over pention plans.
Lay um off, change hiring practices, or whatever just quit trying to raise my damned taxes.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If they use GPS transmitters anyone in your area will probably be able to track where your car is at any given time.
Well, as I commented at 9am when I submitted this story myself (which was rejected) the only FAIR way to do this is to take the mileage calculated by GPS, then multiply by a surcharge based on the EPA estimated fuel economy of the vehicle it's registered to, and calculate the gallons of fuel used. Which gets you EXACTLY back to just adding a per-gallon tax in the first place. How farging stupid IS this idea anyway?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
that way the people who drive more, pay more
how much more fairer can you be ?
this isn't exactly difficult to work out, maybe some maths genius could express this as an equation just to make it seem more complicated that it really is
You WILL get speeding tickets once this system has been 100% deployed.
You WILL face severe jail time for tampering with such devices.
There WILL be mischarges. Some people will be charged for fewer miles than they drove, some for more.
Challenging the "system" will result in being charged with Odometer tampering, as it will be your only evidence against the charges.
Of course, all this assumes they can manage to get all the cars in the state fitted with these devices.
Something tells me the voters of Oregon will be less than happy, and anyone running on a "Stop tracking where I drive" platform will get elected in a landslide.
This whole thing is either political suicide for the people responsible, or a bait and switch so the voters swallow a tax hike without complaining.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
What if you rarely drive on public roads?
Will the tax be paid at a gas station or billed to you from the government? If you pay it when you get gas, how will they tax you if you walk there with a gas can?
With another bird-brained idea. Aren't you guys sick and tired of the government sticking their hands farther and farther down your wallet? Do you actually believe Uncle Sam really puts your money into good efficient use? $600 toilets by the DoD. Hello?
Besides, getting taxed on gasoline usage is as fair as it gets. Why would anyone then want to change that up for something that's gonna cost us dearly in terms of dollars and privacy?
This plan is akin to promoting ship travel when there are cheaper, faster ways such as airplanes.
eTrade SUCKS
Sales of antacids skyrocket.
Best Windows Freeware
i'm not paying according to how far i drive.
i don't use studded tires, those are the fuckers that fuck up the road, not me.
as if they're not going to use it to hand out speeding tickets and shit too. they have NO right to know where i drive, not that i have anything to hide; or live in oregon.
but still...
So instead of using the cheap and efficient method of taxing based on usage by taxing the gas they want every citizen to buy an expensive electronics device which is prone to failure, then put up all the additional collection devices?? WTF for? And besides they will then miss revenue from everyone who travels through the state who is not a resident, or will you get one of these GPS units at the state border and have to turn it in when you leave the state? Overall it sounds like stupid solutions to a non-problem. I can only think that they have alterior motives and wish to implement something big brotherish like England has in London. the British have already admitted to using the city center camera network to nab criminals.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
They claim they don't want to measure the Odometer because it could measure miles you've driven out of state. But they don't want to install these things on every vehicle in the US, so they're not going to be taxing out-of-state drivers for using the roads. It seems to me that if you just tax the odometer, it would even out.
What's even crazier is that they don't want to tax gas anymore because efficent vehicles end up paying less tax. Don't those little Toyota Priuses tend to tear up the roads less than those Lincoln Navigators? Doesn't it make sense to have a gas tax? Maybe these lawmakers are tired of being gouged at the pumps when they fill up their Ford Expeditions and feel envy at those little Honda Civic drivers that get by without paying nearly as much in tax?
Didn't anybody tell them that GPS recievers are expensive?
I read the internet for the articles.
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?
AC
I didn't read anything in this story about the GPS tracking not logging everywhere I went for the life of the car. I suppose this information if logged would not only violate privacy laws but could serve to incrminate you if you happen to be in the area at the time when a crime happened.
-- I've spent 30 min of company time trying to think of a good sig. You can imagine how good my passwords are.
If you want to reduce emissions and raise tax income, you're simply going to have to raise gas taxes. Tracking drivers like this is not only a potential invasion of privacy (there are other situations in which an odometer reading is significant) but also not infallible, especially if you use the odometer method. It's not like someone isn't going to figure out how to cheat the damn odometer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What a deal, drive across the border to Oregon and get cheap gas, but don't have to pay the taxes because your car is not registered in Oregon. Just like the WA residents evade the Washington sales taxes now...
Does anyone else find it kind of creepy that, as of late, there have been more new and expanded ideas on tracking vehicle travels? (UK Police Expand License Plate Camera Systems)
is that the person who can afford to drive a huge gas-guzzling SUV pays more than someone drivig a Honda Insight. If this results in no or lower gas taxes, people might feel more inclined to buy a gas-swilling monster. At least with gas taxes you pay for what you use, and if you go outside of the state you're just as likely t ofil up outside of the state, which is only fair anyway.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
What an awesome way to build up unanimous support for a tax hike, eh? Man, a few more stories about this and everybody'll be begging to pay more gas tax. Reminds me of when I was a kid and my dad would tell me to stop crying unless I wanted something to really cry about.
The look on driver's face when whacked with insurance surcharges for all of the above: Priceless
It's far too easy to change an odometer reading to rely on this. Odometers are changed all the time when selling used cars. It's not legal, but for a mechanic it's trivial to remove the panel and change it. Also, like others have said, not all states have inspections, or at least not annual.
Developers: We can use your help.
If they would open up the source to the GPS tabulator, privacy concerns could be eliminated.
Have they ever thought of trying to maintain their roads more efficiently, therefore eliminating the need for higher taxes?
And have they ever considered the obvious unpopularity of this proposal? People don't want to increase the gas tax for a reason. They're not going to be any more generous about accepting this.
The people who do this are not going to be re-elected -- and deservedly so.
D
I can see the spam headlines already :) :)
"This super-absorbant shielding will shield you from those harmful radiowaves, emitted by the super-GPS tracker in your new Oregonian car! Easy to install and saves you gas money! Easy to remove for the state inspection."
Hyperom.com
This needs to be defeated, soundly.
sulli
RTFJ.
admit that they have already implanted the tracking devices into our skulls, so that they already know where we are, what we're thinking and when we're spending too much time staring at the livestock, all of these "privacy" concerns would be eliminated.
This is ridiculous. But let me give you a better idea. Charge vehicle tax based on vehicle weight. The more your car weighs, the more you pay. Holland does it this way, and that makes good sense to me. If you have a 5000 ton hummer you are wearing and tearing the roads more than joe bob in his 3cyl 50 pd geo metro. Also, the more your car weighs, the more force it takes to make it move, therfore the more gas you use. makes perfect sense to me.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Don't they have annual required safety inspections? Just make the fee depend, in part, on the number of miles on the odometer and make it illegal to tamper with an odometer.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I am 100% sure that someone would in short order find a way around this. The only people who would suffer in the end would be...
I don't know. The taxpayers? The terrorists? The CHILDREN?
Overly complex systems allow people who are willing to properly milk them to do just that, and the more complex they are, the harder the milking is to catch/prevent. Consider the US income tax system an a prime example.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Non-car owners dont pay for roads. Only users pay (this includes transport)
SPRAWL IS REDUCED(!) Sprawl causes car-centered communities that are inhuman in scale and design. Sprawl is VERY expensive. Increase in service areas (water/elec/snow removal/etc/etc), road construction, policing. This also provides a climate where denisty is encouraged -- leaving habitat more protected for plant and animals. Humans spreading out everywhere in suburbs causes much habitat loss. Paying for *the miles you drive* encourages you to DRIVE LESS.
While I dont agree that a 100% shift should occur, the tax should be collected 50% gas (encourage fuelefficiency) and 50% travel (enourage density).
ONTARIO: ARE YOU LISTENING?
This is freaking stupid! Our high school school-year is getting so short that someone graduating won't be considered a high school graduate by the federal government! We are first in the nation in hunger, and salem wants to put BBBs (big brother boxes, natch:) in my car? Put some food in people's mouths and get them jobs first. sheesh.
Hmm.. A big ugly box strapped to the tank anyone..
1. Tax the sin to reduce it (seemingly good public policy).
2. Frequency of sinning goes down due to cost of sin tax.
3. Sin tax revenue thereby goes down.
4. Gov't decides it liked the sin-money.
5. Gov't thinks of new, crazy ways to tax us.
6. Gov't profits.
Moral? Keep on sinning. Protect yourself. If you quit smoking cigarettes, then they'll want to tax your water to make up for the lost tobacco-tax revenue.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
This is totally ridiculous and stupid. The best system is already in place: a GAS TAX. With this, people pay for the quantity of gas they use, and therefore proportionnally to the pollution they cause. But the kicker is that it is as simple as collecting so much money for each liter of gas sold. The collection infrastructure is already there and working. No need to add another bureaucracy.
A more important reason is that GPS, which can monitor exactly where a car goes within the state and at what times, eventually could be used to implement different tax rates, according to Whitty.
Just what we all need... Big Brother monitoring our precise movements, day and night, in order to determine how much tax we should pay. Gee, do you think that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, et al. would access that information? Naw... those guys wouldn't violate our privacy unless it was absolutely necessary...
Personally, I would rather pay the maximum tax rate for road and gas use. Hopefully most Americans wouldn't allow themselves to be tagged and monitored in order to save a few bucks in taxes.
Just grab a couple of gas cans, park next door to the station, and make a couple of trips.
GIGOwiz
Hey, it's for my lawn mower and weed eater.
If you want a gas tax, why not just tax the gas? That has the additional benefit of taxing people more who drive less efficient vehicles. If Oregon wants to impose additional taxes on gas guzzlers, they can do that by a premium on the vehicle tax. And if they want to give certain classes of vehicles a tax break on gas, they can do that via gas deductions (keep the receipts, submit them).
The traditional solution has simply been to raise the [gas] tax rate, but that approach is always unpopular with voters.
Well, and do they suppose voters are going to be overjoyed by not only being charged lots of taxes for driving, but also to have their every move tracked by GPS? The money comes out of their wallet either way.
If they want to track in-state driving mileage, why not start charging tolls on some of the major highways in the state? This solution has been in place for years in other states and doesn't require a GPS infrastructure that will raise privacy concerns.
...to discourage people from buying fuel-efficient cars.
In Europe, gas prices are at about 1 per liter (approx. $4,40 per gallon). Not surprisingly, the average gas consumption of cars is also way lower. There's a model of the Volkswagen Lupo that uses about 3 litres of Diesel fuel for 100 km (0,8 gallons per 62 miles, or 77 miles to the gallon).
Welcome to Amerika.
Now pay up.
(and I thought not being allowed to pump my own gas was bad...)
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
I bet if the state cut funding to programs that determined how to increase taxes, they wouldn't need to raise taxes quite as much.
It's a great idea. Those with more fuel-efficient cars, which pollute less and damage the roads less pay less. Those that want to live the "high on the hog" life style, using large, inefficient engines in huge, heavy vehicles pay more.
The more you abuse the roads and the ecosystem, the more you pay. I really don't see anything wrong with it. In fact, I'd rather see the gasoline tax raised to at least $2 per gallon. THEN we'd see American car companies bring their motors out of the 1960's, technology-wise. We'd also see people re-evaluating whether having a 5,500-pound house on wheels is really a *necessity* once they have two children.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
The article alludes that Oregon needs the gas guzzling vehicles for the tax revenue, and does not favor fuel efficiency. This only continues to hinder hybrid adoption. Ultimately, regardless of all obstacles, the proliferation of "Very Fuel Efficient" vehicles will magnify the need for a revenue model based on usage and not consumption.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
GPS track your vehicle to determine miles driven? And this will affect your gas tax?
... LIKE EVERYONE DOES NOW? If you get better mileage, you use less gas. You still pay the same tax per gallon, but less tax per month since you USE LESS.
How about you tax based on the gas you use, you know
Why does it matter WHERE you go? For a road tax I can see some legitimacy of this as an idea, but it's over the top and would be expensive to implement.
I suppose if they GPS me as being at the local brother instead of the bar next door I'd pay extra tax?
Parent post has violated the logic filter! Please take your life immediately.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
My Ass hurts.
What happen to people register their car in a out of state but drive regularly in the state line? I think gas tax is fair and simple. Increase gas tax will further reduce its usage, which is good to the env. Besides, whats wrong with inc. gas tax, esp. it hasn't been adjusted since 91. I think the State should impose higher tax rate on gas, reduce consumption and invest tax money on alternate/renewable energy source.
If you want the best story, go to ODOT's website.
The GPS plan in pdf
On the other hand: heavier vehicles tend to both use more gas and cause more wear and tear on roads than lighter vehicles. Thus, a by-mile tax unfairly charges lighter/more efficient vehicles for usage. It can also be argued that programs to counter the collateral effects of burning gas (for example, clean-air initiatives) need a source of funding, for which the gas tax is a good model.
The cynic in me thinks this is popular because of SUVs, and while the plan has it's merits, it is an irresponsible step towards reversing years of progress made in encouraging people to buy less polluting, more efficient vehicles.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
how much longer until we are taxed on the air we breathe?
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
We have a GPS-based system for Trucks here in Switzerland.
Hrshgn
I can see why politicans want to try this instead of a gas tax. Oregon is a terribly populist state--we'd vote ourselves into homelessness if there needed to be a house tax. High tax bills just never get passed here, especially on the local level.
Still, this plan is prohibitively expensive in a state that can't feed & school itself. Not to mention how easy it would to hack those boxes or just turn them off. I would have thought they'd start up toll roads instead of some contrived tracking scheme.
Dawgone GPS thingy musta felled offa my car onta my garage floor here. err... I mean nope I haven't driven this car at all this year...
If it's just a straight mileage tax, it's pretty dumb. It's just like the gas tax, but as the article points out, without the incentives to have a fuel efficient car.
To make any sense at all, they'll have to acknowledge that Portland Transportation is VASTLY different than the rest of the state, particularly outside the Willamette Valley. Portland is a city, and has public transportation (not a great system, but it's at least there.) People have alternatives. And it's got a complex city road system.
The rest of the state is mostly rural, with long highway stretches that aren't nearly as expensive to maintain. There aren't bus alternatives most places. Driving 10 miles a day in Baker City is incomparable to driving 10 miles a day in Portland, in terms of impact on the roads.
They allude in the article of having the ability to tell where you are, so charge more for being part of the downtown rush hour vs. on a logging road that sees 10 cars per day. If they use it, they can possibly have the semblance of a fair system. If not, it's business as usual, where the rest of the state pays for things that mostly benefit Portland.
(I grew up in Corvallis. There's real traffic during home OSU games, for the 4th of July fireworks, and when the Jehovah's Witness convention is in town. That's it. And that's the 4th largest city in the State.)
Oregon's in such a financial free-fall right now, though, that anyone that can come through with a way to generate revenue, quickly, will get seriously listened to. So, I wouldn't be surprised to see a badly written new tax fly through without being scrutinzed.
-- Kate
This plan makes perfect sense, that is, if you work for the state department that will administer the program. Hell, running such a program would cost tens if not a hundred million dollars a year. That's good job security in this time of tightening state budgets.
The correct document (I linked the wrong one in the first post).
It's ridiculous to tax the number of miles traveled and not the amount of gas consumed. It's the gas that causes the environmental damage and the huge cost to society. If a massive SUV which guzzles gas and a small fuel efficient car traveled the same distance they would be taxed equally, basically penalizing the person who bought the more environmentally friendly car! This is definitely a bad idea because the idea of a gas tax is to curb excessive gas consumption.
So to review: Traffic Tickets are a selectively enforced tax which will die if they're enforced uniformly against the entire population.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Wouldn't this only tax the residents of the state rather than everyone else who travels through the state enjoying our tax free gas? This is a silly control freak answer that would only cost the residents of the state more money. Unless we charge a toll for all of the out of state drivers coming travelling thru the state. Maybe even make them rent the GPS unit. Other questions would be who else would get to see the data gathered from the GPS system? Your insurance company? Too many holes in this system, I personally prefer privacy!
no-one notices that 0.01% of their liberty that is shaved off every once in a while.
soon everyone will eventually notice when they are suddenly living in a police state.
fight things this now, while you still can.
If the voters complain, then the state should just start shutting down highways until the people learn that they have to pay for what they use.
Gas is cheaper now (adjusted for inflation) than it was in the 60s! Everyone should realize the amount of hidden costs that surround maintaining automobile infrastructure. BTW I drive a honda civic, I am a little biased.
love is just extroverted narcissism
A good start to saving Oregon taxpayers money would be to get rid of the "Road User Fee Task Force".
Then if that doesn't save enough, just raise the gas taxes. This system is already in place and it places the tax burden on those who put the most wear and tear on the roads, the BIG HEAVY gas guzzlers.
What have you got something to hide? Track my GPS enabled cell phone in real time 24/7
Free cell phone tracking
Just make an aluminum-foil hat for your car. Seems easy enough to me. :-)
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
So, say I live in Portland (OR)... What if I drove across the river (that would be the Columbia for all of you who've never heard of Lewis & Clark) to Vancouver (WA) and buy a car there? Sure, I'll have to pay sales tax, but my car won't have a GPS unit, so I'll never have to pay "mileage" tax.
And another thing: who pays for all the road use incurred by out-of-state drivers--like all of the people who live in Vancouver who drive across the river (same river--Columbia) to go shopping in Portland where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax?
Better still, live in Vancouver, buy a car in Portland (thus skipping sales tax), drive it back to Vancouver to rip out the GPS unit (where it's not a crime to rip out a GPS unit) and then drive across the river (Columbia again) to go shopping in Portland, where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax!
Karma
Why? If you want to collect taxes based on miles driven, do the "odometer reading at license renewal" thing. Better yet, pick a substance like say, gasoline, that is roughly proportional to distnace driven and tax it. Wow! Why use a techincal solution when a simple one works? "We don't want to raise gasoline taxes by 2 cents - the voters might get angry! No,wait, let's make them all install $100 devices with a $100 install fee and annual certification fee instead!" What happens if the power to the device dies? Would a simple blown fuse or snipped wire save you hundreds of dollars? (What about out-of-state drivers?) Will it be a criminal charge to be driving with a blown accessories fuse? Will my pocket GPS scrambler save me hundreds of dollars? Maybe that'll be an add-on feature of new radar detectors... Will the petroleum consumption police require you to fill out a form if you fail to use your car in any 3-month period, certifying that you did in fact park it? Better yet, would the GPS prove you were driving on municipal roads so Oregon has to share these revenues with the appropriate city and county governments? Can I open a shortcut across my property and get a state subsidy for it? My driveway needs repaving... maybe I can set up GPS braodcast simulator that tells any nearby vehicles they drove on my private road. Truly a "Galactically stupid" idea.
So what is the point of this tax?
It DECREASES the tax on gas guzzlers, by charging a hybrid the same tax as an H2. So it is damaging on the environment.
It is an awful intrusion of privacy.
It will likely not work.
To be fair, the only thing that is a redeeming quality is that by timing when you drive, and charging different ammount of tax, there IS A SLIGHT possibility that it will reduce traffic jams. The expense and difficulty of implementing the system though, make it impractical compared to a simple toll booth.
I can only hope the good voters from OR will vote this bill down like they should.
Tracking miles driven by cars isn't the right solution to calculate gas consumption taxes. Assuming privacy rights can be trampled on freely, the right solution for that is having a little transmitter in the car that is read when the car comes to a gas station to refuel, the gas pump logging the amount of gas delivered for each car. That penalizes SUV users and heavy drivers, and gives a break to low-consumption cars and people who don't drive much.
Tracking miles driven by cars is really a solution to figure out road maintenance taxes. For an overall taxe rate per car, the standard odometer can be logged by mechanics at the yearly car checkup and reported to the authorities. No need for exensive computer equipment to do that, just a law to force mechanics to report their findings. If the state wants a better granularity, like who uses the best roads and how much (to know which roads require more maintaining, and to tax users of good roads more), then I guess an onboard GPS would be useful. Otherwise, I reckon it'd be overkill.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Gas tax is the easiest, simplest, error-free way to generate revenue.
Doing a GPS or other device-required method introduces points of failure, ways to cheat the system, etc. etc.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I do a lot of geocaching, and thus have become pretty adept with my GPS. Although the articles contain official statements along the lines of "nothing more than miles traveled would be tallied etc" it would, as you know, require little effort to also transmit paths/routes that the vehicle drove in.
Certainly X gas corporation would be demographically interested in learning (buying data) detailing which gas stations drivers frequently skip in order to fill up at a competetor's station etc, for example. In my opinion the whole thing is quite scary, and I am not usually one of those Big Brother is watching you types.
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
They'd have a hard time getting me to put one of those things on my car. Even if they did I'd cut the power to it. Besides my car is 27 Years old. I imagine there would be some issues in putting a new device like this on an older car.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
We like to spend money on things like GPS systems for every car (how many millions would this cost) instead of giving the money to schools, in order to educate children who can come up with better systems. I'd come up with a better system and offer my opinion on it, but ALAS, I have had an OREGON education.
ODOT's website plainly states that there will be NO RETRO FITTING on cars. [pdf format]
forget phone phreaking. now we can avoid gas taxes or make someone elses car pay 5x as much tax as they should.
stupid idea. that's just trying to collect more revenues from vehicles with higher miles per gallons.
from any side left, right, up, or down. Or maybe somebodies brother sells GPS gear...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Yes, ma'am our records clearly indicate that your husband drove 60% of his miles going from work to a place called "Baby Dolls"
He did, did he? Thank you for the information. You'll be hearing from my lawyer soon.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
As many of you may know, the State of Oregon (a state that I sadly call home) is one of the hardest-hit during our difficult economic times. Our unemployment is the worst, our state systems are failing, and our outlook is plum awful. What chaps my hide is that the state can somehow continue to fund "studies" like this asinine one during these times. I did not see how the costs of purchasing/installing these devices will be planned...but you can bet yer sweet bippy that that will go DIRECTLY to the driver/taxpayer. I also noticed that Mr. Whitty (odd name) quiped about the abolition of the gas tax if a system like this is implimented...ummm...no. Not in THIS state. Every time a tax is cut or eliminated, they make it up in sneaky ways. Example: Our property taxes have been slashed several times by statewide ballot measures over the last decade or so. How does the state deal with this? Do they make due with less? No-ho! they simply send the assessors out to artificially jack up the property values on Oregon homes in order to balance the revenue. My bottom line is this...IF you live in this loser state, you can expect some goofy thing like this to come to pass. You can expect this goofy thing to cost you a bundle right out of the gate. You can expect this goofy thing to only add more weight to the citizen's pocketbooks. You can expect the money generated from this thing to disappear into the general fund suckhole...ANNND you can expect to have the state come back to you in a few years with an open hand and a whimper. Moral of the story....STAY AWAY FROM OREGON!
The politicians behind this idea are brain dead.
The existing gas tax already is *exactly* a tax on miles driven for a car that gets a targeted miles per gallon. Plus the existing tax provides an incentive for driving a car that gets better than average fuel economy.
But nothing in Oregon should surprise anyone. Businesses are leaving the state in droves because of their insane policies. At least unemployed gas station attendants from around the country can come here to get work thanks to prohibition of self service.
Cool! I can drive for free in Oregon and get cheaper gas. I sure won't have one of those dumb devices in my car, as I live in California. NOW JUST IN: The State of California makes it illegal to buy gas in Oregon, as too many Californias were crossing the border to avoid the excessive California gas tax. Suggested remedy: Install GPS in all vehicles and calculate miles driven. DOH!
Drive car A. Siphon gas from Car A to car B. Refill Car B at station. Repeat. or Fill Car A, the gas truck, with enormous quantities of fuel. Sell fuel to cars B, C, D, and E Two Blocks away at your house. Repeat. This is just silly.
The people of Oregon, in their infinite wisdom, have repeatedly rejected a gas tax increase. The government tries various methods to get around this rejection.
Let's put it another way. The people have decided the government already has enough money and refuse to give them more. The government thinking up new and innovative ways to screw citizens out of their hard earned money ignores the basic fact that they were already told no.
No means no, damn it!
Make sure taxes collected for a specific reason are spent for that reason and not put into the general fund. I bet the gasoline tax was implemented to provide the funds to maintain the roads and highways. How much is collected? How much is actually spent on road maintanence? Ask your elected officials to account for the missing money.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Can't you jam the GPS to send bogus data to the base station?
Portland sits right on the border of Washington and Oregon. Because of lower property prices & taxes, a lot of people live in Vancouver, Washington and commute to Portland every day...Any Portland residents will know how I-5 looks every afternoon with the thousands of WA residents heading back across the border. This seems unfair because WA will not / may not have the system and so WA residents will purchase gas in OR where it will finally be cheaper, and yet probably not pay taxes on it. Unless, of course, they have a default rate, in which case, we're back to the simpler system of just having a flat rate on the gas to begin with...
Also, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but is anyone considering the costs of administering this system? That may well eat up all of the [anticipated] increased revenue.
when I read it as ANAL inspections and did a double take.
What would keep people from building the relatively cheap and easy GPS Jammer described in Phrack? Seems like trowing one of the jammers in your trunk would take care of the GPS ever working correctly.
"I would rather have your time than your money" --Henry Rollins Jan 14 2003 on the topic on internet file trading
Will the department of Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, RCMP, CSIS and Major League Baseball also be getting this information?
Will adveritsers with video billboards be able to get this info to better target their advertising? What if they found out about my penis size?
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
In this case, it sounds like somebody got a GPS for their birthday and now they're looking for problems to apply it to. Along comes the "gas tax by any other name" and well gee, using a GPS would be the perfect solution.
people don't want the taxes and don't want to spend the money start selling off 'unused' roads. Let the people who complain that the roads are in such bad shape actually pay for them themselves. I think it would be kind of neat to have the state just handle the inter- and intra state system. Let the counties/cities/homeowners determine what is next important. Heck, the rail companies already do this!
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Furthermore, removing the gas tax will lower the price of gas, which will encourage more consumption. Which means more trucks and further reductions in average efficiency of vehicles purchased each year. Trucks are heavier, and create more wear per mile driven on the roads when compared to lighter, more fuel-efficient cars.
Why would you create an incentive for people to drive more in heavier vehicles if you are having problems keeping roads repaired? It just makes no sense.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Ok, so they say the need to do this to meet a defecit. How much is it going to cost tax payers to implement? How much overhead will there be with maintaining the system?
They don't want to raise the gas tax, as this is unpopular with voters. Well if the voters in your state don't want to pay the costs to keep roads in good condition, they can deal with bad roads.
I happen to think they have plenty of money to do what they need to do. Most likely they are just spending it poorly. Let's not forget that the US pays a great deal of money to states for roads to keep the drinking age at 21. If Oregon roads are really that bad (I've only traveled through) maybe they should implement a truck/semi-trailer/SUV tax. My civic doesn't tear the road up anywhere close to what my friends Excursion does.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
One of the (countless) obvious problems with this scheme is that it means that tax revenues will have to be used to buy all of this extra equipment (or individuals will have to buy it themselves, but then that is just the same as taxing them). The only way that I could see this making ANY sense would be if you allowed car owners and filling station owners to install the equipment voluntarily. What I am thinking is that maybe you could first raise the per gallon gas tax, then let people use this system as an alternative to paying the gas tax. This would let you "reward" people who don't drive during times that the roads are heavily congested, as the article suggests. But it is probably not worth using even in this way, because it will just get hacked.
This post is dedicated to all of those
It seems to me that the GPS idea is part of Oregon government corruption. The idea cannot work for the reasons mentioned at the end of this article: Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash. Why are they proposing something that cannot work? Probably someone is using the idea to make money.
For more about problems in the government of Oregon, see this: Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government. Basically, people who want to use government to make money have found the perfect way to prevent negative court judgements: The Judiciary in Oregon is not allowed enough money to do its job. Try calling the Oregon Court of Appeals in Oregon on any Friday and you will find that they are closed because they don't have enough money to stay open 5 days a week. With a limited Judiciary, those who want corruption can accomplish almost anything.
The corruption uses other methods, some of which are mentioned in the articles.
They could just cut their budget...
Most of the states are claiming a budget crisis. But in reality tax revenues are up, but the political spending spree is up even more, causing a 'shortfall'.
When I drive from Washington to Cali, I NEVER fill up in Oregon. I don't want to waste my time waiting for the incredibly-slow moving guy to get around to filling up my tank. So it's fill the tank up in Vancouver (WA, not BC), and then fill it again in Yreka, ~330 miles. No sweat, and no waiting on the bizarre full-service-only thing.
If they really want to raise the gas tax in OR, they should drop the mandatory full service requirement and raise the tax a few cents a gallon. The savings in labor would allow prices to stay the same with no hit on the station's bottom line. Admittedly, there will be some unemployment from the loss of gas-pumping jobs, but that hasn't really hurt any other state's economy. And come on folks, pumping gas?
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Yes it is illegal in Oregon for the average consumer to pump their own gas, because they might spill a little as opposed to the highly trained pumping engineer that you meet at your gas station every fillup (who loves spilling gas down the side of my car)
Lets see, adding custom hardware into my car (500 dollars) adding a reading mechanism to each pump (500 dollars). Ammount that I pay in gas taxes every year (10K miles, 50/MPG, 200 gallons) probably about $70. So it will take about 10 years for them to even break even (or maybe worse, make me pay for the upfront costs through higher car/gas prices)
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
However, Whitty noted one perk that would accompany the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come down," he said.
$100 says that the current gas tax would never be removed.
They will look at the new mileage based tax as a bonus and another way to pay for all their pork barrel spending.
People are much less prone to be bothered by 2 smaller taxes then one large tax, so eventually Oregonians will just end up paying twice as much to drive anywhere.
"a GPS based system that tracks where a car goes"
One step closer to the mark of the beast technology.
So a Chevy Metro will pay the same as a Lincoln Navigator? How is this fair to pay for roads? The Navigator should and currently does pay more towards roads.
about this:
while the plan has it's merits, it is an irresponsible step towards reversing years of progress made in encouraging people to buy less polluting, more efficient vehicles.
Sure, pollution in the form of COx and its friends is down across the board. But more efficient vehicles? Check out page ii of this pdf, and note that the total economy of light vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickups) is less than 1980!
The fact is, we aren't any more efficient than we were coming off of the gas crisis of the late 1970s. Blame every congress and president since 1985ish for that one... neither the pubs nor the dems had the foresight (read: testicular fortitude) to raise gas taxes or to increase CAFE standards enough to induce consumers and producers to figure out how to get more miles to the gallon.
Shame on them, and shame on us for not demanding better.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Don't those little Toyota Priuses tend to tear up the roads less than those Lincoln Navigators? Doesn't it make sense to have a gas tax? Maybe these lawmakers are tired of being gouged at the pumps when they fill up their Ford Expeditions and feel envy at those little Honda Civic drivers that get by without paying nearly as much in tax?
Weight only matters above a certian axle load. Below it, you just don't do significant damage to pavement. Heavy trucks cause a problem, cars and light trucks don't. However, an Insight or Prius will consume just as much road space as a lincoln navigator or H1, and it's building and maintaining road space that's expensive.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
I cant say that a 100% of the population out there would adopt anything so hideous as this proposal. You would sooner get shot than be able to instal a device on the peoples cars that I know up there.
If there is no gas tax, gas will be cheaper in Oregon. Which would mean that Washington state residents (one mile away across the Columbia river) would come to Oregon to buy tax-free gas.
The GPS scheme will be a wonderful opportunity for hacking, of course. "Yes, yes, it's entirely true that I drove 15,000 miles last month in the mountains of Peru. I wasn't in Oregon, so I should pay no tax."
" The long-term plan calls for auto manufacturers to install the systems in new cars."
So every car manufactured in the US will have to be equipped for their plans? I really don't see why I should pay the extra cost for my new car to have this when I don't live anywhere near Oregon.
.. that we attach GPS devices to politicians and their aids. Now, whenever they're both off the capitol grounds and together for more than say 5 minutes, an alarm goes off at the nearest TV news reporters desk.
Of course, privacy wouldn't be an issue. Why? Because I just said so!
>However, Whitty noted one perk that would accompany > the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come > down," he said. How often do governments remove an existing tax? I know several bridges that have been paid off, but they still charge a toll.
The first thing I'd pick up being a Californian (or, heck, an Oregonian), is a nice device that said "Yes sir, I do indeed have a GPS unit! Give me a shot of the cheap stuff!"
.28 cents a gallon, such a device would pay for itself pretty quickly.
At
Not only that, but even if you had the real device already you could block off signal access/power every other day to make it LOOK like you were still driving around, but still get cheap gas all the time.
If this were happening in my state, I wouldn't just wait to try and vote the idiot(s) out of office that proposed this. I would form an active organization seeking an immediate recall of said idiot(s).
Even independent of the privacy ramifications, the sheer waste of putting GPS devices in every car (even just new cars) appalls me. Not to mention the cost of developing the system and devices that will figure out who to charge what.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oregon has several problems when it comes to gas. One which I'm sure nobody has bothered to consider when thinking up this new idea. By charging Oregonians for the amount driven, people from outside the state are immediately excluded from the tax. All the sudden people who commute in to Portland from Vancouver, stop paying taxes in Oregon. This is the same way in which we (in Oregon) get screwed by not having a sales tax (made up for with huge income tax); only Oregonians get taxed for resources used by everyone.
Also, if they wanted to offset the hit from an increased gas tax, they could consider firing all the pump jockies and letting us pump our own damn gas. Sure the occasional backwoods hick or yuppie dumbass will end up lightimg him/herself on fire, but if it saves us money, isn't it all for the better?
Ignorance abounds. Standard Liberalism is classical liberalism which is Neoconservative freemarketeers. He doesn't represents "standard liberalism' he represents American liberalism (Basically Keynes economics)
I suppose the reason this has any chance at all is that most of the population (and thus most of the political power) of Oregon is concentrated in a small area of the state. The folks outside the Willamette valley will end up paying a disproportionately large amount of distance tax, because they drive farther from daily necessity.
The Eastern and Southern parts of the state are going to be incensed over this, and with good reason. What a stupid idea.
Thanks for the article, I'll write my legislators.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
i remember ages ago margaret thatcher had similar idea. instead of property tax as a percentage of property cost, she proposed number of occupants based property tax. thus 4 people living in a slum would pay more than 1 person staying in a palace.
now, a big vehicle which pollutes more air, does more damage to road (per mile driven) will pay the same taxes as small fuel efficient environmental friendly car. gas usage represents combination of how big your vehicle is (how much damage to road per mile driven), how much does it cost (costlier vehicles typically use more gas), and how polluting your vehicle is. so, I guess, the gas tax is much more justified. but i think that is too simple and low tech, and they seem to be looking for some high tech solution, which i can't think of.
Right after my previous post I thought of a cheaper and easier way to beat the system - If it's an odometer based system (or possibly even if not if they design it poorly), here's a fun way to "hack" the system:
1) Drive out of state. Border device signals that it's time to stop recording usage.
2) Shield device.
3) Drive back across border, and enjoy months of cheap gas!
You can also replace (2) and (3) with "Drive back to state using back roads". I'm so sure they'll have every road equipped with devices working 100% of the time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How long would it take for somebody to figure out how to fake the signal?
Master criminal Steve, drives around to several stations filling up, he records the signal transmitted by the odometer or gps unit and decodes it. He disables the government's unit and creates a fake transmitter that sends a message saying he's driven just a few miles. If he fills up the car after only five or ten miles, who's to say that he's cheating? He might have only had a few dollars with him when he bought fuel the day before. And unless they put a privacy invading unique ID in each and track driving rates, there's no way to see that he puts in thirty gallons a week, but drives five miles a week.
Also how much would it cost to build and install all these units?
They wouldn't force existing cars to implement the system, and they want to still get money out of visitors (especially those truckers), so they'd have to have the infrastructure in place to run both systems, so more of the tax revenue would be lost to administration.
And since there are so many used cars out there, the bulk of the money for many years would be from the current tax system, so they'd build that entirely new infrastructure to take in a small amount of money.
An all around stupid idea.
It seems like this is another example of two trends in taxation theory.
The first is an increasing reliance on sin taxes. The more you drive/smoke/drink the more you pay in fees/taxes.
The second is more subtle. In something like Federal Income Tax, everyone contributes money and that money is used to fund government programs. Now you may not like the NEA, you may never read a book or see a play, but your money goes to support the National Endowment for the Arts. You may be morally/theologically opposed to military build up, but your money is still used for the School of the Americas and nuclear weapons. The theory is that everyone contributes and everyone benefits. Goes right back to the Pilgrims who worked together to survive.
But if this tax is thought of as a road use tax, then it is an example of an increase in specific user fees/taxes. If I don't drive, then I don't pay this tax. And yet, the semis that deliver my food to the grocery store, the ambulance, firetruck, taxi, etc., all use those roads. In other words, I partake of services that rely on the roads, but I don't contribute to the road maintenance as much as I probably should.
The article waffles back and forth. Sometimes it refers to this as a road use tax (essentially money paid solely by those people who directly use the service) and other times it refers to it as an alternative to the gasoline tax, a tax that is both a use tax and a sin tax.
Under a pay per use taxation system, it is possible to game the system. I can buy 100 gallons of gas and just have a heck of a fire, but pay no tax. Nevermind the toxic fumes.
It seems that by moving to a more pay per use method of taxation, that we fail to pick up on indirect use, unforeseen consequences. Here's another example. A portion of my taxes go to the National Park System. I want this to continue, even though I don't actively use the parks. I want them to remain open and available. So I get a benefit, the park system, by paying less than the people who visit the parks. Sure, they pay a little more when they visit, but it would be more fair to balance things better. They pay a little less for visitor fees, I pay a little more in taxes.
I wonder if these people are just that ignorant or are they smarter than they look?
Some people have the practice of proposing several bad or absurd ideas that just don't work or make any sense even to the pointy-haired types. Then after all the naysaying and uproar, put forth their desired option as the now holy-grail solution that would never have been agreed to if proposed as the first solution.
So in the long run, Oregon may end up being able to raise gas tax by 5-cents instead of the originally budgeted 2-cents in addition to making it look like a measely tax raise is such a wonderful option by saving the people from such heinous alternatives. So after the sensationalist media (/. excluded, of course) gets through with this story, the governor will look like a saviour of the people, the state gets a larger tax increase then it asked for, ends up with the ability to say the people came up with the gas-tax idea, and oh, also everyone involved gets re-elected.
Of course, these types of plan is never foolproof, and could backfire horribly.
Gas taxes are already closely tied to how much people drive, and how much wear their vehicles exert on the road -- bigger vehicles require more gas, and they happen to cause more wear and tear on the infrastructure.
...
There's a huge number of out-of-state vehicles in Oregon (predominantly because Portland is located right next to the Washington border) -- would they be required to have tracking computers as well? They have to buy gas, so gas stations can't require tracking computers
The millions of dollars spent maintaining and developing this program would probably be better spent, say, repaving roads.
What about all the tax money $$$ collected from the 60,000+ Washingtonians that drive to work in Oregon everyday ? Ask me how I know. Clark County (in Washington State) is one of the top income-tax paying Counties for Oregon (and isn't even in the state!) The services provided for these non-residents are minimal, outside the road infrastructure (read: I-5 and I-205 bridges).
What, do they garnish this money on their fine schools ? (ha!) Or how about a waste-of-time baseball team?
How about adding new lanes to Interstate 5 in North Portland? Oh, we'd never want to do that.
As far as tracking where people drive? That is a very sick, sick idea and the costs of enforcing and/or equiping people with such devices must be *very* prohibitive (just for the fact that this a gov't project). This will blow the project high out of the water quickly.
A Gas tax works much better.
Am I the only one thinking "Yeah, riiiight" here?
What about the added cost of putting those thingies on the pumps? Who'll pay for that?
AC comments get piped to
Part of the point of gas tax is to pay for road repair. Roads are not hurt less by a 4-cylinder Accord going over them than a 6-cylinder road.
So there is a reason to go by just miles.
"Whitty noted one perk that would accompany the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come down," he said."
I really hope he was trying to be funny with that statement. What's the point of one tax going down if you have to pay it elsewhere? Not to mention that it seems like when 1 tax is replaced with another, the new tax always ends up costing more than the one it replaced.
Like many states in this union, Oregon is experiencing a huge budget shortfall. Too many people out of work (we have the highest unemployment of any state) and too few tax payers. Included is the somewhat interesting fact that 60% of the corporations who operate in this state pay the $10 minimum in taxes.
So where is the money coming from to pay for the proposed changes?
It's all a political ploy.
See, they _say_ that they are thinking about doing this big awful nasty thing, and then it gets people *begging* for an increase in the gas tax. They will give the people an increase in the gas tax and people will love them for it (since it beats this nasty alternative).
The politicians in Oregon seem to have their stuff together.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
A cheap handheld consumer GPS has an accuracy of about 15 feet... but will show movement even smaller than that. Meaning: You can't trust the exact coordinates more than 15 feet, but relative to each other in an area, the coordinates are more accurate.. if you move 5 feet west, the gps will usually show yuo 5 feet west of wherever it said you were the previous time... it's not like the numbers jump around a 15 foot radius while yuo stand still.
As the other poster said, you can see which lane you used on the highway. I can tell if I'm in my front or back yard.
What I really don't get is why they're considering some all-new (expensive) method of taxing people for driving. If the 24-cent tax on gas isn't keeping up with inflation, why not just adjust the 24-cent tax for inflation? It'd seem a whole lot easier to work with the dozen or so gas companies than the millions of residents. And you'll keep the incentive to drive smaller, lighter vehicles.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
I don't understand why the state would want to use a $500 device to collect another $50 in taxes...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Why not just find a way to tax politicians for stupidity? For every stupid idea like this they have to pay. If they are rich and funded their own campaign they need to pay more.
I see three serious problems that need a fair bit more thought before I would consider this kind of scheme could work and be reasonably judged as an improvement over the way things are done today :
1. How do you tax alternative-fuel / dual-fuel vehicles ? I might run my vehicle on any of electric/gas, petroleum gas/natural gas, diesel/recycled cooking oil. How do they determine which miles where driven using what fuel. If the answer is to tax all fuels at the same rate then this is a disincentive for people to migrate away petroleum to alternatives.
2. This reduces any incentive to drive in a fuel efficient manner ; if you are taxed on distance travelled it becomes not so expensive to drive in a faster less fuel efficient manner. Additionally, if you are taxed higher at certain times of the day, it is also in your interests to drive faster and hence get off the road quicker. So a side effect of this scheme is to increase speeding and dangerous driving.
3. The price of fuel would surely come down once the integrated tax had been eliminated. But two problems : a) the oil companies won't bring the price all the way down, you'll see a hidden 4 or 5 cent raise built into the reduced price. b) if you're only using GPS tax on (new) GPS equipped vehicles then how do you sell gas : you have to charge a different price depending on whether the vehicle is GPS equipped or not. Do you upgrade all fuel pumps ? Who pays ?
-I'm just curious how I fit into your idea of social justice.
... I'd say you got a bargain.
As the driver of a 1988 560SEL with the 5.8 liter gasoline and 4900lbs curb weight, and a 1977 Corvette L-82 with yet another 5.7L V8, neither of which gets better than 12 mpg on a good day (and I can actually watch the gas gauge move when I stand on the Vette to open up the secondaries)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Thanks to Transparent Aluminum, this could very well be possible. Paranoiacs rejoice!
But that is even worse.. that tips off the power company that their power readings don't add up in an area... adn that's even MORE reason for them to investigate, as they can be reasonably sure that a)T hey have an infrastructure problem or b) someone is stealing power.
Oh, most indoor growing is NOT hydroponic.. with today's quality strains, there is little to no need of a hydroponic setup.
Hydroponics means using rocks & nutrient solution to grow the plants in, as opposed to dirt & fertilizer., which is what almost everyone does. Most of the smoke you find that is called "Hydro" is, in fact, not hydroponically grown, as there is no reason to grow it that way.
The best way to not tip off the cops is to not use tons of power, don't go overboard. grow small.
Then there was the legend of the guy who grew indoor tomatos all year round... and the cops busted him three or foure times on a tip from the power company. Eventually, a judge ruled the cops had to stop harassing him, as he was doing something completely legal.
Then, of course, he swapped out the tomatos for pot.
for crying out loud, they tax the crap out of us. They tax us when we buy stuff. They tax our income. They tax what we own. They tax tax tax tax tax. We don't need another freaking tax, and we especially don't want these fucking surveilance things on our cars - I imagine that's only the first step.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
In adversity there is opportunity!
I'm going to start a Deleware corporation that will rent your Oregonians a car. In the contract you will be required to handle all maintenance, insurance, etc., costs, and pay me the loan pmt plus five dollars (or just $5 if the vehicle is paid for). Title will be held by the corp, and the vehicle will be registered in Deleware. When the vehicle is sold you get all proceeds, minus a small administrative fee. You can rent any car you want, just do a contract and we'll purchase it for you.
(ok, lets see, $5 * #_Oregon_residents * 12_months_per_year = I'm freaking rich!!! )
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
The Road User Fee Task Force: http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/
:)
Read the paper, yell at your legislator.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
This is great, the first tax that favors stoners:
"We're also looking at variable pricing and congestion pricing," he said, "and we could even do different time-of-day rates." For example, the state could make it more expensive to drive downtown during rush hour than it would be to cover the same ground during a midnight munchie run when the streets are deserted.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
You mean charge a 300% gas tax?
Americans have some of the least expensive gas on the planet.
paintball
"I understand that voters have turned down an increase in the tax over the past few years"
Isn't this the entire basis of our "democracy"?
The will of the people is that they don't want to be taxed anymore on gas. This isn't an invititation to find another way to charge them for the same thing.
Why can't states figure out that if they are spending more than they are getting in income then cut programs, cut spending, cut, cut, cut. If people want those programs bad enough then they will authorize a gas tax and if not then they obviously didn't feel it was worth paying taxes for.
Even though this link is from FoxNews this article from the CATO institute is rather interesting. Especially the part about Colorado
"Seems like a high cost plan with lower voter approval to me" . I have to agree that you hit the nail on the head there
Now the state will automatically know when you are speeding. They can raise a lot more funds by send out speeding tickets without having to employee more police.
That's one way, but I think that instead of blocking the signal, you should ensure that it always has a strong signal.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I live close to Oregon so changing the gas tax in Oregon to GPS rather than what is bought is good. I will have a nice place to get gas, right over the state boarder and avoid paying gas tax to anyone. Of course if Oregon requires all cars entering their state to be equiped for GPS to pay them, then my Tourism dollars can go to other states instead. Sounds like a lose or lose situation for Oregon - they either lose my gas taxes or they lose my Tourism dollars.
Were these people on crack or are they sleeping with in oligarchic Bushes?
In my state (Utah), we must pass a safety inspection every year, and (if in a county with over 100,000 residents) pass an emissions test (only every 2 years for cars '96 or newer). I can only assume that many states already have a safety inspection requirement.
Why not let the place that inspects the car log your mileage? Then the DMV can calculate a "environmental impact tax" (call it whatever) calculated from your actual mileage and the model of car you drive? The EPA (or whoever runs fuleeconomy.gov) has the MPG stats for cars dating back to '85, and I'm sure there's data somewhere about older cars.
Hell, this could be even simpler (though maybe less "fair") if by using demographic or geographic averages of annual mileage -- plus the car model -- to calculate this tax. This is a much more coarsely-grained taxation scheme, but it should be statistically sound if done right.
Of course if the government tracks actual mileage in any capacity, the insurance companies are going to most certainly get ahold of it eventually and tweak everyone's rates accordingly (for the worse, I'm sure).
I vote fot no mileage tracking of any kind (and certainly not via GPS!). I think statistics can be used well enough to hit everyone anually with a tax simply based on the model of car one drives. Yes, some people will get hit unfairly, while others will benefit. But the average of everyone could potentially be correct.
Method of processing duck feet
I notice that among all the replies that I've read, not one has said, "what do they need the extra money for?" Before raising taxes, let's talk about where the money you're already collecting is going, and whether it's being spent as efficiently as it can be. Here in Californistan, we have big highway funds that are being raided for non-highway expenditures like light rail, buses, and even the general fund. In fact, the governor has promised that there will be no new freeways built in the state (he's backed away from that after his union donors got a mite upset). The point is, if they're just going to pour the new money down non-highway ratholes, screw their 'need' for more taxes.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
ARREST HIM! He just talked about circumventing copywritten information in a public forum! May you never see the light of day again you terrorist!
Brought to you by the DMCA Truth Council.
--to put on the "no business, never visit" list, if this passes. I boycott every lame state or large metro area that institutes big brotherr action. Tell me I must be disarmed anyplace, even in my vehicle? No probs, on the boycott list. Tell the citizens they need to be tracked and taxed for travelling? No probs, on the boycott list. I take my constitution serious, this stuff is pure big brother action. There is NO way I would allow one of these devices in my vehicle. I tell you, these various governments will NEVER be satisified until no matter what you do, it's taxed, regulated, and you have no choice but to break some stupid law. It's none of their beeswax WHERE I drive, or HOW MUCH I drive. that's between me and my wallet and my interests, and that's IT. If they want to tax the fuel at the pump, swell,if it gets too high I'll make my own fuel somehow, beyond that, screw em. I am against surveillance cams, random checkpoints, dna samples, all that stuff. And putting a tracker in the vehicle, along with ALL the new cars have blackboxes now? I do NOT think so, screw em. I'll keep driving old cars forever, and I'll move if any place insists on a "tracker" of any type. They can have an odometer reading on title transfer, that's it, and that's fair to the next owner. And if it ever gets THAT bad, all over the nation, I WILL switch to a horse, 100% of the time, I'll scrap my last vehicle. I'll hand paint an anti big bro rant all over it, and abandon it in the middle of some court house lawn some place. Triple screw em.
F***! big brother, he's a perv, a liar, a cheat , a thief,a bungler, and a fool. If people don't learn to say NO, they'll just keep on dumping it on you. Geez, you'd think "geeks, highschool, bullies" would have clicked with the analogy in the adult world. This stuff don't stop until mr bully gets his ass handed to him and you say "no more, not only am I smarter than you, but my physical skills are better too, WHOMP!". MAN this gets to me, I grew up dissing and putting down them "bad" places like nazi germany, then russia and east germany. Now people are sucking up the SAME crap. Sucking it up. It's disgusting. It's EASY to see that governments are pushing the envelope, I mean ridiculous easy. I wouldn't recognize a block of java from a buncha lines of C, but THIS I can read. This is PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING as much as some new lame tax, to get you CONDITIONED to accept more and more restrictions and loss of personal freedoms and the ability to own property. To OWN property, not lease it from the state with their "permission".
What happens if you run out of gas and need to fill a can up or somthing ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I use the FasTrak auto-toll-collecting device in the SF area (and I love it). Just got a note in the mail from the MTA with an updated EULA and info that they were going to start tracking all devices.
They claim that they will scramble the id number, collect the data, and use it to generate real-time traffic info, available via 511 or 511.org. THe info will include the current drive time from point to point on a hiway (which is pretty useful).
The opt out clause was funny: If you don't wish to participate, put your FT device in the enclosed mylar bag when you're NOT going through a toll plaza, and you won't be tracked.
There was no mylar bag in my packet.
I'm not really sure how much this bothers me. On one hand, I don't like it, and can only assume that this info will be for sale pretty soon (to mapquest, probably). On the other hand, the Gestapo^H^H^H^H^H^H^ Homeland Security Dept. probably already knows that I got to work everyday, anyway.
If this goes though I, and others like me, will get nailed with a huge tax.
I live in the Portland area but work just over the border in Vancouver and get gas there about 90% of the time. I do most of my driving in Oregon.
The one time that I get gas in Oregon, I would end up finally paying a ton in taxes.
Does anyone else find it kind of creepy that, as of late, there have been more new and expanded ideas on tracking vehicle travels?
... Chinese bow, and with fake accent:
"Ahhhhhh Grasshoppah, you ahh fast becoming Enlightened!"
All this will do is destroy the car dealerships in and around Portland, since everyone will just cross the river to Vancouver to buy cars that don't have these idiotic devices on them.
I live in vancouver and work in Portland. I make sure I never buy gas in OR. (I heard OR doesn't have quality control laws and regular inspections like other states) Besides, gas in WA is usually a dime cheaper, and don't oxygenate their gas.
:)
In fact when desperate, I drive on fumes in OR, just so I can make it to a pump in WA. One time when I was really screwed, I pulled into a 76 station in Beaverton, and the stupid attendent was standing by the pump smoking a cigarrete. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there, on got my 5 bucks of gas at the texaco across the street
We hear everyday how Oregon is just about $2Billion in the hole (and that in a state with only 3 million people) and how people are supposedly dieing because they're losing this or that benefit, schools closing, etc. and yet here is an idiotic program being funded probably to the tune of 1 or 2 million dollars that will (hopefully) never result in anything.
What a waste! I urge my fellow Oregonians to write their legislooters and strongly urge them to stop funding this crap!
This scheme is rife with privacy and cost problems (how much money are car owners and gas stations going to have to spend to install this equipment? How many years will it take to pay those costs off?).
I really don't see a lot of electric/hybrid/small cars on the road around here anyway. I see _lots_ of SUVs which must be burning a lot of gas and paying a lot of gas tax. And if all of the sudden, lots of electric/hybrid/small,efficient cars show up on the road in Oregon, wouldn't we all be better off anyway? This is all a scam!
In california, if you exit the toll roads and your the time it took you to get there was too quick, you'll get a ticket in the mail.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In Oregon you aren't taxed when you buy stuff.
The middle mind speaks!
At the CA side of the OR/CA border, I've seen people with OR plates pull up, sit around for a few minutes, than honk at the poor soul manning the cash register.
:)
Likewise, when on the OR side I don't know how many times I've seen the attendent come running out of the office yelling you can't pump your own gas
My Volkswagen has a digital odometer. While it is possible to change the reading, the cluster will only accept a new reading (outside of the factory) until it reaches a certain number of miles/km, after which it will reject changes unless it's sent back to the factory.
It is possible to take the cluster out and replace it with a different one, and the instructions are fairly widely published among enthusiasts such as myself (see here for how) and doesn't require much in the way of special tools -- and the system depends on trust that the user will type in the correct mileage into the computer when the new cluster is programmed.
But it still requires more than changing the readout of a mechanical odometer. The change to digital is probably in part to prevent odometer fraud.
i am a soviet space shuttle
precisely why the OR gooberment doubled the registration costs for ZLEV cars, because they don't "pay their fair share" or gas taxes...
Sounds pretty stupid to me -- raising the gas tax would be the best way to accomplish this because it pushes people towards more fuel efficient vehicles. This thing is exactly backwards. Which is why this is strange in Oregon which is a pretty liberal state for the most part.
When the Oregon legislature first tried to balance the state budget, they made public announcements that schools and police were to face heavy cuts unless a tax increase was immediately enacted (as one writer put it, "15,000 state employees, and the 200 you choose to fire are cops?").
Of course, being scared of their own tails, they couldn't just vote in a tax increase; they put it to a ballot measure. People being what they are, the tax increase was voted down, and the budgets got cut.
The prevailing opinion among people I've talked to is that it was a scare tactic: tell horror stories so that voters will be afraid of NOT increasing taxes, then let them do it, thus avoiding any responsibility for the increase. I never thought of it before, but maybe this round of idiocy is the same sort of thing.
Hamster
What about when your car is being towed somewhere?
This is just a case of a logical solution encountering emotional concerns. This would be a non-issue if we were all robots or Vulcans. The problem is people who apply only logic to civic problems.
This is the same state where they pulled the red-light cams because the state code, said the guilty party is the DRIVER not the REGISTERED OWNER? oh well... I never drive on the toll roads anyways :)
While I like the idea of increased taxes for using congested roads, this is built into the existing gas-tax system: Getting stuck in traffic for an hour is going to use more fuel than a ten minute commute.
Why is it that so many of the people posting to this thread clearly feel that it is ok to impose their morals on other by taxing those that they don't agree with (using taxes to encourage more ecologically sound habits, anti-SUV, etc.), and at the same time proclaim a desire for individual freedom on so many other issues?
They already have photo-radar here.
Tho I must give them this, they are getting sneaky. I've seen cops take an exit off the freeway, so naturally everyone speeds up, for the waiting cop hiding at the on-ramp.
I've also noticed the police driving tricked out cars. A little while ago, I saw a new Subaru WRX, that was lowered, had rims, exhaust, tinted windows (which looked tinted darker than state law allows!), etc. And it was on theside of the freeway, with hidden police lights, and pulled somebody over, presumably for speeding...
In southern OR, I have also seen beater cars, that were police cars pulling people over.
BULLSHIT......
That's why I said it was a way to avoid the system if badly designed - like if they were too lazy to program into the devices where Oregon was for a GPS based unit, and still relied on radio transponders to turn the billing on/off at the border (which seems stupid, but then the whole idea is so why not continue the stupidity throughout the design? I also suspect the people to develop the contract are already picked and naturally get more for developing a transponder based system as the GPS unit alone is too simple and cheap).
:-)
I like your idea for solving the deficit, and agree with your stance on ultimate power - though for various reasons which I'll not go into detail here I prefer the ultimate power fall into my own hands.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Getting any tax passed is so difficult in Oregon that politicians probably need to think of clever and creative ways to get voters to say "yes". One way to do this is to propose a draconian privacy invading alternative against which additional taxation looks like a great alternative. When the decision is between "tax increase" and "no tax increase", that's easy, but people will actually think when the choice is between "tax increase" and "crazy mandatory gps tracking box in your car"!
:)
so maybe they are onto something, these politican guys.
In other news, Donald Rumsfeld today proposed a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran while opponents lobbied for a conventional invasion.
The state where you can't even pump your own gas!
Just follow the day, and reach fo
You mean, if you buy less gas and drive more miles, you'll pay higher taxes? This is a tax on cars with good milage. That sucks.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
They want to tax distance travelled, not fuel economy, because this is related to repairing the roads. So what they need to do (assuming they can pass this a lamebrain scheme) is take the mileage calculated by GPS, then multiply by a surcharge based on the vehicle weight (heavier vehicles cause more wear on the road).
Isn't it simpler to have the inspection shop send the DMV a report with the miles in the odometer each year and then taxes are calculated?
I wouldn't like to have a GPS in my car transmitting my location to the government
Ecuador always on my heart....
God, I am amazed that this proposal has gone this far!
The only benefit to this proposal (over gas taxes) is that it could be used to charge different rates at different times to reduce congestion. The huge pitfall is that it would remove the disincentive to economize (use more fuel efficient cars). Furthermore, there are all of the other problems people have pointed out - people crossing from CA to get cheap gas, for example. Not to mention the speeding tickets which will eventually be implemented.
HOW ABOUT CHARGING HIGHER TOLLS DURING PEAK TIMES TO REDUCE CONGESTION? IF A ROAD IS VERY CROWDED, CHARGE TOLLS AT PEAK TIMES, OR ALL THE TIME WITH HIGHER RATES DURING PEAK HOURS. Perhaps if I yell loud enough the state legislature might hear me. This would both raise revenue and reduce congestion (and therefore pollution) without buying a bunch of these stupid boxes.
Yes it is illegal in Oregon for the average consumer to pump their own gas, because they might spill a little as opposed to the highly trained pumping engineer that you meet at your gas station every fillup (who loves spilling gas down the side of my car)
There you've hit upon the biggest part of the problem: It's against the law to pump your own gas in Oregon, so the gas prices are higher because the station needs to pay the attendents to pump the gas for you. So since we're already paying more for gas here because of this, we're not as likely to vote for an increase in the gas tax. What we need is for self-serve to be made legal in Oregon, but for some reason it always gets voted down... Isn't it a pro-choice issue: if I choose to pump my own gas, I should be allowed to, after all I can choose to commit suicide in Oregon.
Oregon: You can kill yourself here, but you can't pump your own gas! Go figure!
Just raise the gas tax. What the hell is the point in sending out a bill every month? The admin stuff alone will cost a fortune. Besides, this will give zero incentive for buying fuel efficient vehicles. Bush would love that.
When southern OR wanted to join Northern California, and form the state of Jefferson? Remember when eastern OR wanted to form the state of East Oregon? Me thinks theses ideas may rekindle...
About three years ago a small rental car agency installed GPS in their vehicles and put fine print clauses in their contracts that speeding would be fined significantly. When guilty customers complained about hundreds of dollars of extra charges and not knowing about the tracking, the company backed down.
These days you buy these devices for less than $200 and track the teenage drivers in your family.
This article is funny, because here I am contemplating how to document my travel sufficiently enough using a GPS and a PDA that I don't have to do almost anything manually.
As a consultant I can write off my gas. Tracking it is a pain in the ass. If I tie a GPS and PDA together it should get enough data (EASILY) for my records.
I keep seeing people mention various issues and problems with GPS, but most of them are bogus.
Disrupt the signal sufficiently to prevent GPS from working... sure it's easy. But correlate the odometer and the GPS milage and a difference of more than a couple percent would show up REAL quick.
Feed bogus signal to GPS... easier said than done. The unit could take the odd snapshot signal which would have to correlate perfectly with your location and the actual/current satelite configuration. Hope you've kept it up to date; otherwise they might show your car 200 miles into the Pacific in that log. Start doing an investiagtion into the equipment. As well, there are occasional outages on specific satelites (errors/diagnostics, whatever). better not have one of those in your list of good signals during that time period.
As an Oregonian I can tell you for a certainty that this thing will never pass - or, if it did, Oregonians will repeal it with the initiative petition process faster than you can say 'Big Brother'.
Historically, Oregonians - the natives, at least, if not the imports - are a cantankerous lot who fundamentally distrust both the government and their representatives. They tend to be quite pig-headed and stubborn and refuse to let their government interfere too much in their lives. This is why, for example, despite overwhelming legislative support the sales tax has failed at least EIGHT times; the Right to Die law was passed TWICE, because the first time the legislature refused to honor it (and the second time were forced by the courts to do so); and despite the asshole comments of folks from other states, we STILL won't allow people to pump their own gas even though the state keeps trying to convince us that this would be a good thing.
In fact, we so distrust the government and it's ability to fuck us over at the drop of a hat that we passed a measure that denies our legislature the right to raise property taxes. In order to get such a tax increase, a measure has to be passed at the local level, and has to be approved by a majority of the voters. If less than 50% of the voters actually vote, it's assumed that the tax isn't supported and it automatically LOSES, even if a majority of those who did vote pass it (called, erroneously, the 'double majority' vote).
This is the state we're talking about. The only state in the union that so despises its own politicians that it strips of them of the right to tax, then makes it damned near impossible to raise taxes in an alternative fashion. The only state in the union that regularly incorporates initiative petition measures directly into the state Constitution, because it's commonly assumed that the legislature will alter and pervert the law if this *isn't* done.
And now Slashdot thinks that Oregonians would actually put up with this crap? Pause here while I laugh my ass off; we're eminently used to our idiot politicians doing stupid things - that's why we so often reject what they do, bypass them with initiative petitions, and sometimes recall the bastards when they annoy us too much.
If such a thing were passed (and the legislature might do this - like I said, they have a track record of ignoring the citizens in favor of monied insterests and increasing their own power) it would be rejected in a heartbeat. And, most likely, the backlash would be a rollback and reduction of the current gas tax as 'punishment' for pulling something this stupid. The natives *will not* tolerate a measure that smacks of surveillance, nor will they bend to this kind of 'threat' to increase the gas tax.
We might've been watered down by the influx of Californians in recent years, but if we're still pig-headed enough to resist both our own politicians and the snide comments of every fuckwit tourist who visits when it comes to something as trivial as who can pump gas, you can bet that as major as this won't fly for a moment.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
My focus includes Fuel Cell Technology. If taxes already support gasoline engines, that is an issue (barriers) we have to deal with to get more alternative energies into the market.
.... tax per mileage... certainly not by gasoline taxes!
If a portion of the gasoline tax is set aside to purchase gasoline engines, tax on gasoline potentially makes the gasoline engine market solid.
The tax per mileage rate is a good standard to start. Once alternative energy vehicles are on the road more frequently, how else would they be taxable?
They want to be able to tax people based upon how many miles they have driven in their car. They have 2 systems they are looking at:
1 - A GPS System which could also track the physical location
2 - An odometer type device which tracks how many miles they have driven in their car
It seems to me that number 2 fits the bill pretty good, why even propose number 1?
...is that the legislature recently passed a surcharge on hybrid vehicles, reasoning that they are too fuel efficient so their owners aren't paying their share of taxes! God, our reps are unbelievable sometimes.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Jim Whitty, administrator of the state's Road User Fee Task Force...the state created Whitty's task force in November 2001 with the mandate of studying a variety of alternative sources of income.
States do not create task forces, politicians do. The citizens of Oregon need to find the politician responsible, and demote them to some sort of task force role.
The correct response for the politician would be to allow the roads to fall into disrepair until the citizens are willing to pass a gas tax increase.
The fact that no elected official is mentioned in the article...well after yesterday's FCC decision, I guess we just better get used to it.
When VPNs are outlawed, only outlaws have VPNs.
As someone born and raised in Oregon I always felt superior to the overly parochial leftist rubes that inhabit Minnesota, my home for the past two decades.However, this is just another example of some of the destructive public policy initiatives that come out of the Beaver State. I had planned to move back to Oregon to get away from the six months of siberian winter we have here in the Twin Cities, but there is no way I would ever consider it now. Oregon has degenerated to the point where it is even worse than MN--i never thought it could happen. Too bad, its a beautiful place. Can't say the same for MN. Call them what you want: fascists, bureaucrats-on-steroids, Orwellian, Green Party, Neo-Stalinist...they are all the same--no matter what issue they talk about its really not the issue, their only issue is control. Welcome to the Matrix.
Since we're already offtopic...
Hmmm, a press release by the Oregon Food Bank? Talk about a organization with a vested interest in people being hungry.
The source of their "hunger study" is Brandeis U. a small Jewish (read liberal) University. Is this the *best* the OFB can do, or is it the only research they can find that justifies their existance and continued funding?
How do they define "hunger"?
21% of households with children had to cut or skip meals
39% of those said it happened every month
so 8.2% cut or skip one or more meals per month. Once? Twice? Everyday? Without better numbers this is just a huge pile of FUD.
The OFB and those like them are delighted that Oregonians keep swallowing it (with a big swig of guilt, no doubt)
what about cars that very rarely get driven on public roads? those crappy old paddock-bashers that will mostly get driven around on the farm/property/whatever, but occasionally make it out onto regular roads (so presumably they'd need to be road registered.
Would you be able to avoid the tax/charges if you were doing big mileage on private property?
couldn't they be tough and just tax the petrol which is easier...
Come on people. Be nice to Oregon. It's not the politician's fault that this state has the highest unemployment in the country. They mean well dont they?
It's not the politician's fault that it's one of the highest taxed state in the country and that with its no sales tax (which I'm sure we will have shortly).
Wait.. come to think of it... it is their fault! Until we get some business minds running the state, we're forever doomed to this rotten economy.
With this system, the authorities know where you park, like at your girlfriend's house. Then you can be blackmailed.
There's already a system for collecting a fee like this, it's your annual vehicle registration fee. Mostly, it scales by gross vehicle weight, not terribly different from mileage. But that won't tell the local authorites where you're shacking up, will it?
Sounds like some GPS company is trying to sell more product. Maybe a gas tax would be a positive incentive to buy a more efficient vehicle? Bigger trucks 1) use more gas 2) Do more damage to roads. Taxes bases on weight empty, carrying capacity, and fuel efficiency would be most logical. Draconian laws that dont do any measurable good undermine the credibility of government, and this GPS thing is at best, another burden, at worst a possible invasion of privacy to be exploited by advertisers (see: Tivo). Example: Calfornia's ridiculous smog check II program. Here I am trying to get a late-70's chev truck to pass smog when the bozo at the station runs a vacuum test on the gas cap. Honestly, how many mL of gas does that save the entire country? Maybe they should be checking the tires for proper inflation. And particulate emissions.. I mean, come on... diesels AREN'T EVEN CHECKED AT ALL in this state, and I KNOW FOR A FACT they produce 1000x what the average vehicle on the road does. And then there's the issue of those nice tax write-offs for super-sized SUVs, that was originally intended for small businesses to afford to buy big trucks and farm equipment. Maybe most laws should have an automatic sunset clause? Maybe we should stop electing laywers and commercial puppets to office Who knows, I guess there's plently of blame to go around, but fixing the inadaquacies of current laws is more important.
More hair-brained laws like this will put us on a road to being another UK. Let's mandate cameras that record everything we do implanted into everyone's forehead, so we can be sure no one does anything illegal. Or, maybe the "thought police" should be allowed to search our minds w/o a warrant.
The funny thing is that GPS doesnt work through tunnels or any significant obstacles... maybe I'll just make a Farady Cage and paint some silver paint on it and cover it w/ white paint. GPS is definitely not the way to go. How about bluetooth on the street-lights? Ooops... im giving away good ideas.
#define CREATE_UNFAIR_TAXES \
( \
VOTERS_THAT_DONT_VOTE && \
REELECT_SAME_IDIOTS_TO_OFFICE \
)
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
"OK, we won't track your every motion and create a database of every place you've ever been. We'll just charge you twice as much for gass."
To which the population replies "Thank God."
My question is, if the whole planet now sounds like Ford Prefect is somewhere in the area, where's my electric thumb and my copy of that book with the "Don't Panic" cover?
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
This is based on something I heard once a while back - that the damage to a road goes up with the square of the speed and the fourth power of the weight. I don't know if that is true and have not been able to either verify and falsify that, but I have set up spreadsheet models that allow me to vary things like milage, the powers involved and so on. For simplicity I usually base it only on milage and weight as speed is much harder to quantify in any good way.
At one end (all factors are linear) and with conservative assumptions about the milage for truckers and my known milage, I come up with figures that say that for every dollar I pay for road maintenance for my single vehicle, a truck with a reasonable load should be paying about $20,000. At the far end (fourth power) the truck should be paying about $10,000,000. (Remember, this is a ratio - and does not indicate that anyone would have to actually spend that kind of fees for a truck. To construct a reasonable tax scheme would take some extra work.)
I don't know what truckers are actually paying, but even given the small amount of information I have, I suspect its not anywhere near what even the conservative estimates here are saying.
But the trucker lobby and the industries that depend on cheap trucking would probably fight any fair scheme as hard as the good citizens of Oregon will fight gas taxes.
GPS is a transmitter system. To track something, you need to establish a back link. Forcing people to install thousands of dollars worth of tracking devices and radios in the cars will not fly. No need to worry about this idiotic idea.
Oh well, what the hell...
The article doesn't mention it, but what about commercial trucking?
I'm assuming that diesel fuel would be treated differently under this scheme. Anybody know for sure?
She came sliding down the alleyway like butter dripping off of a hot biscuit.
A bit offtopic but there are no self-serve pumps in Oregon. They have some ridiculous law to prevent consumers from the dangers of pumping their own gas. www.wspa.org If they want to increase tax revenue and make gas prices cheaper they should can all the gas monkeys(Read- No more mandatory full service), open up some self-serve pumps with increased taxes. Unless of course people of Oregon can't pump their own gas safely and would prefer to have their milelage tracked by Big Brother.... There goes the marijuana industry in Oregon.
Uhm.... (scratching head)
I honestly don't get this.....
Ok, lets say that you and I both buy 20 gallons of unleaded, you for your miserly Honda, me for my gas-guzzling Expedition (or whatever is the biggest baddest these days). We both pay the same amount of tax on this purchase. We both have equal driving patterns and mileage; but because I have to fill up again in, oh, about 15 minutes, I'll pay more tax than you will, right?
Ok, I think that's fair. But if we are charged by the mile we drive, which is equal, then you get no bonus for a more eco-friendly car (or I get no penalty for a guzzler, depending on how you look at it).
How is that fair?
Or maybe I should RFTA?
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Follow the money. Find out who will make those GPS trackers and you will have found who initiated this silly little law.
Do it like some cantons in Switzerland - tax vehicles for their weight and their horsepower, and factor in fuel consumption. No fancy GPS for cars. Trucks here have to pay a specific econazi transportation tax, where a solution for the financing of new alpine rail transversals would have been easier: - every truck registered in Switzerland pays 5000 Swiss Francs flat-rate. - every truck registered abroad pays according to it's weight. For Oregon, you can either vote off your local gubmint yokels or what is probably better, tar and feather them, or feed them to grizzlies.
Wasn't this supposed to run April 1st, can't anyone read a calendar!!!
It is strange, but every time I hear about a political initiative from Oregon it is totaly f@cked-up.
Why is it that government believes technology can fix horribly broken systems. Gas tax not generating enough revenue, develop GPS tax system. No thought into feasability, even legality. And I don't doubt that some sub contractor has bid to study this alternative tax method. Heck, not only can they suck money out of Oregon, but they could shop thier research to other cash strapped states, selling whatever crap they come up with for a premium.
The sad thing is, for every one good idea, ten insane ideas like this are floated through the system. Maybe Oregon should look into taxing satellites for airspace usage....
I guess this is the price we pay for our democratic system. The only people who lead are those who fail at all other tasks.
--WooooHoooo--
With this tax it would be better to buy a low milage truck, and not a economy car. So basicly it would promote people to park there car and let it run.
I thougth the entire idea was to LOWER gas usage. This bill will not do that.
Pretty soon you will see duct tape on GPS recives. Allowing just a small window to capture one GPS satilite so the system doen't that your covering it up.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I agree with you BUT the ticket revenue is the smallest piece of the pie.
The much bigger revenue stream goes to the insurance companies who depend on the police to maintain a pool of sub-prime drivers, thereby increasing the rate. I'm not sure there is a credible risk analysis that shows one random ticket actually increases your insurance risk.
Oh, and I'm not blaming the individual officers - they are just following the oft-denied quota system.
Oregon: You can kill yourself here, but you can't pump your own gas! Go figure!
What if you're buying gas to set yourself on fire?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
What gives /. community? Here we have an interesting subject that is ripe for some serious discussion and the majority of posts are simply rants on how stupid the whole idea of road user fees is. I would think that the /. community would take this as a challenge given that there are some mighty bright people out there that could offer some useful suggestions.
:-) Looks over shouder!
This is a very interesting technological problem with political, administrative, temporal, spatial, and social (equity) dimensions. Fact is roads, aren't free. As it stands, gasoline taxes are insufficient to cover present, and even more importantly, future costs. At least the State of Oregon is looking ahead to the future. What is your state doing? Raising vehicle resistration fees? Heavily taxing new car purchases? We have a public transportation system that is the envy of most other metropolitan areas. The OR weight mile tax on trucking is innovative and quite different from what most other states are doing. If you are pissing off the trucking industry you know you are doing something right.
We have a high quality natural environment here in OR that is worth preserving, even at the expense of certain conveniences. What most people don't understand is that many in OR see no problem with cetralized buraucracy or higher fees/taxes as long as it helps protect our quality of life. We keep raising out minimum wage. The citizens from 2 metropolitan counties recenty passed a temporary multi-year tax increase even though our economy is in the gutter and our unemployment rate is high. If we wanted to be like all of the other states, we could, but the citizens here choose to be different.
Back to the issue at hand. While the gas tax is easy to implement as there are few suppliers to tax, it is largely an invisible tax to the user. The idea behind user fees is to make drivers more aware of the daily (or weekly or monthly) costs of transportation. People will change their behavior (routes, modes, and times of travel) in response to real or preceived changes in transportatioin costs. For those living in urban areas, less congestion is a very good thing.
How best to design a fee-based system that protects privacy, while at the same time being fair to persons of lower incomes and persons who buy environmentally friendly cars? For example, with a GPS-based tracking system, is is possible to develop some kind of technology or design a system that strips out the ability to uniquely identify individuals? Can a "double blind" automated billing system be implemented such that the state has no idea who is who (via encryption or something)? What is the best way to implement road user fees whereby fee payments are quite "visible" to the user but simple to administer from the standpoint of the state? How would you address the spatial problem of charing user fees for driving on OR roads given that we want to also collect fees from out-of-state drivers using our roads. A GPS-based codon system fixed on the state boundary is not a perfect solution as it does not address the the non-resident problem. These are complex issues demanding innovative solutions.
Note: I worked on one of the earlier documents for the task force several sumers ago. I haven't been keeping up with it lately. I do know that some very bright people are involved with the project.
For those who wish to find out more about subject, see the ODOT Road User Fee Task Force webpage @ http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/
Thomas Kimpel
p.s. My first post ever!
1) fill up the tank. 2) drive home 3) cover gps antenna with aluminium foil 4) drive around about 80 thousand miles filling the tank for a lot less 5) once a month take the cover off the antenna, drive 10 miles, recover, I mean fair is fair. 6) if the are any questions just tell them that you only drive in the driveway and that you are a very good driver.
. . . is fuel inefficient vehicles. Currently, SUV owners are paying a lot more in gas taxes than those driving around little Civics and Sentras. If the gas tax were levied simply based on miles driven, then one of the incentives for driving a fuel economic vehicle is lost.
hmm... that sounds like just the sort of thing
that they would like us to believe.
Just thought I'd point out, an aluminum-foil hat won't do anything. Aluminum foil isn't thick enough to stop the incoming radio waves. If want this to work, I reccommend using copper foil. The problem with aluminum foil is that the skin depth of aluminum is about 4 times the thickness of aluminum foil, meaning that not enough of the amplitude is dissipated traveling through the aluminum to make a difference. So next time you're worried about the aliens reading your brain (or other invasions of privacy), use a copper hat, not aluminum.
Nuff Said
no text
Commercial drivers (aka semi trucks) already have to log the miles traveled in each state such that each gets their share of the tax from the gas. This is not a new idea so stop treating it as such.
The only problem is that you can't get the average driver to use their turn signals let alone record their miles in each state. And since the fuel economy varies too much for non-commercial vehicles it's not worth the effort (where as one semi won't be all that much different than another).
:wq
The reason we pay gas tax is to pay for road repairs amoung other things. It is easier to charge everyone a flat fee along with along with their gas, than it is to set up tolls everywhere. I think the idea here is that people should be taxed for using the roads, and not consuming the gas. So I think that it would be a good idea for this reason.
Though i think that they should also keep a tax on the gas. This would be an environmental tax to encourage people to use alternative energies and have nothing to do with road repair.
I think the reason they are doing this is because they are trying to find a way to charge cars that don't use gas. like electric cars and other vehicles powered by alternate energies. Not that there are many out there now, but in the future there will be. If they only have a gas tax, and every one uses hydrogen, that they may or may not produce in their own home, who will pay for road repairs??
I have never missed a child support payment. However, the State of Oregon is convinced that, since my payments don't go thru them, they have not been paid. Moreover, the $7000 in Federal Taxes they've confiscated over the last two years have never been distributed to my ex. My ex is on my side, having filed afidavits on my behalf, but the State just doesn't want to listen or return my wrongfully taken money. The State passed a law stating that their residents can be garnished for child support, whether or not they've missed a payment...I'm lucky that Texas doesn't recognize their stupid attempts.
I've had my money taken without due process or representation. Getting it back has been a two-year nightmare...I'll be lucky to have anything left after getting a lawyer.
What has this got to do with a gas tax...well, think on this if your GPS goes to hell, and they garnish your wages to get the funds. The State will garnish for child support, whether or not you've missed a payment...what's to stop them from more aggressive forms of collection on a GPS unit strapped to your car?
Just use a simplified inertial tracker. Why make it more complicated and involve GPS and the complexity and cost involved with that(among other issues). An inertial tracker can calculate distance traveled simply by tracking speed and time at that speed. Multiply speed by time and you have distance traveled. Cheap too, would probably be under $50 in quantity and be the size of a deck of cards. I think they only mentioned GPS because it sounded cool. Unless they have some 1984'ish desire to track movements.
The whole point of this article is that they "need" or maybe just want more money to pay for road projects etc. Instead of letting the people decide this, they try to confuse the issue enough to get people to vote for something they don't want. They claim gas prices will be "come down" if this passes. But rest assured if it passes, they will get more money from somewhere.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Oregon is going to use GPS to track every car's pos... err... uhm... Gas mileage. Yeah, gas mileage. That's the ticket.
It's really just another way for them to waste money. Oregon legistlators have been on a vengeance strike for several months now because we voted down one of their measures. Mostly increased road construction and other unnecessary spending, 3 day school weeks for children, and cuts in various other vital services.
You don't solve routine application problems by giving said apps monitor access in the kernel so why on earth would the populace willingly give over what amounts to overseer rights in the interest of "funding infrastructure" [where funding is the most routine problem that any and all governments face & continuously]?
Those who give up their power willingly deserve none.
Those who give up their power willingly deserve none.
But all the news reports indicate consumers are buying more light trucks than ever, which are the "worst offenders for tailpipe emissions and fuel inefficiency. "
According to some polls light trucks make up more than 50% of vehicle purchases among baby boomer households, with sports cars and luxury vehicles making up another 14%. Small Cars only make up 13% of sales, so the Oregon Department of Transportation's story that the highways are full of fuel-efficient vehicles and they're losing money because of it doesn't add up.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I would like to propose the following question.
Why if our taxes are percentage based of both sales and income do our taxes seem to climb so without a reasonable explanation?
Now they want to pass a law making it seem like it is beneficial to the consumer but instead it will only shift the costs from one area to another. I am assuming they still ship various products into the state, which will increase the costs of goods shipped into or out of the state shifting the costs to the consumers.
So they sell it to the voters as something that is good for them and unfortunately people will bite like it is a cheeseburger inching us ever closer towards a socialist state were the government provides us with everything and no one has to work for anything anymore. Ah utopian, not!!!!
Anybody who votes this in deserves what they get.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Suicide is legal, pumping gas is illegal
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
There's a nifty loophole: buy a small gas-sipping car, and then disable the xmitter. That way you'll be viewed as an old car, and you can pay the gas tax, which will presumably be lower, and certainly cheaper than the per-mile charge.
In fact, unless it's required by law, I'm not sure what incentive the manuf. has for adding the xmitter to a gas-sipping car - certainly nobody would want to buy one. (For a big SUV, yes, consumers would demand the xmitter - it effectively lowers their tax bill.) And making it a law sounds dicey for OR - CA maybe, but OR isn't big enough.
I don't get it.
I lived in Oregon for a couple of years and they have some of the weirdest laws. No sales tax, which is cool. Government run liquor stores, which is also cool..(sorry don't drink), cannot pump your own gas...the whole state is full service, not so cool. They used to gauge property taxes by the appearance of the outside of your house. Hence there were some dumpy shacks that looked like mansions on the inside...they did away with that one. One of the years I lived there they forbid children from working in the fields. The strawberry harvest took place about the same time school let out for summer. The kids loved it because they made cash for the summer and the farmers had a fresh batch of labor always ready for picking. It was win/win for everyone. The state passed the law a week or two before harvest season began. The farmers lost a bundle that year....the kids lost out as well. The same year they were talking about charging out-of-state motorist to use their rest areas along side the interstates. Not sure if that one passed...we left! The Oregonians have always hated Californians but we Californians always said that Oregon would be a nice place if not for the Oregonians.
That's bizarre that self-serve gas is illegal. Does anyone know why? Is it because of some gas pumpers' lobby? Come to think of it, gas was all full service in the places I grew up (South and Central America), but I don't know if there was a legal issue. I guess completely automated gas pumps are illegal too then, right?
Well, as everyone here seems to agree, it is extremely farging stupid. It seems the only reason anyone is considering it is that citizens won't approve the the much needed increase in gas taxes. They're in a tough spot, so I don't know what I'd do, but this plan is dependent on the ignorance and stupidity of the voters.
How could this system produce revenue more efficiently? It might move taxation around a bit; that is, some people might pay slightly more, while others slightly less, but there's no evidence that taxation would be more fair. The bottom line is that more tax money is needed for the roads, and that money must come from the same taxpayers it does now, no matter how creative the accounting. The voters should kick all the bums out for insulting their intelligence.
I can just imagine the question on the Oregon Service Station Attendant Qualification Test (OSSAQT):
If a customer begins to dispense gasoline by herself, should you:
A) take the spigot from the customer and replace it, reminding her of the law against self-service
B) allow the customer to continue, then call the police
C) refuse to wipe the customer's windshield, since she has snubbed you in your primary purpose
D) check whether the customer is soaking herself in gasoline, allowing you to ignore the offense, as it is assured she will not commit it again
No one ever wondered what will happen when oil reserves will be depleted ?
After all, it's a natural reserve, and sometime this is gonna happen.
Well, I thought that sharing this could be interesting for everyone
Link : http://www.peakoil.net/
Introduce tax concessions on renewable fuels, i.e. those made from plants or waste. Subsidise the cost of any conversion work required to use renewable fuels, but prefer fuels that do not require any engine mods. Once it is cheaper to run a vehicle on non-climate-changing fuels (you can burn all the biomass you can grow and you won't add any CO2 to the atmosphere, compared to how much was there before you dropped in the first seed, by doing so), people will do so.
.....
However, I really think governments don't want non-polluting fuels. At the moment, they have a "guilt stick" to beat people over the head with. Take that out of the equation and it becomes that little bit harder to control people's thoughts and behaviour
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Once this much power is in someone's hands, it WILL be abused. Just you wait...
This is a horrible idea. First-off, they WILL use it for tracking you. The guy interviewed paid lip service to explain that the tracking ablities wouldnt be designed in, but stated elsewhere that tracking would be an integral part of the product...
Take the photo radar cameras as a perfect example. First they were only used for catching red-light runners (YEA!), but now there's legislation underway to modify these cameras to catch anyone speeding past them (down to 1MPH over the limit). What's next, Europe's license-plate cameras?
Take the GPS idea, and extend it to speeding. Are you telling me that on that rare occasion, where I need to hit 70 or 75MPH in a 65 zone, in order to get past that awful smelling car in front of me. I'll now be punished for trying to expose myself to cleaner air. How about passing that driver who seems to be swerving all over the road? Will the GPS tell on me?
How about catching a suspect of a crime - wouldn't it be great to be a suspect in 20 different crimes that occurred in the last few months. Wouldn't that make the cops suspect something about you... Well, if you just happen to be near (but not involved in) the crime scenes, does the GPS tell on you?
Don't think it will happen?
How about if the insurance companies are willing to pay the state a sizable sum to monitor the driving habits of their clients? Someone's now building a database of where, how and when I leave my home. That kind of data is just ripe for abuse.
How about identity theft, or very efficient burglars - suppose these devices come with a wireless interface to the gas station's data collecting stations. Now suppose the data passed on this wireless link is not secured (hey, imagine that, a widely used insecure protocol! Gee where have I see that before!? WiFi, cell phones, etc...), now I can just sit within radio range of one of one of the transmitters, and wait to be fed the driving habits of a particular vehicle. Now I can rob their home without ever disturbing them... Or I could stalk them, kidnap their children, etc... After-all, I now know their habits in regards to when they come and go...
Do you trust those maintaining the databases, the SysAdmins, the management level that insists on their merit badge (ie: knowing the passwords), their children (who have access to their home computers, which may have access back to the office)?
Think I'm crazy? Look around, there's plenty of examples of this kind of stuff happening all the time...
gps in my new cell phone now. in the future gps in my car. i don't get it, but what i am getting i feel uncomfortable about. so how i can benefit from this? :o|
;>
:o)
uhmmmm, which gps company is publicly traded?
p.s.
i like your tshirt web site.
Otherwise, they would just tax the gas and let it go at that. Every other state does it, and the gas tax is relatively easy to administer. Maybe this is some kind of elaborate money grab, possibly supported by the people who sell the gizmos.
I think it's more about measurement and control. The real intent is control the use of vehicles by taxing any "undesirable" activities.
The UK is pretty much the world leader in automotive harrassment, and none of their tactics (including $5/gal. gasoline) have changed driving habits, reduced the appeal of larger cars, or encouraged mass transit.
you fail it, you got frost pist
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
Solving the privacy issue / trust with government is possibly the largest hurdle. Certainly the cynical side of me is rather leery of a gov't installed GPS in my vehicle(s). However the cheapskate in me kindof likes the idea too. For instance, when I take my Jeep offroad, I shouldn't be paying a road tax on the fuel that I burn, as I'm not using the roads. Or if they want to dedicate those funds to the Dept of Natural Resources, thats cool too.
One key point, to me anyway, that the article - and possibly the task force - missed is the importance of taxing the gross abusers more. By gross abusers I mean the folks that do the most damage to the roads. So the tax algorithm should consider gross vehicle weight when calculating the tax due. For instance, my motorcycle consumes just about nothing of a roads lifespan. But an 80,000 pound big rig does tons of damage.
All of which brings up other points. If I fill up a can of gas, how do they tax me? It might go in the lawnmower, a motorcycle or the charcoal grill. If I drive the pickup to the gas station, do they tax me at the pickup rate? What about if I walk?
Certainly not insurmountable problems, and the whole scheme seems to move towards a user fee schedule rather than a blanket tax independant of actual road use. It'll be interesting to see how far the idea gets.
Answer that? I bring in a rig from out of state, load up the vehicle on the trailer, move it across the state, then fill up on gas.
Not likely, not driven, but still TAXed for having "moved" several hundred miles.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Or if you need to have you're vehicle towed because it's broken down?
Or you happen to be pulling / trailering a sport-about behind your RV and driving cross-country on vacation?
Of your vehicle gets stolen, driven a ton of miles, you get the vehicle back (if you're that lucky) after it has been found in New York.
In any of these cases, you get waylaid with a tax for miles you didn't drive.
Bah - abolish all lawyers and law-makers, fastest draw wins.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Is this only for cars registered in Oregon?
A significant portion of the PDX metro area lives "across the moat" in WA state (across the Columbia river). Plenty of those folks work in Portland, and drive over daily.
Does Oregon propose to stop incoming out-of-state cars at the border, and slap on a spy box?
There's a saying that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly heat the pot, the frog will boil to death without ever trying to escape.
That's exactly what this is: getting their "foot in the door" for future, more invasive privacy violations. Anyone knows if you give lawmakers an inch, they take a mile.
Goto... http://www.odot.state.or.us/search/search2.htm ...and I searched for the terms "gas" and "tax" under "All Catalogs"... came up with these relevant links...
_ 6s cenarios1.pdfp dfs/07122002_6s cenarios3.pdf0 7122002_6s cenariosAdDis.pdff tf/pdfs/090602PrefM ileage.pdf
http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/pdfs/07122002
http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/
(you can just substitute the numbers in the file names to get the rest in this series that dont appear in these search results)
http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/pdfs/
http://www.odot.state.or.us/ru
I was telling some people I know about this, and they didnt believe me, which led me to the search... thought others might find it useful.