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More on Oregon and GPS-tracked Gas Taxes

Posted by michael on from the he-knows-when-you've-been-eating-meat dept.

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."

3 of 773 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't make sense to me by (54)T-Dub · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  2. This is Crap by mgrassi99 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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??

  3. Environment by cmjensen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.