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Satellite-Assisted European Road Tolls Next?
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Pay-as-you-go motoring just around the corner,' the European Space Agency (ESA) says that "road tolls could be made fairer if satellite-assisted distance pricing is implemented." Experiments are currently underway in Ireland, Portugal and Germany, before a possible extension to other countries. Potential benefits of such a road tolling system would be fairer implementation of charging on a 'pay for use' basis. All these experiments are using the US-operated Global Positioning System (GPS). But in 2010, when the system is fully implemented, it will use the Galileo satellite system."
If that's the case, a simple solution would be to fine anyone who does this heavily. It won't actually stop the abuse though, it'll just destroy the lives of the few who get caught.
A much smarter method, in my opinion, would be to check vehicle mileage of registered vehicles, and tax based on that. Most new cars use a digital odometer that isn't able to be rolled back by a mechanic with a screwdriver, so it would be much more secure to tax on that, and I haven't met too many people willing to tamper with their car's computer. Of course, simply removing the speedometer gear from the transmission and plugging the empty socket would take care of that on a mechanical level, but then the factory speedometer doesn't work either, so that isn't necessarily the greatest solution.
Any tracking technology that requires devices to be on the user's side can be disabled or circumvented. it's just a matter of making it hard enough and punitive enough to not comply, and easy enough to comply, that people generally comply.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There are some toll-systems in place now that give speeding citations if you cover the distance between two toll-booths in too short a time
Who would have thought that the Mean-Value Theorem would someday be used to give fines. They don't know WHERE you were speeding, but the theorem is clear, there exists such a point "c". Damn.
Because turning off his car while it's travelling at 95 MPH is going to do something other than flipping the car off a highway embankment.
.mil domains? Don't you think there's a bit of a potential for abuse here? If you want to talk about cyberterrorism becoming a reality, what if a 15-year-old Saudi Arabian can shut down the cars of every man and woman in America, bringing them to a dead halt? I think I'll pass. Billions on defense, or an iota of common sense? I'll pick the latter, thanks.
And even so, this could possibly work in Europe -- but what about the US, where the government had an unprotected, unpassworded page for registering
I agree. I live in Illinois, and we have our IPass system for the tollways. The Tollway Authority logs when and where you pass each booth using this system, and mantains those logs indefinitely. An Authority official was interviewed on the news one evening saying that they would release that information to any authorized government agency (which apparently means anyone that wants to know.) There have already been several subpoenas issued for that information, and it is nowhere near as precise as a GPS-based tracking system would be. Still, people are correctly up in arms about it. Regardless of the desire to bend the law (and you're right about that) the historical truth is very simple: increased governmental monitoring (even with good intentions) invariably leads to reduced civil liberties. They can keep their spyware and I'll keep dropping coins, thank you very much.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The current US-operated GPS system only allows this type of accuracy for military purposes. I feel it is a little irresponsible to give civilians (including criminals and terrorists) access to such accurate targeting systems. Maybe ESA wants to have a marketable advantage over GPS but it may go to far IMO.
I'm not trolling for replies concerning irresponsible military uses, that is another topic...
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