
Will pay-per-mile be a buzzkill for American road trips? - protomyth
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/18/travel/pay-per-mile-transportation/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
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protomyth
I submitted this article because it is "yet another politician thinks up hard
technology solution to problem" article.

The problem statement here is pretty simple.

    
    
      1) gas tax will not cover road and bridge repairs 
      2) people have more fuel efficient vehicles
      3) gas tax is spent on non-road items
      4) gas tax hasn't changed in years
    

It seems like a simple thought to just raise the gas tax and stop spending the
money on anything but roads. After all, a sub compact causes less damage than
an SUV. Surely the SUV should pay more, which it does through simple physics
by needing more energy to move.

The second problem with a mileage tax that is paid monthly or yearly is the
working poor. Public transport isn't and won't be universal in the US (like I
said in another thread the closest bus stop to me is 90 miles away). The
current gas tax works because it is a judgement at the pump with no long term
commitments. Never mind the privacy concerns or that cutting down people's
area of commute adds to unemployment.

The crux of this is electric cars need to pay a road tax also. How that is
going to be handled is going to be the big problem.

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jerrya
The article states we already pay per mile, via gas taxes. This means drivers
pay different rate per mile, depending on how efficient their car burns gas,
which is presumably itself a function of engine as well as chosen tires and
weight of the vehicle, ie, how the car impacts the road.

The article then says legislation is needed to change us from paying per mile,
to paying ... per mile, but in a way which is a hell of a lot more intrusive
to the driver: cell phone tracking.

I remain unconvinced this is not about tracking and is about paying for the
roads.

What's wrong with just increasing the gas taxes appropriately?

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digikata
Pay for mile is too much cost overhead for precision accounting, both in terms
of government, and individual citizen costs. That's not even touching the
privacy implications.

The simple thing to do would be charge pre-pay fixed annual rates as a
function of ranges of mileage and vehicle weight. No GPS needed. No gov't
offices trying to buy map data and assign different rates per road segment,
mapping your gps tracks to roads... issuing post-facto speeding tickets...

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ew
Instead of a per-mile tax it would probably be more productive to just
increase vehicle registration costs by $250, which is the average fuel tax
paid each year per vehicle.

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protomyth
The problem there is that you are punishing people buying more efficient,
lighter vehicles that don't damage the roads as much as an SUV.

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mahyarm
Make the registration increase in proportion to vehicle weight. 0.10 per
pound. Easy, fair, obvious and we have weight stations everywhere already for
trucks. Incentivizes car manufacturers to make lighter cars too.

~~~
dalke
"No, really. I took the seats out months ago. And the spare tire and jack. And
I always drive with 1/16th of a tank of gas."

There, saved ya' at least $5!

~~~
evan_
Surely there's already some kind of database of the gross vehicle weight of
every model of car for safety standards, there's no need to weigh every single
car on the road.

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dalke
Yes, that can be used as a proxy for the actual weight, but weight itself is a
proxy for the amount of impact the vehicle has on the road.

Someone with a 5 ton RV who uses it twice a year to drive to Florida for the
winter has less impact than someone with a truck weighing 4 tons who drives
around the county all day, with a full load of tools and other equipment.
Unlike a fuel tax, a weight tax would affect the RV owner more than the truck
owner, which doesn't seem right.

If someone reworks VW Beetle into a stretch version, or adds armor to a BMW,
then are they charged based on the original weight or the current weight?

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jdludlow
_"You can't drop off the grid. Ten years from now, it will be virtually
impossible to drive a car that doesn't have an electronic signature," said
Neil._

My sawzall and soldering iron beg to differ.

In Minnesota, we waste hundreds of millions of tax dollars that are supposed
to be use for roads on choo-choo trains that run in the red year after year. I
won't be shedding any tears over their self-made budget shortfalls.

~~~
potatolicious
It puzzles me that roads are never expected to break even, much less turn a
profit - but trains and buses are. In the end it's all just transportation
infrastructure, and society will end up subsidizing it in any case.

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kijin
> The best and least complicated solution is to raise the fuel tax... [snip]
> Many members of Congress would likely oppose any kind of tax hike.

So, it's supposed to be easier to introduce a brand-new surveillance-and-
taxation scheme than it is to increase an existing tax? What kind of a country
is this?

