In the US there is a tax on gasoline and the revenues from that are used to pay for road and bridge repairs and maintenance. But revenues from this tax have not been keeping pace with needs due to Congress not being willing to raise the tax to keep up with inflation coupled with more fuel efficient cars and electric cars on the road, resulting in less consumption of gas. While the latter is a good thing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it means that much-needed infrastructure repair is not being done.
One solution that is being proposed is to switch from a gas tax to a mileage tax where people would be charged by the number of miles driven rather that the amount of gas consumed. This requires placing of a tracking device on the car and pilot projects have begun in several states, Oregon being the leader.
The federal government is about to pilot its own such program, funded by $125 million from the infrastructure measure President Joe Biden signed in November 2021.
So far, only three states — Oregon, Utah and Virginia — are generating revenue from road usage charges, despite the looming threat of an ever-widening gap between states’ gas tax proceeds and their transportation budgets. Hawaii will soon become the fourth. Without action, the gap could reach $67 billion by 2050 due to fuel efficiency alone, Boston-based CDM Smith estimates.
…Doug Shinkle, transportation program director at the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, predicts that after some 20 years of anticipation, more than a decade of pilot projects and years of voluntary participation, making programs mandatory is the next logical step.
I had one of those mileage device in my car for about six months a few years ago. It came from my insurance company and it was used to determine how many miles I drove on average, as well as how I drove, so as to set my insurance rate based on my actual use. I had to plug it into my car’s computer during that time.
There are many advantages to this system. It can be used to more finely tune rates and can be easily changed to meet changing needs and conditions.
[San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute] has conducted national surveys every year since 2010 and found growing support for mileage-based fees, special rates for low-income drivers and rates tied to how much pollution a vehicle generates, she said.
It can also be used to control traffic in highly congested areas. For example, some cities like Singapore and London have a congestion charge for the central city that cars have to pay when they enter that region that seems to have been somewhat successful in reducing the number of cars there.
The standard charge [in London] is £15, every day from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, for each non-exempt vehicle driven within the zone, with a penalty of between £65 and £195 levied for non-payment… Enforcement is primarily based on automatic number-plate recognition.. The standard fee is £15 per day if paid in advance, by midnight on the day of travel, or if registered with Fleet Auto Pay or CC Autopay, an automated payment system which records the number of charging days a vehicle travels within the charging zone each month and bills the customer debit or credit card each month, or £17.50 if paid by midnight the third day after travel
Having devices in cars that track mileage automatically would make it easier to collect money, like the way that transponders currently automatically charge fees for bridges and toll roads to credit cards.
I can see people, especially in the US, initially being resistant to having a device on their cars that tracks their movements, seeing that as the first step towards a takeover of the country by communists led by George Soros, Bill Gates, and the Illuminati. Of course, our movements are already tracked now by the mobile phones we carry around with us that gives us real time traffic information as we drive. But people tend to ignore that.
But I suspect that as the movement gains ground, there will come a time when auto manufacturers will be required to build these devices into cars and they will become just another background feature.
I suspect that the increasing ubiquity of the car itself having connectivity will eventually make such devices unnecessary.
this tax might fall disproportionately on the working poor, who can’t afford to live as close to where they work.
You already have to have the car inspected, just base the charge on mileage per year. If you want finer grained (say, you live on the border and cross frequently), then give the option.
With things like this, there absolutely should not be devices that can track mandated by the government.
@#2 Karl Random
That is a good point, but the current per gallon tax already does that. A better solution for that problem is housing policies that allow low income people to have decent housing in high income areas.
It’s not a bad idea, and it doesn’t require putting a surveillance machine in the car, only an annual read of the already-existing counter. A better idea is to have (or combine with) a weight-based tax, as heavy vehicles cause wildly more wear on the road surface than small light vehicles (the engineer’s rule of thumb is that road wear goes as the fourth power (!) of wheel pressure). This would make lighter vehicles a better option than big dumb trucks, and also make trains more competitive against trucks for transport.
Tax based on the cost of the car, its fuel efficiency, and mileage. A simple tax will just benefit the wealthy.
Yeah let me stop you there NO IT DOES NOT. All cars have an odometer that tracks their mileage.
Those advantages are not for the benefit of the owner/driver, though.
Congestion charging zones work perfectly well with ANPR with no need whatsoever to fit trackers to cars. (Note: London’s congestion charge is routinely flouted by US diplomats, who simply ignore the demands for payment.)
Similarly I drive over a bridge every single weekday, and the toll is collected automatically from my bank account. There is no tracking device affixed to either of my cars, nor does there need to be.
Bollocks. People are stupid, especially people in the US. Sure, there’ll be a tiny minority of wingnuts who see it as a commie plot, but if you could link up the monitor to Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or Pokemon Go or some other vapid bullshit then the peasants will line up to sign up, the fucking morons. Give away a free handgun with every registration and you’d have trouble controlling the crowds.
And I suspect there’ll be a healthy market in after-sales mods to disable the trackers, since any civilised country would have laws that rightly regard them as a gross invasion of privacy and a data protection nightmare.
Well, that’s gonna fuck over poor people and people who have to drive for their jobs. Brilliant move.
@ #8 -- that’s a feature, not a bug. Why do you think they’re pushing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 15-minute cities. It’s all a plot. WAKE UP SHEEPLE
sonofrojblake @9: How are 15 minute cities, if actually implemented, a problem, and for whom? I have seen conspirationists claiming ‘we will be locked into our 15 minute cities’ but that is a complete misrepresentation of what 15 minute cities are supposed to be.
@roj — How is making cities walkable going to screw over the poor? If anything, it should make life easier, as they can WALK places…
Guys, I think you are taking seriously a comment that was not meant seriously.
When I posted #9, I included at the end a tag like this: {/tinfoilhat}
However, I rather foolishly used actual greater than/less than symbols, which meant it didn’t appear when I posted it. I briefly entertained the idea of posting a clarification that, hey, obviously I’m joking, but then I thought “nah, nobody here is daft enough to take seriously as post ending with wake up sheeple in all caps. It’s obvious even to the most dull-witted that that’s a joke.”
For clarity, then, since it appears I was wrong: I’m NOT a “conspirationist”(sic), but I do think that making it unaffordable for the average person to own and operate a car, and thereby limiting their choices in life compared to what they’ve had for the last five or six decades, is an outcome those in charge* don’t have any problem with and indeed approve of.
*By “those in charge” I don’t mean elected politicians, I mean the people who’ve bought them.
[sonofrojblake: conspiracist, conspirationist, complotist]
The problem, roj, is that people actually say that stuff seriously. Add in some neurodivergence and the lovely limitations of text-based communication, and here we are.
@14 -- shut up and fuck off.
sonofrojblake, just making sure you realised your [sic] was not really appropriate.
(Words can have variants)
I just noticed this @5:
A better idea is to have (or combine with) a weight-based tax, as heavy vehicles cause wildly more wear on the road surface than small light vehicles (the engineer’s rule of thumb is that road wear goes as the fourth power (!) of wheel pressure).
Larger vehicles tend to have larger wheels/tires, and thus have similar tire pressures. My Subaru is a little over 3000 lbs. and the tire pressure is 33 psi. A Ford Explorer weighs 1.5 times as much and has a similar psi. Meanwhile, my road bike weighs about 20 lbs. and the pressure is 120 psi. In contrast, something like a tanker truck has very high weight and psi. So, weight yes, pressure not so much.
@jimf: “Wheel pressure” is not the same as tire/tyre pressure.
Consider: for argument’s sake, let’s say your car weighs 1000kg (a Toyota Yaris, say, or a Mazda MX5). It causes a certain amount of wear -- however that’s measured. Scale that as 1.
Since wear goes up as the fourth power, if you double the weight of the vehicle (a Ford Taurus, say, or a Tesla Model S) the wear on the road per that rule of thumb goes up by a factor not of two, or even four or eight, but by a factor of SIXTEEN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
@19
Kindly explain to me the difference between wheel pressure and tire pressure. Your description makes it sound like “wheel pressure” is the weight borne by each wheel, which is not pressure at all.
And please, I understand what power laws are. I’m a retired engineering professor (electrical, not civil or transport, so maybe “wheel pressure” is a special term used in that field- I honestly don’t know).
Sorry if I came across as patronising for explaining power laws, didn’t immediately recall your background.
Tire pressure is the pressure in the tire, which I suppose is the product of the number of moles of air in there times the gas constant times the temperature in kelvin divided by the volume. Most cars I’ve ever owned had a figure in the region of 32psi, around 2.2barg.
Wheel pressure is the mass of the vehicle, divided by the number of tires (so still a mass, or weight, if you like), divided by the surface area of tyre in contact with the road -- which is in kg/m2, so yeah, a pressure.
Right, but that number should be the same as the tire pressure. There has to be equilibrium between the forces. If I remember my statics correctly, if the forces don’t balance then you’re not doing statics, you’re doing dynamics!
A quick estimate on the contact patch for my Subaru is 5″ by 5″, or 25 sq. in. per tire, or 100 sq. in. total. PSI on my tires is 33, multiply them and you get 3300 lbs., or the approximate weight of my car.