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Why I oughta!!!
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile
CORVALLIS, Ore., Feb. 14, 2005
Taxing By The Mile
Jayson Just commutes 2,000 miles a month. (Photo: CBS)
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that."
David Kim,
engineer
Toyota's fuel-efficient hybrid (Photo: AP)
(CBS) College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.
"I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.
So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.
And what kind of mileage does he get?
"The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just.
And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.
Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.
"We're getting a lot of interest from other states," says Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. "They're watching what we're doing.
"Transportation officials across the country are concerned about what's going to happen with the gas tax revenues."
Privacy advocates say it's more like big brother riding on your bumper, not to mention a disincentive to buy fuel-efficient cars.
"It's not fair for people like me who have to commute, and we don't have any choice but take the freeways," says Just. "We shouldn't have to be taxed."
But tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road.
Why I oughta!!!
time to bust out the Bicycle then and go that route.
Sounds like the people you see at the gas station putting their last $3.87 until payday into their tanks will be out of luck.
So could I go take my truck and fill up on 500 gallons of gas. Then go home and fill up my family and the neighbors cars without paying the tax?
wha?
User....
that's nice... what about people like me that drive 300 miles a week on ranch roads.
That would be really fair.
Let me pay taxes for public roads for the driving time that I do on my ranch roads that I maintain with my money...
Idiots.
No see Sec24Row7, I would use my truck with low milage to buy the gas. The tax is colected at the pumps by checking how many miles the vehicle that is getting the gas has driven. I would then drive home and transfer the gas from my truck to all the other family cars. I could cut you in too.
Just set the tax on gas to meet whatever revenue is needed. The gas tax has the added benefit of encouraging fuel-efficient cars, which this stupid idea discourages.
They've actually been running pilot programs similar to this (paying by the mile) for auto insurance too. It should be interesting to see what happens.
I think discouraging the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles is part of the rationale. Under this plan, oil companies, American automobile manufacturers, and truck freight companies all benefit.
them sticking a damn GPS device on my car. Oh wait, I don't have a car.
I can see you with a 6' satellite dish on your bike!
Those damn cyclists get off tax free!
Well you know, we really don't pollute.
Well, you know, that's not why they want to pass that tax.
it is a bs tax.. everyone uses the roads.. whether you drive on them or you get your goods delivered by the roads... you use them.. everyone should pay for them.
Here's a proposition... And I just thought of it so I don't know whether I'm for or against it... What if every freeway was "toll"? Every car would be required to have some sort of "Toll Tag" device, and the toll tax would be paid monthly. I'm sure this would cause people to try to use back roads more frequently, but they would have to deal with driving an hour to work and back every morning.
LOL...
Actually, when I lived in Houston, I never took the toll road. I think Dallas is worse, actually.
Dallas is worse but the amounts are worse in Houston. That being said, I don't mind toll roads.
Toll roads suck too if you need to use one everyday.
because there would be no alternate routes correct?
In some cases there are not any alternatives. They aren't going to make toll roads that have easy or free alternatives.
My brother-in-law lives in Houston right off Beltway8 and he has yet to purchase a toll tag or even enter the Beltway. He dodges it by staying on the frontage roads. Talk about cheap. I'm sure he's not alone.
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