All you mobiles better register now.

[W3RSW]

Here you go.  All your transmission locations can now be automatically logged. I thought this was just Wash. state in another thread but now see the error of my ways.  And to think hams were instrumental in starting this by linking GPS' to radio communications.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lahood-vehicle-mileage-tax,0,6754105,print.story

excerpt:
Newsday.com
AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax
By JOAN LOWY

Associated Press Writer

7:17 AM EST, February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

[W4EWH]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

That's a pork rind being thrown to the trucking industry, which had always groused at the way they pay more taxes because trucks carry more weight. A tax on miles-driven means an 18 wheel semi pays the same as a Prius.

Bill W1AC

[WB2YGF]

WOW.  How stupid is that.  The gasoline tax is perfect.   People who drive heavy gas-guzzlers long distances, pay the most, and people who drive fuel-efficient cars sparingly, pay the least.  What better system could there be?

[WQ9E]

Paving the way fiscally and technologically for the increase in all electrics and hybrids.  The road piper still has to be paid.  This will create an interesting dilemma for the greenies.

I am sure even if the tax morphs to being based on miles driven the trucking industry will pay a premium reflecting the additional damage/wear caused by heavier vehicles. 

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

That's a pork rind being thrown to the trucking industry, which had always groused at the way they pay more taxes because trucks carry more weight. A tax on miles-driven means an 18 wheel semi pays the same as a Prius.

Actually, no. It's been becoming a bigger and bigger issue on the left coast, particularly Oregon and Washington state, due to a combination of fewer people driving due to high gas prices and more people driving hybrids, resulting in rapidly decreasing revenue from gas taxes. Oregon has been experimenting with the boxes since last summer at least. 

Moral of the story: you can't get their hand out of your pocket by being more responsible or accountable. They still want to spend your money for you. Hopefully some enterprising individual will develop a countermeasure along the lines of the radar/detector battles.

And don't forget those black boxes already collecting data under the seats of many new cars...

 

[W3RSW]

The gasoline tax is perfect.   People who drive heavy gas-guzzlers long distances, pay the most, and people who drive fuel-efficient cars sparingly, pay the least.  What better system could there be?

What better system for road taxes?  No tax, nada, none. You already pay the U.S. gov't, local and state taxes 50% of your income. Most of 'you'* are dumb enough to believe your getting money back in April.  "They" don't have the nerve to ask you to send this tax in weekly, bi-weekly or monthly as you receive your paycheck, hence the legal withholding scam.

A lot of what they do with 'your' money is is create ever more bloat, administrative and overhead expense, cushy jobs and make work far more than what any comparable, well run private enterprise can manage.  Yes, a few smart, greedy and connected individuals do private harm and are easy targets for the egalitarianism rachtet that makes 'you' feel good about contributing more of 'your faiir share.'   

If all the entiltlements that encourage victimhood, laziness, sloth, ginning the system, anything but work were redirected to what government might do best, then you'd have gold paid highways, mass transit high speed rail, free jitneys to get you to the train station.   Cripes, the gov't can't even run a post office anymore due to all the poor overworked, overpaid, under bonused gov't employees dispensing ever more trash or VIP directives and documents directed to collecting even more tax.

*"you", not personal, just the majority of voters or citizens in this country.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

The other issue that seems to get missed is, with fewer people driving and/or more people driving smaller/lighter hybrids, wear-and-tear on the roads should drop accordingly, requiring less maintenance and fewer tax dollars. Overloaded trucks do the most damage by far, so increase their penalties and fees to those actually doing the damage. Then they can pass it on to us.



 

[W1RKW]

CT has a similar VMT proposal on the table after spending 1.2 million dollars on a study whether or not to reinstitute tolls in CT. It maybe time to learn digital electronics and hack what ever electronics will be mandated to put on your vehicle that records this information.

[k4kyv]

How could they make those GPS boxes tamper-proof so that the owner couldn't simply disable them, and drive unrecorded miles?  Disabling services for the boxes would become a  cottage industry.  Even if the box is bomb proof, they couldn't keep the owner from cutting the power leads to the unit, unless the unit is fully integrated into the electronics of the engine, like the chip in cable and satellite TV boxes.  And even then, there still has to be some kind of antenna to communicate with the satellite, that could be shielded or the signal jammed, and I could just see them trying to retrofit every older car on the road with a mandatory GPS unit and black box recorder.

[K3ZS]

I have read or heard, and don't know if its true, that one truck causes as much road wear as 10,000 cars.    I wonder what would happen if everyone starts driving the plug-in hybrids or total electric cars.     The last new vehicle I bought in 2003 had a warning in the owners manual stating that the vehicle computer information could be used against you in court.    In the future it looks like GPS jammers and the car computer plugin things will sell like hotcakes on the black market.

[W1RKW]

I have read or heard, and don't know if its true, that one truck causes as much road wear as 10,000 cars.

Maybe if it was overloaded by 20,000 tons?  Of course if they made roads like the highways were built 40 or 50 years ago out of solid concrete they'd last a lot longer. Asphalt has a life expectancy of 5 to 7 years at most before having to be ripped up, reapplied or overlayed.

Government is out to monitor everyone in some way, shape or form and the digital age is all about that.

[k4kyv]

The last new vehicle I bought in 2003 had a warning in the owners manual stating that the vehicle computer information could be used against you in court.

For the past few years a new twist has shown up in local news reports about arrests and court cases: people who have been accused of an offence and who CYA'ed by flushing the drugs down the toilet, hiding or destroying the weapon, washing the blood or semen off the clothing, vacuuming the seeds and leaf residue from the carpet in the vehicle, deleting the computer files, shredding the paper documents, getting rid of the cash, etc, have been charged in addition to the alleged crime itself, with "tampering with evidence".

Guilty or innocent, I thought the 5th Amendment was supposed to protect us from being compelled to produce evidence against ourselves.  Do they really expect someone who has knowingly committed an illegal act, to carefully preserve the evidence intact, just in case they get caught and prosecutors want to use it in court against them?

I would ask Irb, but he's now SK.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

It always could. Just because there is an on board computer now, doesn't mean anything has changed, other than there is a LOT more potential info.

The last new vehicle I bought in 2003 had a warning in the owners manual stating that the vehicle computer information could be used against you in court.

For the past few years a new twist has shown up in local news reports about arrests and court cases: people who have been accused of an offence and who CYA'ed by flushing the drugs down the toilet, hiding or destroying the weapon, washing the blood or semen off the clothing, vacuuming the seeds and leaf residue from the carpet in the vehicle, deleting the computer files, shredding the paper documents, getting rid of the cash, etc, have been charged in addition to the alleged crime itself, with "tampering with evidence".

Guilty or innocent, I thought the 5th Amendment was supposed to protect us from being compelled to produce evidence against ourselves.  Do they really expect someone who has knowingly committed an illegal act, to carefully preserve the evidence intact, just in case they get caught and prosecutors want to use it in court against them?

I would ask Irb, but he's now SK.