Yellowhammer Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 I saw this on another forum, has anybody heard anything about this? So all of this has been pasted on here from the other site. Yellowhammer ARTICLE SYNOPSIS: The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration has funded an expensive pay-as-you-drive research, development, and evaluation project with the thought to implementing such a program in the not-too-distant future. Follow this link to the original source: "Six states testing pay-as-you-drive system" COMMENTARY: One can almost hear the lip smacking and see the gleeful hand rubbing of the powers-that-be at the DOT as they mentally calculate how much more in revenue they can bring in with this newly developed GPS and computer-based charge system. The DOT says the motor fuel tax presently generates upwards of $74 billion annually — apparently not enough to feed the ever-growing government appetite for other people's money. But with about 250,000,000 registered vehicles on the road today that average 15,000 miles per year, the sky's the limit as to what they could bring in. Responsible for the equipment that is necessary for mileage tracking are researchers at the University of Iowa Public Policy Center working in Part I of a major study funded by a consortium of federal and state transportation departments. They have developed a basic receiver that would be installed in every vehicle. This on-board equipment would, through GPS, determine the vehicle's position while continuously applying the per-mile charge rate to the miles being traveled through various jurisdictions (counties and states), and store the data in a file. Then monthly, the vehicle would use cellular technology to upload the stored data to a billing dispersal center. The center would then bill the vehicle owner and apportion the revenue out to the various jurisdictions that were traveled through, with payment being made electronically (they're taking no chances) through either credit or debit cards. Part II is the national evaluation portion that includes refining all aspects of this newest approach to taxation. Funded at $16.5 million filched from the taxpayers, the field-testing is presently being carried out in six states for two years time. Along with the field-testing will be a study of user acceptability and reaction. In other words they already know they're going to need a pretty good marketing approach to present this newest intrusion on the liberties and privacy of the American public whilst keeping said public quiet and unsuspecting — and compliant. (You know they'll have to pass laws with heavy fines to keep vehicle owners from tampering with or just plain ripping out the darn things.) They have tried to reassure the public on the privacy issue saying that it's not necessary to store information of where the vehicle is or has been in real time. They'll just keep the meter ticking, take your money, and run. Right! Remember now, this comes from the same federal government who brought you warrantless wiretapping, illegal information gathering, a no-fly list, rendition and torture, so do you really want this equipment in your car? And, they want you to be aware that they might just run a "parallel operation," meaning they will keep the federal gasoline tax for a while and use the mileage taxes at the same time. Makes perfect sense, really, as the fed-gov seldom phases out a tax they've implemented. I'll leave you with their own parting words as to why they want this program implemented: A mileage charge would allow flexibility in pursuing a variety of public policy objectives. This system could facilitate pursuing other initiatives such as congestion pricing, privately operated tollways, lane-specific user charges to encourage carpooling, pricing to encourage use of environment-friendly vehicles and to reflect road damage imposed by different classes of vehicles improved travel demand analyses and a shift of the financial burden for roads from property owners to road users. http://www.jbs.org/node/5710 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted January 18, 2008 Report Share Posted January 18, 2008 Technology is great eh:confused:? Saw something on the pay as you go auto's on a news show not too long back. Did not know the government was involved in it though, nor did what I was watching mention anything about a tax involved. Vehicle sharing and rental(pay as you go) is already happening some places from what I understood of the story I saw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowJoe Posted January 19, 2008 Report Share Posted January 19, 2008 I don't like this idea but the author is obviously bias and a liberal. It's another article from another nut job who is afraid of the wrong person. They are afraid of our current president and voting for the ones that will take away more of the common man's freedom and give it to illegal immigrants and representatives of our worst enemy countries. I'm more afraid of what we'll lose if a Dem gets into office than any Republican. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevebeilgard Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 i agree that the author is a biased liberal. and a liberal never met a tax they didn't like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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