If you ever get the feeling that government is intruding more and more brace yourself: there are some here in California who are advocating the government watch how many miles you drive — and tax you for them.
It’s a measure that would do George Orwell proud. In California, CBS reports, some politicos are thinking of dumping the gas tax and starting tax by the mile. And in Oregon, CBS reports, they’re already BETA-testing this idea.
To be sure, officials can point to wear and tear on roads amid dwindling financial resources, environmentalists can point to the impact of heavy SUVs etc. but do Americans REALLY want to go down this path? Because when you look at the details it’s clear you’d have the smelly breath of Big Brother brushing against the back of your neck every time you drive.
Here are a few details:
“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.”
And there might be tiny details like how this would impact:
- Commuters. Think of the business for attornies as they advise legislators on some kind of tax exemption (or would there be one?)
- People who sell on the road or provide services — and the tourism industry that relies on car travel.
- Schools and colleges who send students on long bus trips.
These are just a few of the impacts that would hopefully be settled before Big Brother starts looking at your odometer, taking notes — and sticking his palm out.
UPDATE Stephen Green sees “the law of Unintended Consequences” in part of this story…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.