Oregon governor pursuing GPS-based mileage tax
The gasoline tax has long been the method of choice for raising money for public road upkeep, but more fuel efficient cars are slowly eroding funds from the public coffers. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski wants to keep road repair money flowing, so he's proposing the dreaded mileage tax. Opponents of the idea see a GPS-based solution as being an invasion of privacy, giving the government the ability to track where tax-payers go. However, the proposed system in Oregon doesn't track any travel points. Mileage is instead read whenever drivers fuel up, and a 1.2 cent per mile tax is levied. The program was tested in 2006 and 2007 with 300 motorists participating in the experiment.Someone driving 12,000 miles per year would pay $144 in mileage tax. For comparison's sake, a 25 mpg vehicle driving 12,000 miles would pay $115 based on Oregon's current 0.24 cent per gallon tax. Kulongoski has no power to enforce a mileage tax, so he's relying on the Oregon legislature to make the tax law. Since it will take time to get all vehicles on the road equipped with a GPS device, the standard gas tax would remain in effect for the foreseeable future, with a possible two cent increase. Commuters equipped with a GPS system would receive a refund for gas taxes paid.
[Source: Gazette Times]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Bill 7:38AM (12/31/2008)
Can we tax politicians who waste taxpayer time & money with really dumb ideas?
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racer01 10:52AM (12/31/2008)
So does this system calculate when you stop at a service station? What if you're just stopping to take a leak and get a drink/candy bar? Would it "ding" you then too?
Polly Prissy Pants 10:07AM (12/31/2008)
Agreed, this is a terribly stupid idea and seems like it would be a nightmare of cost and complexity to implement. Just raise the gas tax and be done with it.
Level 2:09PM (12/31/2008)
I agree
Am I the only one that sees this paradox? On one had you got the green hippies wanting to raise taxes to force people to drive smaller cars and on the other hand the driving less and consuming less gas is "suppose" to be making the state lose a % of monies to due less fuel consumption, then on the other hand that tax is suppose to go to fix the infrastructure to commute better and to upgrade public transportation because it pollute less yada yada so as a result we all should get bicycles!
So in essence the more greener we drive the more we use public transportation the more its going to cost to own a car and operate it??? dumb asses....
Richard 7:51AM (12/31/2008)
This country is going down the sh@#ter quick.
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Paul 7:57AM (12/31/2008)
wait - if it isnt reading your points that you traveled then it can't tell if you traveled in or out of state and you will be paying for mileage that you didnt do on Oregon's roads.
I do think a mileage based tax does make sense but the vehicles weight should also come into play as that has a huge impact on how much stress you put on the road.
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sk 8:54AM (12/31/2008)
Cars don't but much stress on roads, tucks do. It is estimated that an 18 wheeler loaded with 60 tons puts the same stress on roads as 15,000 cars. Therefore, trucks should pay 15,000 times more than a car. So a truck driving 12,000 miles a year would have to pay $1,380,000 to pay for road maintenance.
sk 8:55AM (12/31/2008)
cheese, look at all the spelling error I made. Good morning...
Paul 8:56AM (12/31/2008)
your 15,000 number doesnt seem right. - if a fully loaded semi weighed 100 tons it would only put the same stress on as 40 cars...
Dan 9:31AM (12/31/2008)
I agree that 15000 is way too high, however, 40 is too low, because trucks drive more miles in a day than the average car does.
And it is absolutely stupid to use a GPS system in order to track mileage because of the upfront costs to the state in order to equip vehicles with the device. The better solution is to hook the cars computer up to diagnostics at the time it is registered/re-registered to ge3t a mileage reading.
Stupid politicians - ideas are for smart people!
Goat Law 10:35AM (12/31/2008)
I think the reason for semis causing so much more stress is because their weight stresses the road at an exponetially greater level. The 40x weight isn't spread out over 40x the area. It is 40x the weight spread over 3x the area. Think of putting a plank over a gap and walking across it. A small child could walk over it all day every day without it ever giving way, but a 300 pound man would likely break it on his first or second pass.
Paul 10:36AM (12/31/2008)
makes sense. thanks goat.
Todd 8:00AM (12/31/2008)
Fear not the Insurance industry lobbyist will kill this instantly. It will never happen.
Why? Because if you have an exact count of how many miles you drove, verifiable by a third party, Insurance companies would be forced to allow pay by the mile insurance - which would bankrupt them.
Insurance relies on grossly inflated "guesstimates" rounded up by the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. If this device created records that are accurate, you could buy insurance by the mile, for say a 1/10th of a penny a mile, then at the end of the year if you didn't use the allotment up, had no accidents, you could demand the unused mileage be paid back...
...Effectively killing the total scam that is insurance.
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Shawn 8:15AM (12/31/2008)
There is already pay as you drive (per mile) type of insurance available. (At least in the NJ area)
Paul 8:17AM (12/31/2008)
Correct, in New Jersey you can opt in to mileage based insurance. They connect a little device to your ODBII that reads you mileage, speed, braking strength, etc. and develop a policy for you that way. It is optional.
Todd 8:28AM (12/31/2008)
Yes but do you get the money you paid in advance back if you go under the estimated millage?
If I pay $500 for 24,000 miles driven in one calendar year, have no accidents, and end up driving only 12,000 miles - will I get $250 cash back?
Paul 8:50AM (12/31/2008)
your rate is reduced at next billing cycle.
I hardly think that 500 dollars to be insured for 24000 miles is out of line, hell i dont think twice that is out of line.
Remember two things about insurance:
1) They are a business and need to make money
2) You dont just cover yourself, but everyone else as well, its a pool.
If you dont like it, save up your pennies and self insure.
Shawn 8:51AM (12/31/2008)
Todd, no, you do not get a refund, but your next insurance bill would be lower if you drive less. However, there's a HUGE penalty for speeding.
Epyx 11:34AM (12/31/2008)
Todd, You have no idea how the concept of insurance works. It is not a scam.
"Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed small loss to prevent a large, possibly devastating loss. An insurer is a company selling the insurance; an insured is the person or entity buying the insurance. The insurance rate is a factor used to determine the amount, called the premium, to be charged for a certain amount of insurance coverage. Risk management, the practice of appraising and controlling risk, has evolved as a discrete field of study and practice." - From Wiki
nardvark 12:04PM (12/31/2008)
My insurance company offers this in NJ (Progressive). I only put 5,000 miles a year on my car, because I live 4 miles from work, and we put about 10-12k a year on my wife's car. I've thought about enrolling in this, but you have to pay an upfront equipment cost, which annoys me, and I haven't gotten over the irritating thought of having someone watch my driving. I think $100 in savings isn't worth the annoyance to me.