Congressman Proposes GPS Vehicle Tracking To Fund New Road Tax
Under a Congressional proposal, vehicle tracking devices would help the government raise taxes by measuring how far people drove, rather than how much fuel they used to get there.
In this challenging economy, people are cutting back on long car trips, new cars are cranking up the fuel economy and everybody’s concerned about the carbon footprint they’re leaving behind.
Good for Mother Earth, bad for the nation’s infrastructure.
America’s favorite cash cow, the fuel excise tax, is not the money maker it once was, thanks to hybrid cars, alternative fuels and the car pool lane. Since the 1930s, the federal government has been charging a few pennies on every gallon of gasoline Americans buy. The tax is imposed at the point of production or import and is generally passed forward to the consumer at the pump. Revenues are to support highway repairs and build a new interstate system.
Over time, Congress started diverting fuel excise tax funds to other non-road related projects of higher priority and the government is forced to make up for it with a new tax.
Oregon congressman U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer thinks he’s found a more equitable way of measuring a citizen’s road usage. He proposes a Vehicle Miles Driven tax in a project called the Road User Fee Pilot Project. House Bill 3311 sits in Congress awaiting committee discussion. If approved, $154 million will be spent to study how the country could use GPS tracking to transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system.
How Would the System Work?
The program will require all drivers to install vehicle tracking devices in their cars and trucks. Vehicle tracking devices receive Global Positioning System (GPS tracking) signals from satellites to determine their position. As the vehicle progresses along on a route, someone can track exactly where that car is, in latitude and longitude coordinates. The vehicle tracking system will also report direction, speed and stops. Vehicle tracking systems are known for their accuracy. Usually a vehicle tracking device can pinpoint the vehicle’s location within feet, sometimes inches.
A system of roadside scanning devices would catch and record the GPS tracking transmissions. Taxpayer money would be given to high profile manufacturers to research and develop a national vehicle tracking system.
Much like wireless electronic toll devices, GPS tracking systems will tell the government where a car is, how many miles it traveled, and what cars or drivers are using roads or interchanges during peak times of congestion. Once the vehicle tracking system tallies up the distances driven, a greater charge would be imposed on drivers that drive more.
There is a down side to all this GPS tracking and monitoring. The data that vehicle tracking devices record is indiscriminate, so the federal government can also acquire insight into activities quite personal or sensitive in nature. H.B. 3311 critics fear the feds might be just as interested in where drivers went, as how many miles they drove to get there. The government could easily keep GPS tracking data showing who we visit, how long we stay and what time we get home at night. Vehicle tracking data can give a lot of clues about someone: their work and sleep habits, social scene, hobbies, religion, favorite foods and where they go on vacation. Would you want your vehicle tracking device telling Uncle Sam how fast you drove, every minute you were operating a vehicle?
“Great,” says one constituent opposed to mandated GPS tracking. “Now they don’t need cameras and radar guns to prevent speeding. This vehicle tracking system will come in handy for every law enforcement agency in the nation.”
Blumenauer said that Oregon has already tested a GPS tracking program for Vehicle Miles Traveled and that it was time to expand it to a national level. He said vehicle tracking is smart and a more creative way to raise money to fix and expand our deteriorating roads.
Some people posting comments on the issue say mandated vehicle tracking is crazy; It would be simpler just to raise the gas tax; or to require every vehicle owner to have a once-a-year odometer check. The latter is not very high tech, but it will yield the same result with just a simple math problem.
Tags: Congress, Fuel, GPS, Tax, Vehicle Tracking
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