Apparently the North Carolina Department of Transportation is not happy with fuel efficient vehicles. The problem is that, well, fuel efficient vehicles consume less gas. That means that drivers are paying less in gas taxes, which historically have been used to pay for road maintenance. In fact, "revenue from the motor fuel tax of 29.9 cents per gallon is down 12 percent this year, and the state expects a three-year loss of $580 million.” The proposed solution: install GPS tracking devices on everyone’s car and then tax per mile driven instead of per amount of fuel consumed.
In addition to collecting more revenue from taxes in this new program, advocates of taxing by GPS tracking point out that the information gathered could help time traffic lights and decrease congestion. The latter would be accomplished by taxing at higher rates during rush-hour times. Proponents of this plan also argue that fuel efficient vehicles do just as much damage to roads as other cars, so they should pay the same amount in taxes to maintain roads. However, this can’t be true. One reason fuel efficient vehicles are fuel efficient is that they are lighter. It’s simple physics. Compare a new Prius, (2932 lbs) with a new Explorer (4,460 lbs). I would have to do some further research to determine exactly how a vehicle’s weight is a function of road damage, but for now I will just assume that a vehicle that weights 50% more will do 50% more damage.
Admittedly, there are some benefits to this program, but it is very creepy. This smells of Big Brother, and I definitely do not want the government to follow me around. Also, this would have significant Fourth Amendment ramifications. The test proposed by Justice Harlan in his concurrence in Katz v. United States is the controlling test today. In the “Katz Test,” in order for the Fourth Amendment to apply, one must have both a reasonable expectation of privacy and a subjective expectation of privacy. If you know you are driving around with a GPS tracking device on your car, you can hardly claim to have a subjective expectation of privacy. Furthermore, this plan is bad policy. We should encourage people to drive more efficient vehicles. More efficient vehicles pollute less and are better for the environment. And even if you are not persuaded by the environmental arguments, reducing oil consumption could help reduce our trade deficit, a factor that leads to increasing our national debt, which is arguably the greatest national security threat of our time.
I know it would be unpopular, but why not propose a low-tech solution like, say, increasing the gas tax or finding more economic efficient ways to maintain roads? In the future if 100% electric vehicles catch on, then we should investigate alternative ways (but not this way) of funding for our roads. For now our politicians should just have the guts to raise the gas tax.
Comments
The GPS is the way to go...just admit it and move out!
I understand that it is for a combination of road damage and traffic congestion. A Prius, for the most part, would congest a road just like an Explorer (I know the Ford is technically larger...). A flat fee associated with vehicle tax does not take this rush-hour penalty into consideration. You could have a flat formula based upon vehicular weight that you plug your odometer reading into, but this does not take congestion or location into account. If I owned an H1 Hummer that I drove 10,000 miles per year in Florida and only 100 miles per year in NC, it would be wrong to charge me for 10,000+ miles of damage to NC roads (or congestion either). I think the GPS might be the answer.
In response to anonymous
A benefit of the GPS tracking/taxing method is allegedly to decrease congestion. To the best of my knowledge, reducing congestion is not the PURPOSE of the current gas tax. However, the current gas tax DOES tax you more for driving in rush hour because you use much more gasoline when you drive in rush hour, and therefore pay more in taxes. For example, in stop and go traffic, you spend much more time idling and accelerating. Idling is a waste of gasoline, and it takes more energy to accelerate than maintaining speed.
The odometer reading is not a perfect plan, but neither is the GPS plan. The GPS plan would be ridiculously expensive to implement. Oregon, which is considering a GPS plan and has conducted a pilot study, has concluded that it would be prohibitively expensive to retrofit old vehicles. Thus, they concluded that they would need to phase the plan in, and this would take almost 20 years. So for 20 years, there would be two governing bodies overseeing taxes related to taking care of the road. Also, there is concern that people would tamper with the device in order to avoid taxes. Oregon is looking at keeping the gas tax around so that if people tamper with their device, they will then be required to pay the gas tax at the pump. They are also considering fines, but how they differentiate a malfunctioning device from one that was tampered with is unclear. Also, GPS devices are not perfect. GPS was used in the Scott Peterson case, and at one point, they tracked him going 38,000 miles per hour. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/02/17/peterson.trial/) Imagine what that would do to your tax bill. How would you appeal? Would you want to wait at the DMV for an hour to protest? What if you buy a vehicle from out of state? Do you have to get it retrofitted with a GPS device? Who pays for that device? The practical difficulties are astronomical. I could go on forever.
There would also be constitutional issues with implementing this plan. First, it would clearly be a taking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_v._Teleprompter_Manhattan_CATV_Corp.). Also, this might implicate the Dormant Commerce Clause if new vehicles sold in NC had to be manufactured differently than other vehicles.
You seem not to be too concerned with privacy issues, so I will not belabor that point too much. However, where do you think the information from the GPS will end up? Almost certainly it will be available to law enforcement. If this plan is implemented, speeding tickets issued based on GPS are not beyond the realm of possibility. And given the market for information in large databases, it will be likely handed over to marketers.
Given the privacy and practical difficulties of the GPS system, I believe the simplest and best solution is to raise the gas tax. No additional administrative agencies would need to be created, and the infrastructure is already in place. Although the system may not be 100% fair, no tax could be that fair without being overly complicated.
Odometer > GPS
Why not just capture milege data as part of the annual state safety/emissions inspections? The infrastructure is largely in place or would be easy to modify, and you avoid the whole privacy problem that arises from government use of GPS to track driver mileage.
A driver who spends a lot of time/logs a lot of miles outside the state could present evidence as to why he/she is entitled to an exemption (kind of the reverse of establishing residency for tuition purposes). Also, it would be relatively easy to add a surcharge, based on vehicle type/weight, to deal with the road wear issue.
This doesn't even make mathematical sense...
The road damage caused by a car is actually proportional to the cube of the axle load, so an Explorer would do 350% more damage than a Prius would ((4460^3)/(2932^3)). This means that simply paying more gas tax due to higher gas consumption is not compensating for the road damage caused. They should just stop taxing gas and add a road maintenance tax to vehicle taxes, that way it could be calculated fairly for vehicle axle load.
NC Domestic taxation?
A plus to the GPS is that it can tax for domestic travel and discount travel done externally. If you are driving in Virginia or South Carolina, you shouldn't get taxed at all. I'd hate to visit Chicago for two months and get taxed in NC for all of my Midwestern driving. However, what about all of those Floridians that drive the parkway or I-95 during the summer and fall? How can NC get them? Also, when terrorists strike downtown Charlotte, can the cops or SBI seek out individuals whose cars have visited an organization the state feels might be involved? I agree that the constitutional concerns are too real.
"When" the terrorists strike Charlotte?
I agree that GPS has the potential to be more fair (IF the GPS device on the car recognizes global position accurately enough, and IF the system has the coordinates of state boundaries accurately programmed). However, just because it has the potential to be more fair doesn't necessarily mean it is more efficient. We could feasibly end up paying 20% more in total taxes and yet only recouping half of that because of excess costs in added infrastructure. You have a point about drivers passing through NC without paying taxes. However, surely North Carolinians also drive through other states without paying taxes. In the end, it all probably balances out.
Also, "when" the terrorists strike Charlotte, not "if" they attack. Is there something you aren't telling us, Tod?
Hmmmmm
Well, if you wanted to implement something like this, then why is GPS necessary? Why not just wire a transmitter to people's odometers? No reason to broadcast where I'm just driving, just how far I drive.
Also, is this a new thing, or is something new going on with it? The N&O articles are nearly a year old. Any updates?
updates
I have looked, but I haven't found any updates anywhere. Just recently it was released that the Secretary of the US DOT was recommending a similar plan. However, Obama said he would not endorse it. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/20/driving.tax/). Maybe I will have to talk to a friendly Lexis Rep.
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