http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/02/15/201217.shtml?tid=158&tid=219
"California is cooking-up a new system to punish people who aren't using enough gasoline."
I lol'd.
Yes, the same people who want people to buy gas-sipping and hybrid cars are now up in arms because some people are actually doing that and gas tax revenue is declining, or something. And now they think they're gonna put a GPS in [i]my[/i] car to track where [i]I'm[/i] going? Fuck you, Sacramento!
Bah... BBCode... force of habit... (shame)
Probably expected. I believe the argument goes that gas tax is used for road maintenance. If so, it's reasonable that they want to tax you anyway (the title itself is somewhat sensational).
Now, whether they actually use the tax revenue for road maintenance is another issue. As is happy fun love Big Bro watching you through GPS.
I wonder what would happen if you disabled the GPS? Since GPS is passive, the police certainly wouldn't know if your cruised on by without paying.
The whole deal reeks of unnecessary complexity. Besides, GPS don't work well if they are tall buildings around or if one is underground. I predict a failure.
>I wonder what would happen if you disabled the GPS? Since GPS is passive, the police certainly wouldn't know if your cruised on by without paying.
You know, I've thought about it, and GPS is probably too complex for what this system needs to do, really. The car system just needs to periodically tell the government what your odometer value is whenever you gas up. If you try to gas up and the gas pump can't communicate with your car, or if you're buying too much gas for how little your odometer is reporting, authorities will be notified of the possible fraud.
That's still way too invasive for my tastes, though. In California, very little of the gas tax revenue actually goes to fixing the roads anyway... Most of it is wasted on less useful government programs. If they'd just spend the current gas tax revenue on the roads, as it is intended to be spent, California would probably have the nicest road system on the planet, and these intrusive new methods of taxation would not be necessary.
>>6
Interesting idea, and certainly more acceptable to me. There are two issues though:
What they might try doing (just wait!) is tax electricity further. If a lot of cars become electric, that would make an excellent excuse for them to tap an even more lucrative market. :o