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Why not just report odometer readings annually, and tax based on that? It would avoid the need for implementing so much surveillance to track every movement of
by wizee 5y ago
Why not just report odometer readings annually, and tax based on that? It would avoid the need for implementing so much surveillance to track every movement of every car.
- lettergram 5y agoYou’re assuming the surveillance isn’t a feature.
- nine_zeros 5y agoAre you serious? A large number of people will fill garbage numbers, just as they do for insurance estimates.
- dannyw 5y agoEvery X years you take your car to the DMV. If you lie, your penalty is 5x your reward. If you don't go go the DMV, your registration or license is suspended. It's not rocket science.
- xeromal 5y agoThe article states the the type of roads you drive on will be a factor in your cost. Large semis taking highways will be charged less than small state roads that crumble under the weight.
- nine_zeros 5y agoI want more automation in life. Not less. Certainly not more dmv visits.
- pseudalopex 5y agoI want less surveillance in life. Not more.
- Overton-Window 5y agoBecause just like the Apple CSAM fiasco, end-to-end surveillance is the point.
- lettergram 5y agoNice username for this topic.
- srswtf123 5y agoApparently we no longer trust each other not to lie? Honestly I feel this applies so much more widely; it’s frightening to think on too long.
- wcunning 5y agoHeinlein had a great quote on this: When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. You can regard the ID's part as any kind of serious tracking beyond your word about what happened, but unfortunately we're a bit off on the space travel...
- ashtonkem 5y agoCounter point: for a large portion of history nobody had IDs because most people were faceless serfs whose lives didn’t matter and still had very little personal autonomy. By Heinlein’s metric, medieval Europe must have been awesome, which is clearly not the case.
- tbihl 5y agoI'll give you the non cynical answer: the funds wouldn't go to the right places because you'd have no idea where the driving happened. So your home state gets paid for you to drive all over the country on a cross country road trip.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pseudalopex 5y agoIs 100% accuracy necessary? Why not try a much cheaper and less invasive option before panopticon?
- cowsandmilk 5y agoI would be surprised if the numbers were that different, especially with aggregations at the state level. Each state has people who drive all over the country. Each state has people who only stay local. If we were going granular, at like a county level, tourism to low population locations like the Grand Canyon might need to be accounted for, but states encompass enough area and people that just taking the total for each person in a state would probably be accurate enough.
- throwaway316943 5y agoThat’s the current situation with the gas tax. Why are we trying to change it? Right now road usage is calculated based on observations made of the roads in question. You deploy some method of counting cars over a period of time and then make your estimates. Why do we need perfect surveillance when a rough count gives us all the data we need to know to determine service schedules? I’d bet that the current methods also cost a fraction of the amount it would to develop multiple apps plus car integration plus reporting systems plus training and salaries for the people that now manage that data and the ongoing maintenance of the apps and infrastructure. I’d also bet all those new costs would be pork for someone’s district.
- rascul 5y agoHow would accommodations be made for people such as myself, where around a third of the mileage on my truck is not on public roads?
- loeg 5y agoClarifying question: do you buy tax-free gas for the off-road miles today, or are you paying gas tax on all of the use anyway already?
- rascul 5y agoI don't qualify for a gasoline tax exemption for my usage. Edit: For more clarification, gasoline is not taxed in my state based on usage but on sales (though the distinction may not be significant in this case). If mileage is taxed based on usage, it seems reasonable (though perhaps not feasible) to tax it only based on usage of roads the government controls. There is also a number of people (though very unlikely to be a high portion of the population) who have registered vehicles that are rarely used on public roads. You might see this with street legal race cars or street legal off road vehicles, both of which may be mostly trailered except in rare cases. I certainly have no issue paying for what I use, but it can get burdensome when I'm penalized by the governemnt for not using government products or services.
- loeg 5y agoPeople still regularly do odometer fraud in the used vehicle market; if you incentivize that metric, some people will game it. I agree that odometer readings do seem more appealing than omnipresent surveillance.
- throwaway316943 5y agoOdometers benefit from the fact that they’re supposed to be a permanent recording, I’m sure we could come up with a non digital way of making a permanent mark. I doubt even that would be necessary though since most people don’t cheat on their taxes and auditing a physical system is easier than tracking cash flow.
- loeg 5y agoOdometers are based on axle rotations; you could game that by running larger tires than stock, for example. There are perverse incentives that are difficult to solve - GPS is imperfect and mandating it is also unappealing from a privacy perspective.
- throwaway316943 5y agoFor most cars there isn’t much room to increase tire size but maybe you’re thinking of putting a lift kit on a civic, might be a bit hard to pass inspection.