Around here, they actually dribble tar over the small holes...

I see nothing deviating about this thread.   There's the question of how to pay for road maintenance, and the idea a couple states are floating is this GPS thing.  And as far as I'm concerned, taxing us by putting GPS' on our cars is just an angle government officials are taking to power grab some more.   It's similar to a related controversial police brutality incident that happened in our area.  Everybody's demanding that the police release the dashcam video, and they won't do it saying it's "bad".   So what do they do?   The police chief uses it to demand more money from our city council for shiny new dashcams. 

Well, it's your thread so all's good.

"user pays" is the only legitimate economic model for road taxes and registration, etc.

If it's managed specifically by a factor of Engine capacity-mileage, or more SIMPLY by a straight tax on petrol use/consumption then there will be an 'interesting' tradeoff.....

People may see then that owning more than one car is more economical [than it was/is now - because you can only drive one car at any one time and thus the other isn't consuming fuel-ie. costing] and the Dodo of a US car manufacturing Industry might see an upturn.

No matter how you argue it...it's absolutely undeniable that the bigger the vehicle the more it SHOULD be paying for impacting on the civilization through which it blunders.

From resource use / waste in manufacture...all the way to how much hydrocarbon it contributes to global warming.

The really irritating thing about the SCOUSA decision is that the police did have a warrant, but it ran out one day before... thus they were complying with the law but the scuzzo got away with it on a technicality... the police weren't trying to subvert the Fourth Amendment in this case. Just trying to save some paper work. The warrant probably would have been extended 48 hrs.

I agree (same for internet usage... a 'road' is a road).

However, even people without vehicles have to contribute some fee since the roads carry Police and Fire/Emergency vehicles which they benefit from, at least indirectly.

I like the fuel tax.  It's petroleum-based.   And guess who gets to breathe your car fumes.  Taxing it just like we tax tobacco and using it to maintain roads seems to me just fine.   There is no need to power-grab yet more with GPS BS when there are plenty of better ways to fair-tax.   How about the flat income tax?   That can be done and it has NOTHING to do with cars; and then the IRS wouldn't have to know your every financial transaction, either.  It's good that the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the requirement of a warrant.  Setting that precedent for the nation of 300,000,000 people easily far, far supercedes the importance of convicting one criminal of drug dealing when it's in question whether drugs shouldn't be legalized anyway.

Actually, I have favored heavily taxing gas for a long time--*IF* the government could show some propriety with the funds.  Ain't gonna happen, of course.  Gas prices rising give incentive for mankind to get with it on alternative energies.  And since we are so addicted to our cars, gas has to rise a LOT for it to happen--not a little.   Now:  note that I am by no means happy with petroleum companies limiting supply to raise the price of gas and they pocket the profits.  If the American people eat the cost of rising gas, then the American people need to reap the rewards. 

Painfully obvious that although the ACTUAL price of petrol is much the same....the tax on it very much is NOT.

US motorists are NOT contributing at all well....;p

Oh....AUS source...so the red line denotes the Oz price - that's a June 2011 comparison.

In related news to the original post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/disappointing-ruling-compelled-laptop-decryption-case

"A federal judge in Colorado recently handed down a ruling that forced a defendant to decrypt her laptop hard-drive, despite the Fifth Amendment's stricture against compelling people to testify against themselves."

Shocking.

I don't agree. Save paper work my ass.

The judge would also tell 'em to go blow after they found nothing with the first. Cops get a warrant to search my house and find nada but go back a week later for another one? were would that reasonably stop? Every week till they find something? That's why there is a time limit. Follow an 80 year old grandmother long enough and you will find something they can abuse power for.

@Zubaz: That is a shocker. Thanks for the link 

@Jafo: Inserting chart but I think a lot of roads in US are toll where they just started that here in Ontario with 1 new highway. Some relation there?

Ya know, the word democracy is banded around like it is a given, but as time passes and government/law enforcement take more and more matters into their own hands, democracy, in its true sense, is dwindling away and soon it will be non-existent for we ordinary folk.

Which is why everyone should have a wall lined with guns.

Nope, I will never, ever own a gun or allow one into my home.  Besides, there's already enough lunatics with guns, without adding any more to contribute to the chaos of dissatisfaction and frustration with the system.

Almost everyone in Canada owns a gun but we dont shoot people, just the bears that raid our fridges. And if you had a fridge full of beer they're a rather easy kill.

Do-nuts and coke though, you may as well give em the place

myfist0...while you're comparing the tax paid by Australians vs the tax NOT paid by Americans....and factor in the reality BOTH countries are big and the mileage undertaken is equivalent....in Melbourne our primary freeway system 'Citylink' uses electronic tags to debit your Visa [or other ways]....not a GPS system but an electronic toll-gate system.

It's time the US woke up and smelled the roses...;)

That code for something?  >.<

Most US States have the exact same sort of system for frequent users of toll roads.

Statistically speaking, the bulk of Australia is an uninhabited wasteland; it's 3/4 the size of the US with less than 1/10 the population. You might be able to compare major metropolitan areas, but that's about it.

Most of the US population lives in suburbs and semi-rural outlying areas. Mass transit simply doesn't work in such areas where everyone lives more than a few miles from their jobs and they all need to go to different places.

Most roads in the US are maintained by local government, funded by property taxes. Fuel taxes only pay for state and federal roads. This is no small part of why our fuel taxes are lower than in smaller nations where subsidized mass transit is more feasible and/or the entire road system is maintained by the national government.

Except it will be poor drivers who will be most affected by high fuel costs, while the rich just ignore the fuel taxes and continue to drive as much as they want.

Yes, Kryo...but in the case of Australia a third of the fuel price is taxes.

WHEN the US pays the equivalent price for petrol it's true 'cost' to the environment will more clearly hit their pockets.

Once upon a time 'gas-guzzling US cars were a global joke for their wallowing like drunken cows and a performance to match.  By the advent of the stupidity of the 'urban truck' one or two started to wake up but lost the plot and bought Priuses instead....an even greater burden on resources negating any claimed fuel saving.

......

As for 'poor drivers' affected while the rich are not.....well....what makes petrol so magical that it's exempt from the realities of commerce?

....other than its finite nature? ...;)

To levy a sin tax on fuel requires one to make the assumption that fuel demand is elastic. But most people don't drive for fun; they drive because they need to get to work, school, errands, etc., and they drive the sort of car they can afford. Most people cannot buy a new car just to save a bit over the long term on fuel.

What little demand elasticity there was is long gone already since fuel prices have nearly doubled in the past four years. Raising fuel prices at this point will have only one result - inflation, and lots of it.

One size does not fit all. The simple fact is that the geography and population distribution of the US requires cheap individual transport. Mass transit cannot practically reach the majority of the US population, so that need is provided for by cheap (comparatively) fuel.

Subsidies cannot create demand for alternate fuels. As oil supplies dwindle and technologies mature, that will happen on its own. Punishing people for getting to their jobs the only way they can while alternative fuels remain immature is not something the economy can afford.

Edit: FYI. As of 2008 (last year on record at the UN), Australia's per-capita carbon emissions are 8% higher than those of the US. While your oil consumption per capita may be lower, that doesn't mean much environmentally if you're burning much more of other fuels or using higher-emission engines.

Ah, yes...but we now have a 'carbon tax', being one of the few countries that appreciates the realities of global warming [nay-sayers not withstanding].

And 8% higher per capita is one thing...but what is it per any other 'equalizer'...ie...per country...per acre...in toto?

300 million x 100% is gonna be bigger than 23 million x 108%, ain't it?

It's inequitable that the world's largest consumer of fossil fuel also pays just about the least for it.

There's no....'oh but we are big' that excuses it....other than 'we are big and make the rules....the rest of you can go heave'...;)

Yes, there's mitigating argument re decentralised living... and imbued acceptance of a lifetime of vehicular commute....

...but that is all symptomatic of the fundamental unsustainability of the US form of existence...and, if one were to poke more closely - possibly behind much of the US monetary woes.

Sadly the whole world is on the same lifeboat.... and many don't paddle as well as they should be...;)

Well stated Jafo 

WTH, I must be off my meds 

Never mind, myfist0 ....you'll shortly wake up with a jolt and realise it was all just a bad dream ...;)

There's nothing more equal than "per human". All those other measures are just a means to skew things; how far away the nearest political border is or what name is on the map doesn't make a whit of difference to how much or how little pollution I generate.

If you want to change individual behavior, you need to look at individual results. You can't make an acre of dirt use less fuel.

Everybody pays the same for it (see your chart). The only difference is that your government taxes it more, and provides more public transit and/or infrastructure in exchange. Because the benefit of such spending would be far less in the US, we forgo both the tax and the spending. But in the end, the per-capita carbon emissions are about the same.

AustraliA  has massive resources of brown coal....and thus sadly little incentive [without FORCE] to switch to better alternatives...and they are ALL better, including Nuclear.

Australia also has about 2 thirds of the world's Uranium....and the most stable geology to support waste disposal.

Were we 'clever' we'd be nuclear NOW and selling disposal to others.

Instead we have Gina Rinehart raping WA's resources and flogging them to the Chinese..... she now has a PERSONAL worth of 20 BILLION ...and pays fuck-all taxes.

But starkers' most hated pollie is actually fixing that....as I said...we're on the 'right track' with taxing carbon to incentivate change.

The US would need to add about $2 per gallon in taxes to catch up to what most other countries pay 'for petrol' at a pump.  That price would create a LOT of incentive to do things differently/better....

...but I'm certain that the Nascar belt would just grab their M16s and shoot the crap out of anyone who tried...;)

Australia...with its mile or two of asolute nothingness has already understood the issues of urban sprawl....and the very real unsustainability of having the LARGEST average house size on the planet...yes, about 200sq ft. more so than the US...and a full DOUBLE the size of England.

It doesn't work....and the more population you get...the more dire the need to change.

Cost of infrastructure is inversely proportional to population density.