Looks to me like a system ripe for hacking and fraud that will turn ordinary citizens into criminals.
The test setup is an electronics package outfitted with GPS, wireless internet, and a rating system algorithm that tracks the following things:
- The car’s environmental impact
- The distances driven,
- The route,
- The time it is driven
Supposedly, calculating all this together for a tax is a “fairer” way to assess the impact of the vehicle. Of course the whole idea is to discourage people from driving.
According to the article, the proposal will be introduced slowly as a replacement for the current car and gas tax, however it is most certainly controversial and will be a real test of how far environmentally savvy Dutch citizens will be willing to go to reduce the impact of the car.
Personally, I think it has FAIL written all over it since people really don’t want their personal vehicles to be like taxicabs with meters tracking everywhere you’ve driven. I wonder how long it will be before some citizen takes a hammer to the meter. The more tech savvy will just figure out a way to hack it or fool it.
Oops – misread that first word in the title as neanderthals…
Don’t know about the Dutch, but Americans would revolt at the idea of the government recording every place we drive and when.
Big brother is coming to a place near you…and it is not the television version variety.
Fuel tax is a much more simple user pays system with no in car electronics to fail or be hacked. I doubt this will be popular with governments.
Just what people need, another overly complicated tax that’s impossible to understand and ripe for abuse by the government to scam more money from the hard working people who actually earn it.
Amy Moritz Ridenour says:
August 13, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Don’t know about the Dutch, but Americans would revolt at the idea of the government recording every place we drive and when.>>>
Yes they would. I bet they would revolt at the prospect of having their phone calls and internet activity monitored by the government without a warrant too. Or maybe not.
I bet you they would balk though at being given a card that get’s them “points” on everything they buy, but also reports everything they buy, and who they buy it from, and when, to the retailers in the program. Or maybe not.
OK, but I bet they would balk at free email services that collect the email addresses of everyone they correspond with and sell them to marketing companies. Or maybe not.
Gimme some time. I’ll come up with something.
Amy Moritz Ridenour says:
August 13, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Don’t know about the Dutch, but Americans would revolt at the idea of the government recording every place we drive and when.
They haven’t revolted at the idea yet.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1042274_are-we-ready-for-a-new-kind-of-gas-tax
http://gsmgpstracking.com/2010/05/government-wants-to-install-gps-in-every-car-to-tax-you-by-the-miles-you-drive-is-that-a-great-idea-or-what/
I foresee booming sales in GPS jammers.
This is a technical solution in search of a problem. However many people are already paying a tax based on how much they drive. It’s called a Fuel Tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax
I think cattle prods will become common in the every man’s garage for these little invasions. 3 seconds of 100KV should do the trick.
OK, so we want to determine the ‘environmental impact’ of our car use. To do that, we then have top calculate the speed driven, as faster speeds (and slower) use more fuel. We then have to look at the type of vehicle, as some use more than others.
Of course, what we are really trying to determine is the actual fuel use.
SO WHY NOT JUST TAX THE FUEL!?!
This message has been brought to you from the department of Stating the Bleeding Obvious, teamed with the Department of Redundancy Department.
The proposals to meter car use have come up already in regressive, Opps! progressive states like Oregon.
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/31/is-a-vehicle-mileage-tax-coming-to-a-state-near-you/
Pilot programs for a “vehicle miles traveled” tax have sprung up in Austin, Texas, Oregon, and Nevada.
I’ve never understood the point of these hair-brained schemes. Fuel already has duty on it, which means you’re already taxed in proportion to how much of it you use. Drive a V8 or travel in rush hour, or even drive a V8 in the rush hour, and you’ll pay more tax than someone who drives a something more economical. Apart from the Big Brother aspect, which no doubt appeals to some government types and other big staters, it seems like companies catching a whiff of fat subsidies and lucrative contracts to be had by rocking up to politicians with a box of circuitry and promising them that it’s the answer to their problems.
At last, the purpose for which tinfoil hats were invented.
Modern day Tesla coils
Electric discharge showing the lightning-like plasma filaments from a Tesla coil.
Modern high voltage enthusiasts usually build Tesla coils that are similar to some of Tesla’s “later” air core designs. These typically consist of a primary tank circuit, a series LC (inductance-capacitance) circuit composed of a high voltage capacitor, spark gap and primary coil, and the secondary LC circuit, a series resonant circuit consisting of the secondary coil plus a terminal capacitance or “top load.” In Tesla’s more advanced design, the secondary LC circuit is composed of an air-core transformer secondary coil placed in series with a helical resonator. The helical coil is then connected to the terminal capacitance. Most modern coils use only a single helical coil comprising both the secondary and primary resonator. The terminal capacitance actually forms one ‘plate’ of a capacitor, the other ‘plate’ being the Earth (or “ground”). The primary LC circuit is tuned so that it resonates at the same frequency as the secondary LC circuit. The primary and secondary coils are magnetically coupled, creating a dual-tuned resonant air-core transformer. Earlier oil insulated Tesla coils needed large and long insulators at their high-voltage terminals to prevent discharge in air. Later version Tesla coils spread their electric fields over large distances to prevent high electrical stresses in the first place, thereby allowing operation in free air.
This is what happens when Eurocrats need to legislate/control/subjugate/TAX all their citizens. The thin edge of the EU wedge uses compliant countries like the Netherlands for testing new concepts and the sooner the EU and its Megabureaucrats collapse the better [wishful thinking on my part I know].
Tesla coil:
For those who do not understand electronics, this will INSURE that no radio transmisions will be detected outside of the EMF field of the coil.
Darn, this was way too simple!
There must be some hidden agenda here. If a government insists on taxing car use what is wrong with a tax on petrol/diesel? If the car isn’t used the driver pays no tax if the car has a big engine and covers long distances the driver pays a lot more than the owner of a small engined car who only does a few miles. There must be a reason to make people spend money on a gadget that achieves the above but at greater cost. Like Richard A says; Big Brother!
I don’t see how this can possibly be “fairer”. The only thing that has environmental impact is how much gas you use. It doesn’t matter what route you take or what time you drive provided you use the same amount of gas. Therefore they should just tax gas like normal.
We already tax on the basis of use. Its called the gas tax. Oh, yeah it doesn’t tax those electric and high milage car scofflaws.
Richard A says:
August 13, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Big brother is coming to a place near you…and it is not the television version variety.
My thought exactly!
Isn’t this what a tax on fuel already accomplishes ? So why the tracking ?
What is more important to the Dutch government – the tax revenue or limiting driving?
And what does this accomplish that a plain old fuel tax doesn’t?
Time, distance, route. Expect automatic speeding tickets too.
How is this better than a fuel tax? Bigger vehicle = more fuel = more tax. Longer drive = more fuel = more tax. Walking = no tax, except sales tax on your shoes, and then there’s always barefoot.