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.
Here in the Netherlands, this plan was put in the fridge when the new government came into power.
ONLY in the fridge! We are afraid it might be activated again when the greens muscle their way in again.
The systems records the mileage by GPS/Galileo and is broadcasted by GSM telephone, which also sends position reports with a 1 mile accuracy. So the tin head will not work, police will detect imediately when your car does not transmit its position. So it will not only record your driven distance, it will also detect when you exceed the speed limits (even when exceeded to avoid an accident!) you will automatically be charged with a speeding ticket.
BTW: you also have to pay when your mileage is made on private property! Even on big farms…
Our “leaders” prommised us that they will not double charge us, but it is planned that we will stay paying our very high monthly car-tax (coupled to your car registration), while we also start paying the mile-tax.
Solution? Leave this country (on paper), rent or buy a home, and buy a car in a more friendly country and keep it registrated there. For those working internationally like me, this might be a solution.
As the government mandates cars that get twice as many miles per gallon and more electric cars the fuel consumed will go down and so will the taxes collected. They’re just staying on top of it. A highway system doesn’t just happen. The pavement is still made of oil that isn’t getting cheaper. Lots of complaints here but can someone provide an alternative?
A simpeler taxation would be increasing the tax on fuel at the petrol station, but then every dutchman would drive 100 km to Belgium or Germany.
Paul says:
August 14, 2011 at 4:19 am
Except in Australia – 60% voted against the current Government – but they are now in power.
That’s Democracy.
Who needs a Dictatorship
==================
exactly!
when Lord M said the Fascist word everyone had kittens.
he spoke not one word of a lie.
This is already in use in the U.S. The infamous “black box” is on all postal delivery vehicles. It is there to monitor the Postmen to make sure they stick to their route and timetable. Prior to these being installed, Postmen would go as fast as they could to finish their delivery route as soon as possible and then head home or to a bar to relax until it was time to return to the Post Office at the end of the day. The benefit was that everyone got their mail earlier in the day. With the installation of the ” black boxes”. postal workers had to stick to the time table because they were being tracked on their rounds. The only thing that accomplished was to make the people living at the end of the route have to wait til the end of the day to get their mail and it lowered the income of some bartenders.
This the result of liberal angst resulting from being caught between two loves, the love to tax versus the love of their appearance in the mirror of “saving the planet” from CAGW. Somewhere along the way, as liberals clamored to increase highway fuel taxes as a means for people to pay indulgence for adding the evil Mr. CO2, one of them was apparently just smart enough to take notice that that effort was flawed because the more they would try to increase the fuel tax, the more people would try to avoid paying it, (as though that was something new…).
As I sit here wondering how much my lawnmower paid in highway taxes I think maybe the only fair way to tax vehicle road use is to tax the only the thing that touches the road – the tires. We already have a federal excise tax on tires so just raise it, (put chips in them or something if you’re worried about tax cheats, I don’t care). Then we can just eliminate the fuel taxes altogether and abandon such Orwellian ‘ideas’ like metering cars, houses and people.
I see a cottage industry selling a GPS antenna shield, maybe disguised to look like a slightly larger GPS antenna.
If you carry a cell phone around with you the government already knows where you go and when. It’s easy enough to do by triangulation with cell towers which has been going on for as long as there have been cell phones or if you’re like many people these days your phone has a built-in GPS and you leave it enabled so all your favorite location-based services work properly. To escape the precision surveillance you have to disable the GPS but note it can be turned on remotely. To escape the rough location surveillance (down to a city block) the phone must be turned off, preferably by removing the battery to prevent remote activation.
The Galileo satellite GPS, is primarilly a French armament’s tool, designed for use with precision guided munitions, hence the Chinese link. The French wish to sell these bombs & unsurprisingly, the USA wouldn’t be co-operating with them.
Christopher Booker’s been onto the whole scam for a long time.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8276191/The-costs-of-the-EUs-Galileo-satellite-system-are-still-skyrocketing.html
This system – pay-sa-you-drive – was almost introduced in 2010. No one talked aboul lowering taxes on the gasoline. The road tax was to be abolished, and we were told we would not come out worse. The system was based not on GPS, but on kind of radio transmitters mounted on highways.
Whole infrastructure was ready to implement. People objected, based mostly on privacy issues, and somehow it was put to a limbo.
The minimum cost of driving was about 3Ecents/km, to be increased depending on th time and the kind of the road. Of course, there was planned a big administration to collect data/compute charges/distribute invoices.
But, the idea keeps on poping-up. I presume too much money was invested in th system development. The GPS is a new twist; I agree, that we would have to pay for the use of Galileo (as we would pay for the use of roads). After testing in NL this sytem would be introduced surely in other EU enviromentally savvy countries.
To some extent it resembles the CFL regulations – to ban incadescent lamps to allow Phillips to get profits from its CFL technology.
Some time ago I heard a discussion on a radio that the system should be made mandatory in every car to improve the safety: when a car gets off the road (accident) then the system would automatically notify the rescue services. So every car must have it, this was the argument. The journalist asked the promoteur how many such accidents (at night) occur in NL; the answer was that hundred? maybe…. But anyway, the guy could came up with such an interesting new regulation 🙂
So, it is about money for manufacturers of the sysem componets and for tax offices, plus institutions that would get access to money by collecting/servicing the information. One of the biggest manufacturer of GPS road-advisory systems is from NL…
It is quite easy to convince Netherlanders to environmentally-friendly behaviour. They are less willing to pay taxes, but this will go oby salami-principle (slice by slice our money will be taken).
The biggest chance to oppose is the privacy (it was LARGE issue in the former system incarnation).
Ideologies like socialism assume altruism and everybody wanting to be a good sport and compliant. We are insulted enough on the drilling embargos and 4 dollar fuel. we are not stupid. Every time you want to futher socialism, there is a tipping point when only coercion will get compliance. Will they have to hire the gestapo to do surprise garage audits?
The Dutch love to be over regulated.
In Holland, if you wan to play golf you must pay serious coin to attend and graduate from a government licensed golf school.
Go figure.
Anyone remember Bueller? Car up on blocks. Odometer backwards.
Forget any idea of jamming or destroying these things. They will be fully integrated into the vehicle, and if they fail to report in to the vehicle computer for too long the check engine light will illuminate and the vehicle go into “limp mode”, max speed of 15 mph and refusal to start without a 30 minute break.
> The test setup is an electronics package outfitted with GPS, wireless internet, and a rating system algorithm
Oh good – now people can read WUWT while driving.
The whole country has wireless internet? I barely get a cell phone signal at our yurt on Mt Cardigan.
Most governments need more money than they take in so they will always be on the hunt for tax schemes that are richer than what they have in place. Fairer has nothing to do with it.
The only way citizens can put a stop to this is to face doing for ourselves what the government has been doing for us. Do we really need the Federal government involved in education? Do we even need the state we live in involved? How about leaving it up to local citizens in counties for example to pay taxes for the schooling they want available? We can go down the list of nanny programs and decide. And yes, that will mean taking care of grandma yourself. That will mean teaching your severely handicapped children necessary life skills and leaving the schools to teach academics if your child has the capacity to learn it. It means taking charge of our own public forests and parks. Fund what we want, and manage resources the way we want to. Do we want our roads to be in good condition? Fine, set up toll booths or local tax levies. Or maybe we want the Federal government to create and maintain infrastructure. But we have to decide for each of these things. If we do a bad job deciding and funding what we want, we have only ourselves to blame. If we do a good job, people will want to move to our communities and help us fund what we want.
The way it is now, we have been lulled into thinking that the government will fund our everyday needs right down to the toilet paper we use. How did we get this far down that path?
The NY Times article states that this road pricing plan has been shelved. I personally would say that has been ditched, there is and was not enough support for it.
The new cabinet has been populated by a bit more realists in stead of the simplistic CO2 driven left wing environmentalists that had the overhand in the previous one(s).
Besides that: we already pay a huge amount of taxes while driving. Currently we pay 8.78 dollar per gallon. 60 % of this consists of fuel tax/duty + sales tax = $ 5.28
Anyway : this plan does only exist in the head of those who designed it and the companies that would like to sell it.
The Netherlands are so huge anyway… sarc/off
A government deep in debt should not pretend there is fairness in taxes.
It is an intrusive tracking device and is intended to promote global warming in the minds of the population.
Taxes are paid on travel in everything purchased in support of travel from fuel, oil, repair and tires and license fee. There is a tax on the purchase of the car, registration and drivers license. A tax is paid on toll roads, parking, towing and insurance. A tax is on everything transported for sale. In some countries a tax is paid for a permit to have a radio in the car and now they want to tax the impact on an environment that knows no jurisdictional boundaries.
It is political and bureaucratic greed, intimidation and idiocy when transportation that is necessary for the society to sustain itself is to be hit with a tax to support a lunatic theory.
The proposal will be introduced slowly as a replacement for current taxes on cars and gas. Don’t bet on the tax replacing any existing tax because existing taxes are there for a purpose and if existing taxes are necessary how can getting rid of those taxes be justified to be replaced? Or is it intended to be a guilt tax and justification to spy on citizens without a court order?
I see a lot of logic in this thread; without having read everything here. However what you have all missed in the typical socialist’s inability to understand basic maths. For instance ask your local tame socialist a question regarding paying a % of earnings as income tax; and why it is necessary to have different bands so that the more you earn; the high % you pay. The conversation will go something like this :
(self) Some one paying 10% tax and earning £1000 pays more tax than some one earning £100 pounds ?
(socialist) but they pay the same % thats not fair; the rich should pay more
(self) but they do pay more; 10% of 1000 is 100; 10% of 100 is only 10
(socialist interrupting) see they both pay the same 10% they should be made to pay more
Yes I have had this conversation on several occasions with different people over the years (in different countries too!).
You have the same problem with fuel duties; the average socialist just can not understand how a fuel duty of 80% means some one who uses more fuel pays more tax – because they all pay 80%.
In the UK some 40% of school leavers do NOT understand percentages; which means they can not understand one of the many evils promulgated by socialist; they honestly believe that if every one is paying the same % tax then the rich pay less than the poor.
So while almost everyone who reads WUWT will understand the innate fairness of a fuel tax; you will have a massive uphill struggle trying to convince many people just why that is so
I would like the answer to one thing, today:
What is the maximum total tax rate that has been successfully imposed on the general population, WITHOUT causing riots and civilian revolt.
Everyone seems to be continuously looking for more hidden and visible tax revenue, however there must be some limit, on the percentage of a persons income, that can be taxed. Surely the number cannot be 100%.
It just seems to me, that most countries must be approaching some sort of limit. Do the spontaneous riots occurring in high taxed countries reflect this? Since so much of our taxation is hidden, does this explain the apparent spontaneity of the rioting. People just do not “see” the reasons for their discontent and civil disobedience.
I do not want to be around when it finally hits the US of A. All governments and societies must soon answer this maximum taxation question. GK
Just tax the fuel. (oops, they already do that, don’t they?)
You have to remember that the low-energy (environemtally ‘green’) flourescent bulb scam was brought to you by the same people.
The simplest way to tax electric cars for their share of road maintenance would be to just tax them by the number of miles they drive each year. Just have electric car owners show up at the local DMV office once a year and have them record the odometer reading, then send a bill in the mail. Much easier and cheaper than GPS tracking devices.
The only way to prevent government from abusing your rights is to prevent it from having the capability to do so.
If this system involves the use of GPS or other form of satellite-based navigation, it will enable government to DESTROY the privacy of private travel by personal automobile. Now at least you can turn off your cell phone if you don’t want to leave a trail of bread crumbs in some database.
“An event last year at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey showed that it only takes one jammer to cause disruption. Airport controllers had installed a new GPS-based landing system, so that aircraft could approach in bad visibility. But it was shutting itself down once or twice a day. It took several months to find the culprit: a driver on the nearby New Jersey Turnpike using a portable GPS jammer to avoid paying the highway toll. This trucker was cruising past twice a day, crippling an airport as he went.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20202-gps-chaos-how-a-30-box-can-jam-your-life.html?page=2