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Highway funding ideas include taxes on hybrids - READ ONLY

331 messages,  Last post on May 03, 2007 at 3:33 AM

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Messages Page 32 of 34

#302 of 331 Re: Hey, they can track me all year, all DAY EVERY DAY [larsb] by gagrice

Jul 20, 2006 (10:19 am)

Replying to: larsb (Jul 20, 2006 9:59 am)
The best way is to just increase the gas tax for EVERYONE and force the drivers of the 15 MPG beasts into a smaller vehicle. Preferably a hybrid.
 
That is hard to do with current political views. I think that taxing by the mile is the most fair. Just difficult to administer. It is easier to add more tax to the gas. I don't think it will happen. We are dealing with more than one entity of our state and federal government. You have the people that are trying to clean up the air and cut fossil fuel usage. They manage to push through tax incentives for hybrids. This makes folks think the government is in favor of us using less gas. Wrong, you have the part of the government that has to keep the roads and bridges in good shape. How to deal with the people that bought hybrids and can afford to drive more miles each year. Try to add more taxes and it never gets on the table. Throw in the lobbyists who get things rolling by donating money to our Congress and political parties. It is not as simple as you make it out to be. Oregon is considered one of the most progressive states for cleaning up the air and water. They are trying to preserve their infrastructure the fairest way possible. I think they are going to be the leader in the field. As soon as other states see that money rolling in for every mile that every vehicle travels. They WILL jump on the bandwagon. It will affect diesel cars that are sold in Oregon as well. So it is not just aimed at hybrids. As I have said many times Hybrids especially the Prius are so in your face that they get people look. And that is what Oregon is doing. Looking at ways to pay for their road maintenance.

#303 of 331 Hey, if they want to REPLACE the gas tax with a per mile tax, FINE by larsb

Jul 20, 2006 (10:28 am)

As long as it's applied to EVERY CAR, then a per mile tax REPLACING the gas tax is fair.
 
As long as not only high mpg cars are targeted, then fine.
 
As my example showed, they will almost DOUBLE the taxes collected on a 36 MPG vehicle.

#304 of 331 Re: Hey, if they want to REPLACE the gas tax with a per mile tax, FINE [larsb] by gagrice

Jul 20, 2006 (10:34 am)

Replying to: larsb (Jul 20, 2006 10:28 am)
As long as it's applied to EVERY CAR, then a per mile tax REPLACING the gas tax is fair.
 
As far as I can tell that is the plan. All treated equally at 1.2 cents per mile. The kicker is the 10 cents during peak hours. That should take its toll.

#305 of 331 Re: Hey, if they want to REPLACE the gas tax with a per mile tax, FINE [gag by tpe

Jul 20, 2006 (4:46 pm)

Replying to: gagrice (Jul 20, 2006 10:34 am)
IMO, a tax per mile scheme is inevitable and it is fair. However, I can also see it from the other point of view. You have people in low mpg vehicles feeling like they are paying more than their share in gas taxes. And you have people in fuel efficient vehicles feeling like they are having to pay more for gas because some are using more than their share.
 
It's definitely a contentious issue and the best way to deal with it is when a driver renews his registration. If you have a uniform charge based on miles driven no one is going to be too upset. If you start imposing a surcharge at the pump for drivers of fuel efficient vehicles that is not going to go over very well.

#306 of 331 Re: Hey, if they want to REPLACE the gas tax with a per mile tax, FINE [gag [tpe] by gagrice

Jul 20, 2006 (5:44 pm)

Replying to: tpe (Jul 20, 2006 4:46 pm)
the best way to deal with it is when a driver renews his registration
 
I agree. It would be simpler all the way around. If they wanted to charge a little more for a big honkin SUV that would be easier to do at registration time also.
 
If you drive 15,000 miles a year at 1.25 cents per mile it would make your license mileage fee $187.50. The state would then remove their share of the gas tax or at least cut it to a minimum. For those that conserve and do not drive as much such as the senior citizens it would be a very small amount to pay. And folks with high mileage cars would still be paying less federal gas tax.

#307 of 331 per mile tax is unfair by coalburner

Jul 21, 2006 (7:29 am)

All vehicles driving down a road do slight damage to the road. The more heavy a vehicle is, the more damage it does to the road surface. This damage goes up exponentially with weight. A 1600 pound geo metro should not be charged as much for road maintenance as A 6000 pound SUV that does about 20 times as much damage to the road per mile driven. This is in no way even remotely fair!

#308 of 331 Re: per mile tax is unfair [coalburner] by gagrice

Jul 21, 2006 (10:02 am)

Replying to: coalburner (Jul 21, 2006 7:29 am)
A 1600 pound geo metro should not be charged as much for road maintenance as A 6000 pound SUV
 
Do you have any kind of scientific study that will give your assumption basis? Or is this a hunch? My understanding is weather, studded tires and semi trucks cause the most wear and tear.
 
How do you justify the tax disparity between a Civic getting 30 MPG and a Civic Hybrid getting 50 MPG? The Civic Hybrid is a bit heavier. The Civic non-hybrid driver pays 40% more gas tax.

#309 of 331 The HCH owner paid more sales tax at purchase time by larsb

Jul 21, 2006 (10:10 am)

gary says "The Civic non-hybrid driver pays 40% more gas tax."
 
The owner of the higher polluting vehicle gets punished. More pollution costs the government more money in regulation and cleanup costs.
 
Sounds fair to me.

#310 of 331 by coalburner

Jul 21, 2006 (10:35 am)

I'll agree that it isn't perfectly fair that the driver of a hybrid civic doesn't have to pay as much road taxes as the driver of a regular civic. This injustice is small though, compared to the huge injustice of a 6000Lb vehicle paying the same per mile road tax as A 1600LB geo metro.
 
 Several different state DOTs have studied the effects of heavier vehicles on road surfaces. These studies focus mostly on fully loaded semis of course because they are the heavyest things on the road. The Louisiana DOT says that "Pavement damage increases exponentially with the weight of a truck. For example, one 80,000-pound five-axle truck does the same road damage as 9,600 automobiles"
One 80,000 pound truck (which is what freeways are designed to carry) causes as much damage as 28,800,000 pounds of passenger cars (if the average car is considered to be 3,000 pounds).
It takes a bit of googling, but there are many studies that show that these effects scale down to the weight difference between a subcompact car and a full sized SUV quite nicely. In all of my googling, I found not one single study that even suggested that there was no difference in the damaged inflicted on road surfaces by different weight vehicles.

#311 of 331 Re: [coalburner] by gagrice

Jul 21, 2006 (10:46 am)

Replying to: coalburner (Jul 21, 2006 10:35 am)
The reason I question the weight thing between say a 2500 lb car and a 5000 lb car, it is lb per square inch that would determine the damage to a road surface.
 
Doesn't a Low rolling resistance tire exert more pressure on the road than a fat tire design for a soft ride? I believe a hybrid with the tire pressure at 50 lbs will put more concentrated pressure on the road than a PU tire with 30 lb pressure.
 
The one study I read said that the Interstate highways were designed to handle 80k lb semi trucks and smaller vehicles were not capable of doing any damage to the road. The only exception I can think of is studded tires to damage the highways no matter what size the car.

Messages Page 32 of 34

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