Reply to "Brits Only - Road Tax"

It's kinda weird to charge you based on how much you use the roads. Do they charge you for medicare based on how often you see a doctor, or modify your school tax based on how much education you get? What about a water tax each time you jump in a pool?

But having a transponder in your car is big brother at it's worst. Unless the people speak up.

Here is a Canadian persective on this. I recently used a toll road - a new high speed highway - to bypass a busy major market and avoid all its traffic.

As you enter the toll highway, a camera takes a photo of your licence plate and sends you a bill based on where you get on and off. As I was thinking about this I realized that it would also record the time you entered and exited the highway along with the distance travelled. This would easily provide an elapsed time average speed. Rolling along all alone at 100 mph I called a friend who lives in the area and asked about the obvious conclusion that could be drawn.

He advised me that a public outcry defeated the use of the photo ID for anything other than billing for miles used. Sure enough I got a bill (less than $1) in the mail for an hour at 100mph.

Democracy and technology working together. Excellent.