How Do Like Your Freedom Now? Gps Is A System For Tracking And Control

[MrPopup]

Coming to a state near you!

Technology and the post 9-11 tolerance for invasion of privacy combine to create yet another 1984 truism.

If this passes, although in wacky Oregon it might not, you can bet there will be implementations of this elsewhere.

I'd be upset...You might be tracked everywhere you drive...

I guess this will come to Canada one day....however, I doubt the street hookers in Nunavut are worried just yet.

************
Oregon drivers may pay more
A panel will consider a mileage tax for the state?s motorists.

The Associated Press
December 31, 2002

The Road User Fee Task Force set up by the 2001 Legislature plans to ask the 2003 session to authorize testing the feasibility of a vehicle mileage tax.

Oregon was the first state to adopt a gas tax, in 1919, and could become the first to collect road fees via space technology.

Jim Whitty, the task force administrator, says Oregon relies on the gas tax to pay for its road system and gas tax revenues are expected to flatten as gas mileage improves and more hybrid cars come on line.

Whitty said the task force at this point wants a charge per mile. To be equivalent to the gas tax now, the substitute fee would have to be 1.25 cents per mile.

Whitty said it would be slightly higher to make up for additional administrative costs.

?We also have to have a way to track mileage only within the state,? Whitty said. This rules out basing the fee on odometer readings, which would include out-of-state driving.

?Technology has improved to the degree that this can be done, with an electronic device,? he said. The device, in a car, would be linked to the Global Positioning Satellite or GPS system, which allows pinpoint navigation by bouncing signals off satellites.

The task force hopes to organize a test of this system if the Legislature approves.

First it would test whether the idea works.

Then a small fleet of cars would be equipped with the system and evaluated for a year or so.

Whitty said there are several options for collecting fees. One is to send vehicle owners a monthly bill.

Another is to outfit gas stations so they can read the vehicle transponders and collect the tax at fueling stops.

The gas tax would remain in effect. In paying the new tax, drivers would get credit for gas tax paid.

To protect drivers? privacy, using the system to track cars in real time would be illegal. New cars would be required to have the GPS technology. Owners of older cars would be allowed to take part by retrofitting them.

The task force is thinking of the change in terms of several years away. A decision might not come until the 2005 or 2007 legislative session.

This coming session, though, the task force will submit a bill authorizing a fee for the use of studded tires to help collect for road damage done by the studs.

Whitty said the group wants a two-region approach because most of the damage ? estimated at $11 million a year ? is done in the Willamette Valley.

[Amputate Your Head]

simple solution: don't drive.

[MrPopup]

Originally posted by Amputate Your Head
simple solution: don't drive.

Ha!...

Believe it or not, although it may not happen until after whatever nuclear holocaust fucks up the planet in the next 10 years, I'd bet the next 25 years finally see the end of the automobile....

[fuxu]

Fucking stooooooopid. God damn wankstas

[Amputate Your Head]

you realize this has been done with commercial vehicles for years.... right?

Road tax.... GPS..... all of it. It's not new. And personally, I think it's about damn time they expanded it to the rest of the population as well. Why the fuck should you be exempt? You think those roads are free?

[FlyingIguana]

i think they should add a tax to any car over a certain gas mileage. try to make it less expensive for vehicles that don't guzzle gas like crazy.

[MrPopup]

Originally posted by FlyingIguana
i think they should add a tax to any car over a certain gas mileage. try to make it less expensive for vehicles that don't guzzle gas like crazy.

You think that will ever happen in Bush's America?

**********

Fuel Fossils
The Auto Industry Fights to Save Gas Guzzlers
By Jim Motavalli

From 1992 to 1997, the number of sport-utility vehicles on American roads doubled, to a whopping 13.8 million vehicles. In the same period, the category of "light trucks" (which includes pickups and vans) gained national hegemony, outnumbering cars for the first time. The result of the SUV craze is a marked decline in automakers' average fuel economy, from 25.9 miles per gallon (mpg) in 1988 to just 23.8 mpg in 1999.


Chevy's popular but gas-guzzling Suburban: no CAFE problems. Should SUVs be city cars?
The cars going into America's junkyards today are more fuel-efficient than those in the showrooms, which was hardly Congress' intent when it passed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) law in 1975. CAFE, which holds car companies to a strict fuel economy limit and fines them if they exceed it, definitely worked--at first. From 1975 to 1989, the Sierra Club reports, the law doubled fuel economy. "It's clear that the standards have had a positive effect on fuel economy, which would be much lower had they not been in place," says David Greene, a corporate research fellow at the Center for Transportation Analysis and author of the report Why CAFE Worked. But as Americans buy 13-mpg Ford Excursions and Chevrolet Suburbans, mileage has been creeping backwards.

Environmentalists champion a toughening of the CAFE standards, but fierce auto industry lobbying has kept that from happening for a decade. The rules, written at a time when most SUVs were used strictly as work vehicles, hold light trucks to a very loose standard (20.7 mpg, versus 27.5 mpg for cars). Efforts to close the SUV loophole have been stymied for four years by an anti-environmental rider to the annual transportation bill, which prevents the Clinton administration from even studying CAFE.

Although the rider is still in place, it became apparent in late 1999 that the political ground is shifting. Environmental lobbyists alarmed the auto industry last September by lining up 40 U.S. senators to vote for a Clean Car Resolution calling for the rider's removal.

The Sierra Club's Dan Becker, an energy campaigner, served on a Presidential commission that recommended raising the CAFE bar to 45 mpg for cars and 34 mpg for trucks. Although the pro-CAFE Congressional resolution did not pass, Becker says that signing on 40 senators was a major victory. "We definitely have the auto industry's attention," he says.

The Club coordinated the mailing of 50,000 constituent postcards to home state senators urging an increase in CAFE, but a riled-up auto industry (aided in particular by Michigan's Congressional delegation), responded with a well-financed campaign to sway senators' votes in seven key states. Anti-CAFE ads paid for by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned, with no real basis, that CAFE would abolish "full-sized" cars and trucks. One ad showed a rugged-looking farmer posing with his truck and strategically placed hay bales. "Farming's tough enough with healthy-sized pickups. Imagine hauling feed barrels around in a subcompact," the copy read. "Say No to a CAFE Increase."

Michelle Robinson, a senior advocate for transportation at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), says the CAFE freeze riders are themselves a sign of a worried auto industry. "They're concerned that the administration and the Department of Transportation might actually take some action," she says.

UCS developed its own SUV, the Exemplar (a customized Ford Explorer), to demonstrate that it could get 28.4-mpg fuel economy and a 75 percent reduction in emissions by spending what amounted to $700 per car. "It just took some minor tweaks in the engine and other components," says Robinson. "The bottom line with the car companies is that they don't have to make their trucks more fuel-efficient, so why should they?" The domestic industry's recalcitrance is not shared by Honda and Toyota, both of which are introducing 60-mpg-plus hybrid cars on the U.S. market this year.

It's not that the American automakers can't comply. Internal Ford Motor Company documents posted on a web site critical to the company (www.blueovalnews.com) revealed that Ford had completed research that would enable its trucks to be 15 percent more fuel-efficient, as well as meet the tough air-quality standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Clinton administration has not been a leader in fighting for fuel-efficiency standards. Environmentalists urged President Clinton to veto the rider-bearing transportation bill, but he chose not to do so, despite alleged behind-the-scenes lobbying by Vice President Al Gore. In public, Gore has said nothing about CAFE, citing a need to follow the President's lead. His rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, has done more. In a September letter to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Bradley proclaimed the transportation rider "offensive," adding that it "has had the effect of allowing loopholes in the current law to mushroom."

Gore's silence sends various signals. Environmentalists Becker and Robinson say they believe Gore to have been sincere in opposing the CAFE rider, and in arguing that case to President Clinton. But the auto industry thinks Gore is starting to "get it." An editorial in the Detroit News claimed that Clinton had passed on a veto precisely to benefit Gore's sputtering campaign in auto states like Michigan. "The auto industry may have found a friend in Al Gore, [who] won't brag about that, at least not while his environmental buddies are listening," the editorial said.

A second front in the war against CAFE claims that the law is killing Americans by "mandating" they drive smaller cars. That was the theme of a lengthy piece in USA Today last July. More than 40,000 people died in crashes they could have survived in heavier vehicles, the newspaper claimed. The theory, cited by automakers trying to repeal CAFE altogether, ignores the fact that SUVs present significant rollover risk in accidents, making them just as dangerous overall as passenger cars.

David Greene, whose work is supported by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, calls the dangerous small car theory "demonstrably false." Greene points out that cars were getting smaller and lighter before CAFE went into effect, and that a vehicle's distribution of mass is often as much a factor in crash survivability as is its size. Also, SUV occupants do well only when crashing into smaller vehicles (which often ride underneath the SUV's high bumpers). In one-car accidents and barrier crashes, he says, "It often doesn't matter how big your vehicle is--you can be dead, very dead or extremely dead. The bottom line is that if I buy a large SUV or pickup, I'm in effect imposing a safety risk on everyone else which might be greater than the safety benefit to me."

Environmentalists vow to continue the fight for tougher CAFE standards.

[Amputate Your Head]

if they took what they've done to the commercial transportation and logistics industry and applied it to the general population, it would instantly eliminate 3/4 of the fucking idiots on the roads today, virtually wipe out drunk / drug driving, and create and entirely better world on the roads of the country.

this has already been proven. Wanna drive? Step up to the plate and follow the fucking rules, or get the fuck off the road.

[multisexsite]

wipe out drunk / drug driving



I read a survey that said 10% of people driving 18-wheelers at night are drunk or on drugs.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Amputate Your Head
if they took what they've done to the commercial transportation and logistics industry and applied it to the general population, it would instantly eliminate 3/4 of the fucking idiots on the roads today, virtually wipe out drunk / drug driving, and create and entirely better world on the roads of the country.

this has already been proven. Wanna drive? Step up to the plate and follow the fucking rules, or get the fuck off the road.

Take the legal boundries for a normal driver, cut them in about half, and that is how tight the tolerences are for commercial drivers. From what I have seen, 85% of Texas should not only lose their driving privileges, but they should be dragged from their cars and shot on the spot. Texas is almost as bad as Connecticut. Almost.

[EscortBiz]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=19477143 70

[MrPopup]

Originally posted by EscortBiz
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=19477143 70

OMG, I found one of those on my car. WHo is after me?

[Sambuka]

I already have a GPS in my car, its a great alarm system.

I left the door slightly open on my car last week while I was going into the mall, and it was just enough to set off the alarm, 1 min later I get a call saying they have an alarm going off on my car.

Very cool stuff. And they can disable the car if the police give them authorization. They have already got rules against giving your car to your wife and ringing up control to find out where she is fucking your postman. When I was chatting to the controler, I asked him to tell me what street I was on, and he said he couldn't unless I turned the car alarm off and then on again to prove I was with the car and so he could here the beeping from the alarm.

I guess they don't want to get sued... Thats in Aussie, i'm sure the same applies in US.

Those GPS's are getting cheaper, they have a Aussie company doing GPS car Alarms for US$200 + US$50 a year, mine cost twice that but its still cheap for the protection it gives you.

I can't see them getting cheap enough to throw on everyones car anytime in the next 20 years but who knows.

Sammy

Sammy

[Sambuka]

Originally posted by Amputate Your Head
you realize this has been done with commercial vehicles for years.... right?

Road tax.... GPS..... all of it. It's not new. And personally, I think it's about damn time they expanded it to the rest of the population as well. Why the fuck should you be exempt? You think those roads are free?

Yeah but AMP, when your traveling from state to state and you want to make up a little time by doing 70 miles an hour instead of 60. Do you want to come back from your trip to find that the Govt with the GPS tracking caught you speeding and at one point you even did 85miles while overtaking another car and bang you lose your licence????????

Sounds like shit to me. One of our damn Aussie states : Victoria had speed cameras taking photos at 64 km - 65 km an hour when the speed limit is 60. They had an old woman who never got a speeding ticket in 28 years who got 3 in 2 weeks because of these cameras and it cost you $100's. The Senator incharge of Police said on TV "If you don't want to be fined then don't go over the speed limit" Just glad its not like that in all our states.

Believe me these fecking govt officials will do anything to bring in extra money.

Sammy

[Amputate Your Head]

Originally posted by multisexsite
wipe out drunk / drug driving



I read a survey that said 10% of people driving 18-wheelers at night are drunk or on drugs.

was this survey from 1972?

[Amputate Your Head]

Originally posted by Sambuka


Yeah but AMP, when your traveling from state to state and you want to make up a little time by doing 70 miles an hour instead of 60. Do you want to come back from your trip to find that the Govt with the GPS tracking caught you speeding and at one point you even did 85miles while overtaking another car and bang you lose your licence????????

Sounds like shit to me.

it's really quite simple.... follow the rules, or don't drive. I have zero sympathy for people that think the road is their own personal space to do with what they choose. Driving is a privlege... not your right.

I put on over a million professional miles in a rig over the course of ten years, and my record is crystal clear. Now, I had timelines to meet, so if I can do that in a rig.... you should certainly be able to do your average of 10k miles a year in your car without any trouble.

[Gutterboy]

Originally posted by Steve
From what I have seen, 85% of Texas should not only lose their driving privileges, but they should be dragged from their cars and shot on the spot.

N. California is worse. We get 8 months or so of almost zero precipitation every year and have very heavy traffic, so when it does rain (and when it rains, it usually rains very heavily) the roads gets super-slick with all the accumulated dried oil particles and dust, and people have no fucking clue how to deal with it.

The reckless fuckers and teenagers have never heard of hydroplaning, so they keep on driving their usual 90mph on the freeway, while the timid drop to 40-50mph. Everyone else just hopes they can avoid the hazards created by those two groups. Its madness during commute hours.

[playa]

I got this new cell phone and apparently it has a GPS sytem to locate it during emergencies, i think its a pretty cool idea,,

btw, have you all ever seen the movie "MINORITY REPORT"?

where you get your eyes scanned everywhere you go, i believe that is comming in the near future

[Gutterboy]

Originally posted by playa
where you get your eyes scanned everywhere you go, i believe that is comming in the near future

http://www.computerworld.com/securit...,63359,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1780150.stm

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,52563,00.html

Its here. The technology isn't perfect yet, but alot of countries are already using it.

[volante]

Originally posted by Gutterboy
N. California is worse. We get 8 months or so of almost zero precipitation every year and have very heavy traffic, so when it does rain (and when it rains, it usually rains very heavily) the roads gets super-slick with all the accumulated dried oil particles and dust, and people have no fucking clue how to deal with it.

The reckless fuckers and teenagers have never heard of hydroplaning, so they keep on driving their usual 90mph on the freeway, while the timid drop to 40-50mph. Everyone else just hopes they can avoid the hazards created by those two groups. Its madness during commute hours.

I live in California, and I used to live in England. Trust me, that ain't heavy rain

Although you're right about Californians not having a clue about driving in rain though... or the meaning of "tailgating"...

[Sambuka]

People here in the Gold Coast have No club about wet weather driving either, it rains and everyone starts driving like a little granny. There great in the dry though, everyone drives 10km over the speed limit everywhere if not more.

Oh and AMP its my RIGHT as a citizen paying shitloads of taxes to fund those roads I'm sure going to use them I'm not a dangerous driver but I do object to getting a ticket for going 8-10 km over the speed limit when that is the norm

Sammy

[Amputate Your Head]

Originally posted by Sambuka
Oh and AMP its my RIGHT as a citizen paying shitloads of taxes to fund those roads I'm sure going to use them
Sammy

doesn't matter what you think is your right or how much taxes you pay, it's still a privledge and it CAN be taken away.

[Amputate Your Head]

Originally posted by Sambuka
I'm not a dangerous driver but I do object to getting a ticket for going 8-10 km over the speed limit when that is the norm

Sammy

then take it to the judge and tell HIM that. You DO have that right.... but you'll lose.

[Amputate Your Head]

nothing funnier than some wannabe Road Warrior cowboy that took his ridiculous little 25 question test to determine if he could identify a school crossing sign, getting busted on the road for doing what he thinks is his "right" while he's driving like Jeff Gordon and then getting all bent over it.

[Gutterboy]

Originally posted by volante


I live in California, and I used to live in England. Trust me, that ain't heavy rain

I was born in England, lived there 'till '85. I don't remember the rain being particularly heavy - at least not in the midlands - it would just drizzle miserably for weeks on end.