Big Brother Considers Tracking Drivers’ Every Move

The Financing Commission recommended a number of solutions, but the most talked-about was an eventual shift to a VMT tax to measure and charge for road use. Under the system, GPS devices would track how many miles, and on what roads, cars drive. Drivers would then pay per-mile fees, with the possibility of adjustments for vehicle weight, fuel efficiency and road type.

The idea has problems: It is expensive to implement and opens the door to fraud. While GPS devices are standard on most new cars, millions of older ones would need them installed. And some drivers will find ways of cloaking their devices so it doesn’t record the full mileage — a 21st-century version of odometer tampering.

Geoffrey Yarema, a member of the Financing Commission, remains optimistic that the technical challenges can be overcome — and in short order. Yarema noted his father worked on the Apollo and Saturn missions in the space program.

“They went to the moon in less than 10 years using pocket protectors and slide rules,” Yarema said. “There’s no way you can tell me that we can’t achieve a VMT, technically, by 2020, which is what our commission recommended.”

Technical issues aside, public acceptance is the biggest stumbling block. Critics view the VMT as a way for the government to track where people drive. Yarema, however, said larger forces are at play.

“The issues that I think have constrained a concept like VMT in years past, I think those issues will start to melt away and there will be a growing acceptance of the idea. I think there are larger societal changes ongoing that will facilitate it,” he said.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said the odds of it being approved are the same as a gas tax increase — slim to none. “I think the staffs are content at looking at all the options other than the gas tax, which is a nonstarter, or VMT,” he told reporters Monday.

Yarema said new generations interact with technology in a whole different way. Will a generation of people who check into Foursquare, proudly displaying their location for the world to see, worry about their car being tracked? Will those who have grown up with Garmin revolt against the same technology when it’s used to charge for road use?

Even if a new generation embraces a VMT fee, a chronic problem remains — Congress sets the price and might be unwilling to raise it.

The VMT fee is simply a different mechanism for capturing transportation dollars based on road use. If Congress underprices roads, their conditions will still worsen and the Highway Trust Fund could face the same financial problems it has over the past few years.

“Both are going to have to be set by government entities, so it’s not going to be any easier for the government to change a VMT-related fee than it is the gas tax,” Schenendorf said.

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