Alan, it's only socialist lefties who want free roads, free mortgages, free car factories, free this that and the other provided by Big Brother. It's a great idea to tax usage of roads and keep a Big Brotherly eye on where vehicles go, how long they take to get there, how much room they take up on roads and how good they are at driving their vehicles.
Some of those details such as driving performance are beyond technology at present, but it would be great to have the worst 2% of drivers removed from the road because they are a threat to others, cause congestion by incompetence and are not paying their way generally.
Meanwhile, tolls on roads keep roads flowing because the road can be priced to maintain maximum revenue which means keeping the vehicles moving at high speed Those who don't want to pay can do something else such as walking, taking another route, catching a bus, moving house, traveling at another time.
Such a Big Brother system doesn't tell anyone where you are because it tracks the vehicle, not the person. Anyway, it would be quite good to be tracked so people could see where I am by simply logging into the website. SPOT, the Globalstar tracking system and calling for help system, costs $100 a year which people choose to pay just so that can be done. SPOT would be a good basis for doing such road tolling.
Come to think of it, all vehicles should be required to have such a system.
Just yesterday I signed up for the first time ever, on-line, for paying road tolls on a road due to open north of Auckland in January. landtransport.govt.nz I'm going to go for a drive on it just to celebrate its existence. We'll drive to Warkworth, have lunch, a walk around, and drive back again.
Public roads are public assets and as with privately owned assets, returns should be maximized. That means getting bludgers off them and those will to pay what the market will bear onto them.
There is a nice toll road from Los Angeles south over the hills heading for San Diego. I like it and normally go on it, especially if the main road is busy. It's smooth, swishy, great views [ignoring smog], uncongested, pleasurable, quick and cheap.
Hooray for road tolls.
Mqurice |
