[pp.int.general] Big Brother in NL?

[Reinier Bakels]

>    I want to ask if a pirate in the Netherlands can tell me(us) more about
>    a hm... "green" project there to start kilometer-taxation of cars with 
> a
>    GPS onboard unit in every car.
>
> The old way of charging drivers according to how far they travel is
> the gas tax.  It works, but it has what some might consider a problem:
> different drivers pay different amounts for the same distance.  For
> instance, an inefficient car has to pay more than an efficient one.
>
> Kilometer taxation eliminates these anomalies, so that the minivan and
> the small hybrid car pay the same amount.  After all, why penalize
> people for burning petroleum?

1. It does not just "penalizes people for burning petroleum", it is also a 
measure of road usage. Building and maintaining roads is expensive. 
Maintenace requirements directly depend on usage. (Incidentally, I have been 
told that VANs by comparison pay only very little tax - it is an implicit 
subsidy to the freight transportation sector).
2. Unlike fuel taxes, road pricing allows people to incent for not using 
roads during rush hour. "Ceteris paribus" the required road capacity depends 
on maximum usage, which is during rush hour. I think it is perfectly 
reasonable not to let people pay for capacity they don't need.
Note that road congestion is a major problem in NL because it is a densely 
populated country. Often there is just not enough space to widen roads. And 
environmentalists object against constantly bullding new and wider roads, in 
the end our country will be entirely covered by asphalt. The congestion 
problem is exacerbated because the country is so small (100 x 200 miles, 
roughly) that most people commute if they get a job elsewhere. No one would 
commute from Boston to San Francisco, but commuting from Eindhoven to 
Amsterdam is feasible.

Is this perhaps a field where Pirates have different view than their Green 
allies?

reinier