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

[Nicolas Sahlqvist]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:56 AM, Richard Stallman <rms at gnu.org> wrote:

>    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?


The system of paying per how much gas you use is said to be motivated by
environment emissions so this makes sense to me, but only a small portion of
the money is going into making the environment cleaner then initially
intended so this is something for the green group to discuss I think, we
could perhaps give them the incentive by criticizing surveillance measures
in the new road tolls according to the Stockholm model.

In order to tax per distance driven there is no need to track peoples
movements in there cars, instead just note down the number of kilometers
driven each year there is a motor vehicle inspection and pay per driven
kilometer, the payment could be split into monthly payments similar to how
you pay your electrical bill and it is much cheaper then gps, cameras etc.
and they could have implemented it years ago..


- Nicolas
  PPI / PPSE member
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/attachments/20091117/150259bd/attachment.htm>