Say It Ain't So Your Bike the Tax Collector
SAY IT AIN’T SO YOUR BIKE THE TAX COLLECTOR
IGNITION
NEWS
Mileage taxes are part of the likely future. Is the bike world ready?
John Pearley Huffman
The math isn't pretty. Public roads are (mostly) paid for through fuel taxes. But fuel tax revenue is shrinking. And nothing gets government's creativity flowing like falling tax revenue.
Most federal and state fuel taxes aren’t indexed to inflation. The 18.4-cent federal fuel tax, for instance, hasn’t increased since 1993. Meanwhile, US gasoline consumption peaked in 2007 and has been declining as cars grow more fuel efficient. And beyond that are alternative-fuel vehiclesthe driver of an all-electric, $100,000, 4,GOO-pound Tesla Model S sedan pays nothing in fuel taxes. Meanwhile, even moped riders pay something.
Here comes the mileage tax. That is simply taxing vehicles forthe actual miles they rack up instead of the fuel they burn.
A current Oregon pilot project taxes drivers at the rate of 1.5 cents per mile in place of the state’s 30-cents-per-gallon fuel tax. “Forthe purposes of the Road Usage Charge Program,” explains James Whitty, who administers the program for the Oregon Department of Transportation, “‘motor vehicle’ does not include a vehicle designed to travel with fewer than four wheels in contact with the ground.”
While the Oregon program leads the way, mileage tax programs are under consideration in virtually all states. The trick is coming up with schemes that have vehicles reliably reporting to the state how many miles they’ve traveled-technology that drivers are comfortable with and that won’t be used by states to track them or record where they’ve been.
Most new cars carry equipment that facilitates such mileage reporting. Infotainment, GPS-based navigation, and the standardized OBD-II on-board diagnostics systems can be tweaked to record mileage and report it. Few motorcycles-with the exception of some high-end tourers like the Honda Gold Wing-are equipped with navigation or entertainment systems, and what diagnostic systems are aboard aren’t so readily accessed. However, just because bikes have been overlooked so far doesn’t mean governments won’t eventually notice. Benign governmental neglect, the bike world’s one ace in the hole, only goes so far. Bikes are an infinitesimal percentage of the total traffic load on any road, and even the heaviest bikes weigh far less than the lightest cars. The wear and tear on roads that’s due to bike traffic is background noise compared to cars and, more so, large commercial trucks. Plus, bikes get much better fuel economy than gas-fueled cars. Forget the technical reporting issues for a moment: A mileage tax imposed on bikes at the same rate as cars would be fundamentally unfair.
The challenge here is for bikers and the motorcycle industry to anticipate the coming of mileage taxes and address the technical and legal challenges before those challenges are imposed upon them.
After all, someone has to pay for the roads.
