On Asheville City Council’s agenda, under “New Business,†is the state’s 21st Century Transportation Committee Report. There is no verb attached, so I have no clue what council is expected to do with it.
Of particular interest in this pdf file of what looks like an eighth-generation Xerox copy, made all the more difficult to understand by bizarre syntax throughout; is a conversation about VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) devices. These Orwellian transponders let government know where, when, and how you are driving.
Explains the report [ED. NOTE: The funky English is verbatim from the report.], starting on p. 35:
They are trying to push all electronic toll collection because you have to get to that point before you can take care of congestion pricing or anything else. Their focus is getting these transponders into as many hands as possible. . . .
Chairman Wilson asked Mr. Leibel if he were a participant of his project would. Leibel put a mechanism in his car by which he would be able to calculate how many miles he drives and based on that then there would be a process by which he would then be charged for hat road usage and then move it away from the fuel pack dependency for revenue strength?
Mr. Leibel answered that is correct and one addition to that is that they would also know where he did the driving. Not just your mileage but what municipality or township or state so that the allocation could be made on every level possible.
Chairman Wilson – and would you know on which road I was traveling? Whether I was using an interstate or secondary road?
Mr. Leibel – answered, yes and for policy purposes at some point and time you can decide whether different roads have different price structures, and it really is up to whatever the policy is of that municipality . . . . If a municipality has a concern about the issues that you just mentioned then you can create the kind of condition which would promote or demote certain types of behaviors . . . With the study what they are trying to do is determine the feasibility of the technology and of the acceptability of the technology and the behaviors that the users will be exhibiting and policy will be up to the policy makers.
Ms. Szlosberg – ask Mr. Leibel – So do you from technological prospective have the ability to really, to use Chairman Wilson’s term, dive deep into the user profile so that that data can then be used to ultimately decide that person’s skill?
Mr. Leibel – answered – The data will be quite robust and how the data is used will be decided by policy makers but there will be quite a lot of data and there will also be quite a lot of privacy and so how those two kind mixes will be up to the policy makers.
Once government gathers, files, and assimilates all the information about everywhere you free citizens have been, like that time you made a wrong turn and drove past the suspected terrorist outpost; it will, just like the tax code, need to create loopholes, as those with the power to mandate transducer use would surely not want anybody keeping track of their rendezvous with escorts, for example.
