You don't work for a radio or GPS systems company, that likes government contracts, do you? Fooling or faking odometers in modern cars is not the easiest thing to do, and very few people would bother, anyway. I have a hard time believing that, unless the rates were high enough to make people flee, that it would be worth it for all but the handiest, with much older cars. Meanwhile, a GPS tracking system is big money, and will cost more than initially projected.
I work for a really big telecomm, so yes in some way I'm sure my company would benefit. I'd be fine with the Gov though telling the telecomms 'You will do this at cost or below cost and live with it, now, go back to raping people for cell service'. I like it when my company does good, but, not at the expense of the nation. Nation comes first.
As far as faking odometers, most are electronic (at least in all the newer cars I've been in in the past few years). I have little doubt that if we went to a odometer based system, there would be massive more amount of odometer fraud than there is now.
I really don't care which system we have, I have no real personal skin in the game (the average US citizen is so hopelessly addicted to the crack that is cell wireless, something like this wouldn't matter in the least as far as bonus is concerned for me).
At the least, this would require several sets of rates, to be fair, as truckers (and municipal vehicles, like streetsweepers, garbage trucks, schoolbuses, etc.) cause more damage per mile driven than a car. Now then, in doing that, you're also increasing the costs to do business for contractors and other small businesspeople, directly.
Sure, prices go up, and a balance will be made, but it won't be one that anyone having it put upon them will be content with.
Absolutely there would be different tiers. We wouldn't want to charge a Honda civic the same as a Ford F-350 even though they drove the same exact route. Nor charge the F-350 the same as the 18-wheeler on that exact same route. Everyone would have different rates for their vehicle, same as we have now basically, given that the Honda uses less petro than the F-350 which uses less petro than the 18-wheeler.
Whether people are content with it or not really matters not to me. It's whether it's fair.
We should have a system that can fairly handle all means of vehicle propulsion. If I have a fully electric car that can go 300 miles between 5 minute chargings, our road tax system needs to cover that.
If I live in Fairview Heights, IL in St. Clair Co., which is right next to St. Louis, MO, we need to have a system that gives money for my fully electric vehicle travel, which I use only in IL and never go to MO, to IL. My neighbor who has the same vehicle, who goes to MO all the time, and addition in IL, needs to have those funds appropriately split.
How is the odometer based system going to handle that?
Chuck