In a step that would probably not get off the ground in the United States, the Dutch government is planning to use GPS technology to track drivers and then charge them about eight cents of mile driven, according to Automotive News.

Hush now! I can hear the civil rights folks linking hands with the gun-toting libertarians in unanimous condemnation of such invasions of privacy and incursion of basic freedoms.

The Dutch government apparently see this as a basic use tax, which is fair. There are certainly a lot of people in The Netherlands who hardly drive at all.

In addition, the tiny nation is far more homogeneous than the U.S. so getting everyone to agree to such measures is probably easier than here. And there must be a way of being able to track the number of miles driven without including where those miles lead.

Peter C.T. Elsworth