Diesel went up 10 cents a gallon here in Manhattan KS this past Monday, reg unleaded went up 24 cents (1.559 to 1.799) at the same time.
In any case, Delaine & Lindy's comment above reminded me that late last month a committee our governor established to look at funding highway improvements over the next 10 or so years brought up the point of taxing by mileage driven. Governor had said, in appointing them, to look at alternatives other than raising fuel taxes. As we move to hybrids and such, purchases of gas / diesel should decrease leading to a decrease in fuel taxes which are used for maintenance and replacement of highways. In any case, last nights paper had a full page article about how Oregon has been testing this -- had installed GPS devices in 300 cars (as I recall) and, in one example, when the person fueled up, the system read the GPS and then added road-use tax based on miles driven. Had software that knew if car was out-of-state for some of those miles, etc., but the bottom line is that the customer paid the tax at the fuel point just as if the gasoline was taxed to begin with. (Paper did not say whether the mileage tax was in addition to fuel tax on the gas, or instead of the fuel tax -- just that it was added to the fuel bill and paid at that time....)
In another test example they cited where the customer had to provide mileage at vehicle registration time and road-tax was computed then -- lot of problems and ill-will so that test was concluded unfavorably.
The bottom line to my little book here is that states are starting to look at other ways to get their 'tax-money' for road maintenance. I believe Kansas has one of the highest taxes on diesel and I don't see them letting that 'honor' go to anyone else
. Taxes currently add a big chunk to the price we pay for fuel and I don't see any state having a different revenue source to maintain their roads. Just have to wonder what method they will finally come up with.