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Comment by arrosenberg | Hacker News Reader

> Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45 cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in climate

You mean the gas taxes that fund road maintenance? That tax is a tyranny imposed by how much we rely on cars, not by climate change.

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It's funny how other states must use magic wands to fix their roads, obviously since the gas prices are not jacked up as high elsewhere.

I don’t understand the sarcasm. Comparable states like Texas and New York charge far more in tolls than California. Many states have far fewer roads (with less usage), or they underfund their road maintenance, don’t repair them, and then rely on federal funds to make emergency repairs after something critical breaks.

Underlying the sarcasm is the assertion that California is not fiscally responsible with its budget. Understand now?

Nope, still don’t get it. We aren’t any more or less responsible than other states, just much bigger.

You sure about that?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you understood the point or would you like it explained again?

Do you have an actual explanation or just low effort memes? Read the forum guidelines, thanks!

Thanks! So in order to make this thread more "thoughtful and substantive", underlying that posters earlier sarcasm is the belief that California is not responsible with its budget. Hope that helps this time!

Oh ok, makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. Hope you feel better now :)

Concession noted, thanks!

California is more responsible than Illinois or New Jersey, but there are plenty of states who are more responsible than CA.

The tolls are 1. Used to fix toll lanes, much more prevalent now than in the past 2. Payments to private companies who siphon the proceeds out of the area they services

Gas tax is much better in this regard, but all of these are pretty extortionary.

Last I checked I think 60% was getting siphoned off to an LLC and only 40% of the toll was for the road.

Not only that, tolls suck for privacy (de facto installation of ALPR cameras, database presumptively controlled by a private company selling the data to anyone with money), are a regressive tax on the poor, and are often used to implement "taxation without representation" by sticking the tolls near a state border to extract rents from people not eligible to vote against them.

New York has even taken to explicitly charging higher rates to out of state residents, which is of questionable constitutionality.

But think about all the poor politicians who would miss out on their kickbacks.

I would like to be able to say that in Europe, tolls are managed by the state, but they aren't.

Driving is a privilege. You can walk on the walking road, thingy.

Driving is a right because travel is a right and walking between two points separated by dozens of miles on a daily basis is about as reasonable a suggestion as "let them eat cake".

Travel is a right, including interstate travel, but Dixon v Love (among others) have held that personally operating a motor vehicle (“driving”) is a privilege rather than an inherent right.

You can take a bus, taxi, or airplane to travel.

> Dixon v Love (among others) have held that personally operating a motor vehicle (“driving”) is a privilege rather than an inherent right.

The question in that case is whether someone's license can be suspended after conviction of traffic offenses without a separate hearing on the suspension. Denial of rights is common practice upon conviction of a crime, e.g. unless you've been convicted of a crime you generally have a right not to be incarcerated.

> You can take a bus, taxi, or airplane to travel.

So if you're a farmer in New Jersey and have to deliver your produce to a farm-to-table restaurant in New York City, which of these is supposed to apply? Also notice how little this has to do with tolls. If your license was suspended you could pay an employee to drive your truck into the city but the E-ZPass tag doesn't care about that.

That ruling refers to them as privileges in a direct way (without objection by the Court).

Perhaps you could cite the basis upon which you conclude they are legally a right.

Natural rights. Clearly. The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it limits abrogation of certain rights. The right to travel is long established in common law.

The right to your preferred mode of travel is not.

You're relying on "preferred" to do all the work there.

There are plenty of contexts where cars are the only realistic mode of travel and then it isn't a matter of preference because there isn't any viable alternative.

It appears to me that the Court holds that riding in an airplane or car is a right (of travel) but that piloting or driving that airplane/car is a privilege.

But then you come to the context where driving it yourself is viable and hiring a private chauffeur is infeasibly uneconomical and you've got some trouble.

What "privilege" means in this context is that you need a license to do it. That doesn't imply that it isn't still a right. For example, you might need a signage license to put up a sign, but free speech is still a right, and for that reason the government is constrained in the criteria they can use to deny you the signage license.

But people say "driving is a privilege, not a right" as if these things are alternatives to each other. Requiring you to pass a driving test is quite a different thing than discriminating against you based on your state of residence.

Here's a quote from your own case:

> The nature of the private interest involved here (the granted license to operate a motor vehicle) is not so great as to require a departure from "the ordinary principle . . . that something less than an evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse administrative action," Eldridge, supra at 424 U. S. 343, particularly in light of statutory provisions for hardship and for holders of commercial licenses, who are those most likely to be affected by the deprival of driving privileges.

Strongly implies that constraints exist on what the government can deny. What's that about, if there isn't a right to be implicated?

Not when it is mandatory to function in society. Then, it is a necessary utility.

>Last I checked I think 60% was getting siphoned off to an LLC and only 40% of the toll was for the road.

Which tolls on which road? At least where I live there's more than one toll road in the area.

California has the worst roads of any state I've driven in. San Fran and San Jose, rank among the top 10 in the country of the worst roads. Whatever they are using it for, isn't for road maintenance.

Agreed. Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Florida..... visited all of them in the last 12 months during various seasons.... they ALL have significantly better roads than California. HOW!!!!!! HOW!

California has the second highest total lane miles by state[0] and it has the highest number of registered vehicles of any state, by a big margin.[1]

Being a such a populous big state with only tiny, regional public transportation systems means everyone and their cousin drives everywhere, all the time. That's how.

[0]https://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/

[1]https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/sta...

Germany has an equal GDP to California with double the road miles. Their roads are ranked higher.

California can do better, it just doesn't.

Germans roads are often very nice. The autobahn is awesome. Germans also pay $2.76/gallon in fuel tax.

Californians only pay $0.68/gallon. You up for an additional $2.08/gallon in taxes to pay for those sweet, German roads?

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/gas-taxes-in-europe-20...

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-gas-tax-rates...

No. If that's the difference maker, definitely not.

I've lived in California for 30+ years now and what I've observed is that we spend huge amounts of money on infrastructure and a lot of the spend seems to be absolute waste. For example, there is no realistic reason for high speed rail to cost what it does per mile; I am certain that a very close inspection of the process would uncover huge amounts of waste, padding, and theft. On top of that, people have been able to limit development using enivronmental rules and other legal methods to slow down things that are truly needed.

I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors. I think this has happened over and over again (Rome, and many other societies).

> I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors.

How about Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

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