

The point is that the state did the emissions testing (which included an odometer check) for years and years and civilization didn’t collapse. The fact that something isn’t zero effort is no excuse for precisely metering gas tax for one group of people and using a single number for another. That’s sloppy and unfair.

Correct, but people do get value from a public road system existing. For example, I “use” roads when stuff gets delivered to me, or when a fire truck shows up to put out a fire at my neighbor’s house. My point is that when we do tax people for driving we’re carefully metering it for one group of people and charging another group a flat all-you-can-drive amount, which unfairly taxes people who don’t drive very much.