Virginia's New "Voluntary Tax" on Its "Bad" Drivers, Part 2:
Backlash

27 Jun 2007 in Regulatory Policy

We had barely finished our post on Virginia's new "civil remedial fee" on state-registered drivers who commit certain enumerated traffic violations, and tucked it away for automatic posting on Thursday thinking that this was not going to be a big issue. Then we opened the Washington Post and discovered that a backlash is well under way.

In our post we noted that Delegate David B. Albo, the sponsor of the law, had made fundamentally inconsistent claims about the law's purpose and effects. We showed that it could either generate revenue ostensibly to fund transportation projects or it could change driver behavior, but not both. We have now added this series to our Ethics and Values tab because it appears that this was not an error of economic reasoning but a knowing attempt to mislead.

Washington Post staff writer Tim Craig picks up the story where we left off. The new law is being called an "abuser fee" -- even by its proponents -- not the awkward and sterile "civil remedial fee." Craig's reporting reveals that Albo's error was not an isolated one, but the product of a bipartisan strategy:

Speaking Tuesday on WTOP radio, Kaine said the fees will allow the state to ease gridlock while encouraging motorists to drive responsibly.

"I don't have the ability to give driving instructions to 7 1/2 million Virginians, but hopefully the prospect of stiff fines will make people drive right," said Kaine, who has been pushing for the fees since taking office last year.

Like Albo, Kaine asserts that the new fees will simultaneously achieve two inconsistent objectives: raise a lot of money for transportation projects and change how Virginia drivers behave. Kaine's suggestion that the new fees will improve the driving of "7 1/2 million Virginians" also is inconsistent with other claims that only a very small fraction are "bad" drivers will be affected. (Albo estimates 2%.)

Other legislators are making the same fundamentally flawed economic error:

House Speaker William J. Howell's hometown newspaper, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, published an editorial Monday that said, "The General Assembly has slipped one over us. . . . these fees . . . are simply outrageous."

In a response the paper plans to publish Wednesday, Howell (R-Stafford) said the "abuser fees . . . have a proven record of increasing road safety and supplementing transportation revenues" and will impact "those who most flagrantly abuse the rules of our roads."

"Abuser fees" cannot improve road safety (which requires that drivers change their behavior) and generate revenue for transportation projects (which requires that they do not).

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