Not a bad idea

There's a pushback in Massachusetts' over Governor Patrick's proposed 19-cent gas tax. I like this counterproposal in a letter to the editor to today's Boston Globe:

Need revenue to maintain roads and bridges? Want to make driving safer at the same time?

Tax cellphone calls from moving vehicles at 25 cents a minute!

We might need a little help from the techies to implement this, but if the cellphone companies know the duration and location of the call, they can compute the average speed, and tax calls from phones going faster than 5 miles per hour.

I can see those ACLU crybabies getting into a huff about tracking people, and then the police will figure out how to ticket people for speeding. Hmm. Now that I think about it, it's an awful idea.