Gov. Rick Snyder surprised some people at his State of the State address when he advocated funding road construction through increased fees for vehicle registration. Normally a dutiful politician uses the word “fee” in lieu of the dreaded word “tax.” Republicans, especially, hate the T-word.  I’ll give Snyder some credit. Because he hopes to raise over $1 billion, he also suggested raising the gasoline tax. The response was predictable – Democrats and Republicans both balked. Road repair is a touchy subject for most people. It’s hard to see a real need for fixing roads until it affects you directly. Like when you’re driving at night, hit a pothole, blow a tire and then wait for an hour on the side of the road for some guy named Ralph to arrive in his tow truck.

Gov. Rick Snyder wants to double vehicle registration fees to help pay for road work. Another $120 per vehicle? C'mon.
That's a tough sell because most of us don't appreciate the need for road construction -- not until a bridge collapses, as happened on a Minnesota freeway in 2007. A collapsed bridge on I-94, that would get our attention.
Part of the reason we distrust orange pylons and all they represent is that this state tolerates ridiculously poor work ethic from the road crews. They work one day, but not the next. An expensive electronic road sign warns us that an exit is closed ahead, but we get up there and find the exit's open. So the next time we don't believe what the sign says only to find that the exit is indeed closed.

Then we hear the road crews earn a bonus when they get a job done ahead of schedule. That's bullcrap. Just pay them a flat fee. And if they don't get it done on time then they get docked.

Of course, we could all drive smaller cars and drive slower. That would cause less wear and tear on the road. And if we hit a pothole at 50 mph it wouldn't be as jarring as 70 mph. But that's not feasible. We want to drive gigantic pickups at 90 mph. If that's the case we'd better be willing to pay.
And once again we have a politician calling a "tax" a "fee."

The sure things in life? Death, taxes, and some guy who thinks his four-wheel-drive truck can do anything and go anywhere in the snow. You've got to let boys have fun with their toys. And most guys are boys at heart. But sometimes there's a safety issue involved. When other cars are driving 20 mph on a snowy freeway, it's just not safe to roar past those cars at 50 mph. There's a little thing called common courtesy.
Now, let's hear the side of the four-wheeler: The rest of the year this guy spends extra money on gas because of his large tires and large engine. So when the snow comes it's payback time. These four-wheelers also maintain that it's the slow car that's creating a dangerous situation. And the four-wheeler does have the posted freeway speed limits on his side.