Safety should be primary concern

To the editor:

All of this discussion about increasing the gas tax, while having merit, is approaching the issue from the wrong direction.

Instead of being concerned with the maintenance of old roadways and development of new ones, our primary effort should be in regards to the safety of the people traveling upon these roads. If we start with this as our goal, the financing for the roads themselves will come along without increasing the gas tax.

The solution is to increase safety by installing traffic cameras on at least the major highways or on all roads.

As a by-product of this drive toward increased public safety, a great deal of money will be generated for the necessary projects.

The federal government could receive the money generated on interstate and other U.S. highways and the state could receive the money generated on state roads.

Beyond helping our ourselves, operation of the cameras under the jurisdiction of the federal government could be contracted out to a firm from another country, which would receive 40 percent of the money generated, thereby helping to stimulate the world economy. Hopefully, the individual states would be able to look beyond their own boundaries and contract the operation of their cameras out of state, so that 40 percent of the money generated could be shared with that other state.

This idea, while serving its primary purpose of promoting safety, would generate an impressive amount of revenue while avoiding the unpleasantness of an increase in gas taxes.

John Rassler

Belle Plaine