Another Step Toward Cashless, Because Corona

It’s a wonder the Gesundheitsfuhrers didn’t shut down gas stations given that people touch the pump handles and the cases! the cases!

Well, that’s coming – even though people will still be touching the pumps. But they won’t be touching money – especially cash money. Instead, the “money” will be automatically extracted from their electronic wallet via something called PayByCar.

The idea is for “contactless” transactions – to “stop the spread” of WuFlu.

Stainless Steel Knife ... Buy New $49.99 (as of 06:27 UTC - Details) How that works when people will still handle the pumps is difficult to understand. What’s easy to understand is that “contactless” means cash-less, which also means – if this system ever became default – that it may become very hard to buy gas with cash or even a credit card. Instead, you’d pay via an “app” on your phone – and a bug buried in your car, as PayByCar envisions.

This company – which is a “provider of in-vehicle payment solutions” – has “partnered” with big-time OEM supplier Gentex Corp to introduce something called the Integrated Toll Module, which works like it sounds. A device is integrated with the vehicle that knows (via RFID chipping) where the car is in relation to gas stations (as well as other things). It then sends a text to the driver, whose identity is paired to the car – who texts back the station pump number and the system obligingly turns on the pump and debits the cost of the fill-up from the person’s account.

Other costs could be — and surely will be – debited as well. Because of the “interest in new revenue streams,” that the parties involved expect to cash in on.

By eliminating cash.

Ross-Simons Sterling S... Buy New $85.00 (as of 06:27 UTC - Details) For instance, by electronically debiting the driver for using a road at a given time; i.e., congestion pricing – made automatic and so unavoidable, if your car has the integrated module. It knows where you’re driving and when you’re driving – and makes change.

And tax-by-mile, something already being “pilot programmed” in several states as a way to mulct drivers for avoiding motor fuels taxes by driving electric cars or paying lower motor fuels taxes by driving more fuel-efficient cars.

There are all kinds of possibilities.

One could even imagine the ITM tied into one’s social credit standing; if you don’t wear your Face Diaper or aren’t up-to-date on your vaccinations, you get dunned if you drive.

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