Since our discussions a few weeks ago about the use of RFID tags to track schoolchildren, I've been thinking: What about tracking cars and trucks?

Motorized vehicles are without doubt central to the American economy. Remove trucks and cars and go back to, say, horses and mules and we'd grind to a commercial halt.

Now, just like duct tape and the Force in "Star Wars," motorized transport has both a light side and a dark side. That dark side includes the theft of vehicles and their use in crimes of various types. What if we mandated that every vehicle on the road must carry a certified RFID tag - much like the road tax tags you stick on your license plates?

Roads, freeways and junctions would have RFID scanners and log all vehicles that passed. If a vehicle should pass without a tag or the tag didn't match plates, photos would be taken and police would be sent to issue tickets, arrest people or, if as occasionally happens in L.A., beat them with truncheons.

Just consider the effect this could have on crime. And don't bother to say anything along the lines of "The bad guys could swap plates and tags to avoid detection." Sure they could, but that would only be the small percentage of serious criminals who would have the motivation to defeat any control system and who probably already get around today's far weaker controls anyway.

Another thing to consider is speeding. We have laws that say "thou shalt not go faster than the posted maximum speed or thou shalt get in trouble." The laws don't say anything even vaguely like "obey the speed limits only when you feel like it or when a cop is in sight," but that's how we all choose to interpret them.

And this is despite the fact that everyone knows speeding is dangerous: In 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 31% - that's 13,380 - of all road fatalities in the U.S. were speed-related.

With a vehicle-tagging system in place, when the time for a car or truck to go between two checkpoints is less than the best time that could be expected driving at the speed limit, ding! An automatic ticket is issued. Speeding and the associated deaths would become things of the past within a few years!

I know what some of you will be saying: "What about the government tracking us? What about our freedom?" OK, you tell me what such a system could reveal about you that couldn't be found out should the government decide to focus their beady little eyes on you using other methods? What use is it to know that you went to work as usual?