6 ms·

Or, you know, they could use shorter trucks. What a concept. It's nice of you to opine on how traffic enforcement should happen in a place you (clearly) don't

Or, you know, they could use shorter trucks. What a concept. It's nice of you to opine on how traffic enforcement should happen in a place you (clearly) don't live. The NYPD choose not to enforce traffic laws across the board, and it leads to some dire consequences. In any case, whether or not longer trucks would be better for New York, the decision has already been made that they're not allowed. It's not up to the NYPD to second guess the law.

notch656a 5y ago
Do you live in the entire city of NYC? Or do you just like opining on what the entire rest of the boroughs should do? How practical do you really think it is for the entire country to make special considerations for some special snowflakes that can't handle the standard trailer everyone else uses? If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all, maybe someone can open up a store than only unloads cargo from short trailers, we can experiment on what is more successful. If the NYPD enforced (were somehow able to) every single law at every moment to everyone, New Yorkers would be crying to go back to discretionary enforcement in no time.
- lmm 5y ago
  > If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all The free market solution would be that stores that want longer containers can pay for private roads that don't have the length limits, and then we'd see whether the benefit to them is worth the costs that they're imposing on everyone else.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    The free market solution would be to privatize the public roads, yes, at which point the owner of the road would realize it would be much more profitable to allow standard trailers through. Non-drivers would finally start paying their share that way too, as the cost is passed on to the consumer -- more on that in a minute. As it stands now, non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city), but due to exponential nature of road wear vs vehicle weight, it actually turns out regular non-commercial passenger drivers disproportionately pay for road maintenance. Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride, and all the while at least one of them seems to be begrudging the very semi trailers that keep them alive.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. The costs of roads are far from fully paid out of those taxes though. So non-drivers are also subsidizing commercial drivers extensively in practice. > Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city) Only to the extent that their shipping is providing value, and it's hard to assess that given the distorting subsidy that they're getting. They might be outcompeting more efficient alternative modes of transport, or they might be making marginal-benefit deliveries that actually aren't worth the road wear and space that they're taking up if those costs were fully accounted for. > Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride Nonsense. The land value of roads alone is a huge implicit subsidy to drivers.

notch656a 5y ago

Do you live in the entire city of NYC? Or do you just like opining on what the entire rest of the boroughs should do? How practical do you really think it is for the entire country to make special considerations for some special snowflakes that can't handle the standard trailer everyone else uses? If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all, maybe someone can open up a store than only unloads cargo from short trailers, we can experiment on what is more successful. If the NYPD enforced (were somehow able to) every single law at every moment to everyone, New Yorkers would be crying to go back to discretionary enforcement in no time.

lmm 5y ago
> If you don't like the long trailers, you're free to choose to not shop at grocery stores and other places that may be using them. Free market and all The free market solution would be that stores that want longer containers can pay for private roads that don't have the length limits, and then we'd see whether the benefit to them is worth the costs that they're imposing on everyone else.
- notch656a 5y ago
  The free market solution would be to privatize the public roads, yes, at which point the owner of the road would realize it would be much more profitable to allow standard trailers through. Non-drivers would finally start paying their share that way too, as the cost is passed on to the consumer -- more on that in a minute. As it stands now, non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city), but due to exponential nature of road wear vs vehicle weight, it actually turns out regular non-commercial passenger drivers disproportionately pay for road maintenance. Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride, and all the while at least one of them seems to be begrudging the very semi trailers that keep them alive.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > non-commercial drivers subsidize non-drivers by paying fuel and other taxes that pay for roads. The costs of roads are far from fully paid out of those taxes though. So non-drivers are also subsidizing commercial drivers extensively in practice. > Commercial (semis et al) benefit everyone (especially non-drivers that depend on commercial drivers bringing in goods to them from outside the city) Only to the extent that their shipping is providing value, and it's hard to assess that given the distorting subsidy that they're getting. They might be outcompeting more efficient alternative modes of transport, or they might be making marginal-benefit deliveries that actually aren't worth the road wear and space that they're taking up if those costs were fully accounted for. > Non-drivers in NYC are taking drivers for a fiscal ride Nonsense. The land value of roads alone is a huge implicit subsidy to drivers.