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> drivers don't realize just how much their car usage is subsidized.[...]it's not even remotely close to cover the cost impacted on society. Aren't car drivers

> drivers don't realize just how much their car usage is subsidized.[...]it's not even remotely close to cover the cost impacted on society. Aren't car drivers, and their passengers, a very large portion of "society"? And even for those who never use a vehicle, don't they depend heavily on many other members of society who do, such as doctors, teachers, fire and police, food providers, and almost every other class of worker? Are you saying that somehow the vast legions of car drivers/passengers out there are not part of society and therefore are not paying the true cost?

rtlfe 5y ago
Driving a car is not a requirement for any of those professions.
- PopAlongKid 5y ago
  My comment had nothing to do with requirements. If I drive a car, and it causes pollution where I live, then aren't I, as part of society, paying the "true" cost? I say "where I live" because every car trip I take starts and ends at my front door. I simply can't understand how car users impose "true costs" on everyone else, but not themselves, which is what the GP was claiming.
  - rtlfe 5y ago
    > I simply can't understand how car users impose "true costs" on everyone else, but not themselves, which is what the GP was claiming. The point is that everybody pays the costs whether they drive or not. If the costs were more directly tied to how much each person drives, there would be a lot less driving overall.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    What they mean is that the vehicle-specific costs they incur aren't sufficient to cover the true costs to society, from pollution cleanup to road maintenance. Instead, those funds must be drawn from general sources like income taxes. Once you account for social ills like pollution, the costs end up falling disproportionately on the people who can least afford them and contribute the least to the problem.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      Road maintenance is paid for by property taxes. You have to be a home owner to pay property taxes. The costs don't disproportionately fall on those who are least able to afford them, but on those who have the most invested in a local, tangible asset (i.e. homeowners, business owners, landowners, etc.)
      - AlotOfReading 5y ago
        It is partially but not exclusively paid for by property taxes. It's actually a fairly small share of funding in some cases. The BATIC institute gives the numbers 5% and 1% for highways and transit funding respectively [1]. Moreover, funding is not evenly distributed here. Suburbs tend to have massive road networks and long commutes, but comparatively low property taxes. This creates a shortfall that generally gets made by with sales taxes and general funds. [1] http://www.financingtransportation.org/funding_financing/funding/ http://www.financingtransportation.org/funding_financing/fun...
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    > If I drive a car, and it causes pollution where I live, then aren't I, as part of society, paying the "true" cost? No, because part of the cost is the fact that pollution in that area affects everyone -- including non-drivers. You're paying part of the cost, yes, but not the whole thing. Imagine if there was some mechanism such that non-drivers inhaled as much pollution as there'd be if there were no cars*, and drivers inhaled as much pollution as is proportional to however much pollution they themselves create (this would vary not just based on a binary do/do not drive, but on how much you drive and how polluting your vehicle is). Then each person would be paying the true cost. A true cost has to be proportional to the damage done, such that changing behavior results in changing cost paid. * leaving aside the impracticality of zero non-electric cars for the moment
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    The conclusion is total bunk, and you can only reach it by selecting which externalities you want to measure, and which externalities you want to ignore. For instance the fact that a car owner can travel large distances to work or spend money any time they like is a massively beneficial externality. You also have to ignore the externalities that the non-car-owners benefit from. If somebody has managed to situate themselves in an ideal location for them specifically to live without a car, then they almost certainly only managed to do that by benefitting from the positive externalities created by car owners (unless they’re living in the woods or something).
    - rtlfe 5y ago
      > For instance the fact that a car owner can travel large distances to work or spend money any time they like is a massively beneficial externality. You shouldn't have to travel long distances to do those things. This is only considered normal in the US because so much was built specifically for the convenience of drivers.
      - AmericanChopper 5y ago
        It takes 10 minutes to drive 5 miles at 30mph, walking that same distance would take a typical person about 90 minutes. 5 miles is a large distance and wanting to go somewhere that’s 5 miles away is normal for any place in the world.
        rtlfe 5y ago
        > wanting to go somewhere that’s 5 miles away is normal for any place in the world In pretty much any pre-car city you can get everything you need on a daily basis within a 10 minute walk from home, and if your job is farther you can ride a train. Edit - For people familiar with the NYC region, here's a 5 miles radius from midtown. https://imgur.com/a/cfIqOvo https://imgur.com/a/cfIqOvo This is an enormous area, and my rough guess is that 4 million people live in that circle.
        5y ago
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    In addition to the point already made about people who do not drive paying those costs too, you're also missing the externalities that affect others for health related reasons, and not yourself (and others with your good fortune).
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Yeah those were terrible examples. But more proper ones would be: truck and van drivers for mail, food and other delivery to stores, bus drivers, taxi drivers, farmers, police, EMT, etc.
  - rtlfe 5y ago
    Those could all be less reliant on cars than they currently are too. For example: * UPS is trying "equad" bikes: https://www.reuters.com/technology/ups-tries-out-equad-electric-bikes-urban-deliveries-2022-04-01/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/ups-tries-out-equad-elect... * London has bike paramedics: https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/calling-us/who-will-treat-you/single-responder/cycle-responder/ https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/calling-us/who-will-treat... * Most taxi rides in urban areas could easily be replaced with e-pedicabs
    - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
      That's not how bike paramedics work. From your link: > They are able to reach patients quickly and start to give life-saving treatment while an ambulance is on the way. You still need an ambulance, because that person is going to need to go to hospital in nearly all cases except the most trivial "fell over while drunk" cases, and backies are impractical for the average person in need of a paramedic.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Many things are not a requirement for survival, but we still like to do them. Yes, driving a car to get from A to B in (usually) the fastest and most comfortable way wastes some energy and generates some pollution... but so does reading a book (wood for paper, ink, energy for lighting), eating any non-local food, eating meat, sex not for procreation, etc.
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    > some energy and generates some pollution... but so does .... sex not for procreation I think sex for procreation is likely the one thing you could possibly do with the highest resulting pollution.
teawrecks 5y ago
They're saying that fossils fuels don't price in the cost that everyone will have to pay in response to climate change, and that's the only reason they're still considered affordable and a viable source of energy. If we carbon taxed them proportional to the damage they do, it wouldn't even be close to renewables.
- rtlfe 5y ago
  The impact of burning gas isn't the only hidden cost. There are big health effects from air pollution caused by brake dust, tires, and other car components. There are all the people who are disabled and killed in crashes. There's all the space that could be used for parks, flood mitigation, etc if it wasn't dedicated to driving and storing cars. There's noise pollution that has a tangible impact on sleep and stress.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Most of that can also be said for bars, restaurants, living rooms, gyms etc. If you have a kitchen at home, you don't need a bar and a restaurant. Soft drinks? Useless unhealthy pollution. Alcohol, even worse. Why have two rooms (bedroom+living room) if you can't be in both at once? And you're wasting space with then, and energy to heat and cool them. Looking at the causes of death in the developed world, I think food (fast, restaurant, processed and junk food + sugary drinks) kills way more people than cars, even when accounting for pollution, brake dust, etc.
    - rtlfe 5y ago
      > Looking at the causes of death in the developed world, I think food (fast, restaurant, processed and junk food + sugary drinks) kills way more people than cars, even when accounting for pollution, brake dust, etc. A big difference is that I can chose to eat healthy food as an individual, but it's basically impossible to escape the negative impact of cars without a major shift in how government allocates space and money.
    - lucb1e 5y ago
      > Soft drinks? Useless unhealthy pollution. Bit of a false comparison. I have no problem with you drinking soft drinks, and I can do it myself in the moderation that I choose. However, if I want to live near a train station, odds in Germany are basically 100% that there is also a well-traveled car street there with all the accompanying problems. It's more like smoking in someone else's apartment and less like drinking sugar in someone else's apartment. > Why have two rooms (bedroom+living room) if you can't be in both at once? I mean you clearly don't even believe this yourself. Not sure if there's a point trying to explain how this comparison doesn't make any sense, either. It has nothing to do with the aforementioned hidden cost of >1 ton metal box transportation with an occupancy rate of one point something.
x3iv130f 5y ago
I had a recent vacation to Japan where the average person commutes by train instead of car. By your criteria the vast majority of that country wouldn't be classified as a "society". At least in the US, the government is paying vast and unsustainable sums of money to prop up a failing and inefficient form of transportation. That inefficiency was created at a time when the US was the only significant industrial power. We no longer have extra factory capacity from the second world war or armies of returning GIs to work in those factories or buy those products. We now have to compete on the world stage against other economies we're poorly matched to beat. It is time to move on to the 21st century and design our solutions to fit our current capabilities instead of what existed 70 years ago.
- geodel 5y ago
  So a much smaller land area island nation has citizen living in much closer spaces and using public transport and suddenly a huge continent sized nation with hugely diverse population can live like that. > It is time to move on to the 21st century and design our solutions to fit our current capabilities I am not sure single opinion would have clear idea of what is 21st century capabilities.
- briHass 5y ago
  > At least in the US, the government is paying vast and unsustainable sums of money to prop up a failing and inefficient form of transportation. Even though that is clearly an opinion-based statement, it's objectively wrong. The vast majority (3/4) of highway/road spending is done by state and local governments, not Federal. For the states/local governments, the amount is usually about 6% of all spending. About double that of police, and 2/3rds of hospitals and higher ed. It's not like roads don't also serve commerce. Even with robust rail infrastructure, that last-mile would require roads. 6% of the budget for something that benefits every single member of society in immeasurable ways seems like a pretty good deal to me. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/highway-and-road-expenditures https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
  - Kranar 5y ago
dijit 5y ago
> Are you saying that somehow the vast legions of car drivers/passengers out there are not part of society and therefore are not paying the true cost? I think the point here is that driving is subsidised and therefore more people that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t drive. It’s perhaps very easy to assume the consequence of decisions are obvious and inevitable, but it can be good to question that too. I guess this would be an immensely tangled argument, but I think the broader point that people don’t understand the total cost of driving because it is so subsidised is a good one.

rtlfe 5y ago

Driving a car is not a requirement for any of those professions.

PopAlongKid 5y ago
My comment had nothing to do with requirements. If I drive a car, and it causes pollution where I live, then aren't I, as part of society, paying the "true" cost? I say "where I live" because every car trip I take starts and ends at my front door. I simply can't understand how car users impose "true costs" on everyone else, but not themselves, which is what the GP was claiming.
- rtlfe 5y ago
  > I simply can't understand how car users impose "true costs" on everyone else, but not themselves, which is what the GP was claiming. The point is that everybody pays the costs whether they drive or not. If the costs were more directly tied to how much each person drives, there would be a lot less driving overall.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  What they mean is that the vehicle-specific costs they incur aren't sufficient to cover the true costs to society, from pollution cleanup to road maintenance. Instead, those funds must be drawn from general sources like income taxes. Once you account for social ills like pollution, the costs end up falling disproportionately on the people who can least afford them and contribute the least to the problem.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    Road maintenance is paid for by property taxes. You have to be a home owner to pay property taxes. The costs don't disproportionately fall on those who are least able to afford them, but on those who have the most invested in a local, tangible asset (i.e. homeowners, business owners, landowners, etc.)
    - AlotOfReading 5y ago
      It is partially but not exclusively paid for by property taxes. It's actually a fairly small share of funding in some cases. The BATIC institute gives the numbers 5% and 1% for highways and transit funding respectively [1]. Moreover, funding is not evenly distributed here. Suburbs tend to have massive road networks and long commutes, but comparatively low property taxes. This creates a shortfall that generally gets made by with sales taxes and general funds. [1] http://www.financingtransportation.org/funding_financing/funding/ http://www.financingtransportation.org/funding_financing/fun...
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > If I drive a car, and it causes pollution where I live, then aren't I, as part of society, paying the "true" cost? No, because part of the cost is the fact that pollution in that area affects everyone -- including non-drivers. You're paying part of the cost, yes, but not the whole thing. Imagine if there was some mechanism such that non-drivers inhaled as much pollution as there'd be if there were no cars*, and drivers inhaled as much pollution as is proportional to however much pollution they themselves create (this would vary not just based on a binary do/do not drive, but on how much you drive and how polluting your vehicle is). Then each person would be paying the true cost. A true cost has to be proportional to the damage done, such that changing behavior results in changing cost paid. * leaving aside the impracticality of zero non-electric cars for the moment
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  The conclusion is total bunk, and you can only reach it by selecting which externalities you want to measure, and which externalities you want to ignore. For instance the fact that a car owner can travel large distances to work or spend money any time they like is a massively beneficial externality. You also have to ignore the externalities that the non-car-owners benefit from. If somebody has managed to situate themselves in an ideal location for them specifically to live without a car, then they almost certainly only managed to do that by benefitting from the positive externalities created by car owners (unless they’re living in the woods or something).
  - rtlfe 5y ago
    > For instance the fact that a car owner can travel large distances to work or spend money any time they like is a massively beneficial externality. You shouldn't have to travel long distances to do those things. This is only considered normal in the US because so much was built specifically for the convenience of drivers.
    - AmericanChopper 5y ago
      It takes 10 minutes to drive 5 miles at 30mph, walking that same distance would take a typical person about 90 minutes. 5 miles is a large distance and wanting to go somewhere that’s 5 miles away is normal for any place in the world.
      - rtlfe 5y ago
        > wanting to go somewhere that’s 5 miles away is normal for any place in the world In pretty much any pre-car city you can get everything you need on a daily basis within a 10 minute walk from home, and if your job is farther you can ride a train. Edit - For people familiar with the NYC region, here's a 5 miles radius from midtown. https://imgur.com/a/cfIqOvo https://imgur.com/a/cfIqOvo This is an enormous area, and my rough guess is that 4 million people live in that circle.
        5y ago
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  In addition to the point already made about people who do not drive paying those costs too, you're also missing the externalities that affect others for health related reasons, and not yourself (and others with your good fortune).
moffkalast 5y ago
Yeah those were terrible examples. But more proper ones would be: truck and van drivers for mail, food and other delivery to stores, bus drivers, taxi drivers, farmers, police, EMT, etc.
- rtlfe 5y ago
  Those could all be less reliant on cars than they currently are too. For example: * UPS is trying "equad" bikes: https://www.reuters.com/technology/ups-tries-out-equad-electric-bikes-urban-deliveries-2022-04-01/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/ups-tries-out-equad-elect... * London has bike paramedics: https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/calling-us/who-will-treat-you/single-responder/cycle-responder/ https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/calling-us/who-will-treat... * Most taxi rides in urban areas could easily be replaced with e-pedicabs
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    That's not how bike paramedics work. From your link: > They are able to reach patients quickly and start to give life-saving treatment while an ambulance is on the way. You still need an ambulance, because that person is going to need to go to hospital in nearly all cases except the most trivial "fell over while drunk" cases, and backies are impractical for the average person in need of a paramedic.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Many things are not a requirement for survival, but we still like to do them. Yes, driving a car to get from A to B in (usually) the fastest and most comfortable way wastes some energy and generates some pollution... but so does reading a book (wood for paper, ink, energy for lighting), eating any non-local food, eating meat, sex not for procreation, etc.
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  > some energy and generates some pollution... but so does .... sex not for procreation I think sex for procreation is likely the one thing you could possibly do with the highest resulting pollution.

teawrecks 5y ago

They're saying that fossils fuels don't price in the cost that everyone will have to pay in response to climate change, and that's the only reason they're still considered affordable and a viable source of energy. If we carbon taxed them proportional to the damage they do, it wouldn't even be close to renewables.

rtlfe 5y ago
The impact of burning gas isn't the only hidden cost. There are big health effects from air pollution caused by brake dust, tires, and other car components. There are all the people who are disabled and killed in crashes. There's all the space that could be used for parks, flood mitigation, etc if it wasn't dedicated to driving and storing cars. There's noise pollution that has a tangible impact on sleep and stress.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Most of that can also be said for bars, restaurants, living rooms, gyms etc. If you have a kitchen at home, you don't need a bar and a restaurant. Soft drinks? Useless unhealthy pollution. Alcohol, even worse. Why have two rooms (bedroom+living room) if you can't be in both at once? And you're wasting space with then, and energy to heat and cool them. Looking at the causes of death in the developed world, I think food (fast, restaurant, processed and junk food + sugary drinks) kills way more people than cars, even when accounting for pollution, brake dust, etc.
  - rtlfe 5y ago
    > Looking at the causes of death in the developed world, I think food (fast, restaurant, processed and junk food + sugary drinks) kills way more people than cars, even when accounting for pollution, brake dust, etc. A big difference is that I can chose to eat healthy food as an individual, but it's basically impossible to escape the negative impact of cars without a major shift in how government allocates space and money.
  - lucb1e 5y ago
    > Soft drinks? Useless unhealthy pollution. Bit of a false comparison. I have no problem with you drinking soft drinks, and I can do it myself in the moderation that I choose. However, if I want to live near a train station, odds in Germany are basically 100% that there is also a well-traveled car street there with all the accompanying problems. It's more like smoking in someone else's apartment and less like drinking sugar in someone else's apartment. > Why have two rooms (bedroom+living room) if you can't be in both at once? I mean you clearly don't even believe this yourself. Not sure if there's a point trying to explain how this comparison doesn't make any sense, either. It has nothing to do with the aforementioned hidden cost of >1 ton metal box transportation with an occupancy rate of one point something.

x3iv130f 5y ago

I had a recent vacation to Japan where the average person commutes by train instead of car. By your criteria the vast majority of that country wouldn't be classified as a "society". At least in the US, the government is paying vast and unsustainable sums of money to prop up a failing and inefficient form of transportation. That inefficiency was created at a time when the US was the only significant industrial power. We no longer have extra factory capacity from the second world war or armies of returning GIs to work in those factories or buy those products. We now have to compete on the world stage against other economies we're poorly matched to beat. It is time to move on to the 21st century and design our solutions to fit our current capabilities instead of what existed 70 years ago.

geodel 5y ago
So a much smaller land area island nation has citizen living in much closer spaces and using public transport and suddenly a huge continent sized nation with hugely diverse population can live like that. > It is time to move on to the 21st century and design our solutions to fit our current capabilities I am not sure single opinion would have clear idea of what is 21st century capabilities.
briHass 5y ago
> At least in the US, the government is paying vast and unsustainable sums of money to prop up a failing and inefficient form of transportation. Even though that is clearly an opinion-based statement, it's objectively wrong. The vast majority (3/4) of highway/road spending is done by state and local governments, not Federal. For the states/local governments, the amount is usually about 6% of all spending. About double that of police, and 2/3rds of hospitals and higher ed. It's not like roads don't also serve commerce. Even with robust rail infrastructure, that last-mile would require roads. 6% of the budget for something that benefits every single member of society in immeasurable ways seems like a pretty good deal to me. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/highway-and-road-expenditures https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
- Kranar 5y ago

dijit 5y ago

> Are you saying that somehow the vast legions of car drivers/passengers out there are not part of society and therefore are not paying the true cost? I think the point here is that driving is subsidised and therefore more people that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t drive. It’s perhaps very easy to assume the consequence of decisions are obvious and inevitable, but it can be good to question that too. I guess this would be an immensely tangled argument, but I think the broader point that people don’t understand the total cost of driving because it is so subsidised is a good one.