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Agreed, all road taxes should be based on weight and miles driven. Make sure that it is non-linear, since road damage and weight aren't linear. And make sure t
by _ea1k 3y ago
Agreed, all road taxes should be based on weight and miles driven. Make sure that it is non-linear, since road damage and weight aren't linear.
And make sure that it affects fuel delivery trucks in the same way that it affects other heavy vehicles.
Anything else would be plainly unfair.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoNon-linear is an understatement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- magicalhippo 3y agoHere in Norway we do have a weight tax. It's linear for normal cars[1] and paid once, for heavier vehicles it's yearly and quite non-linear[2]. edit: doing a quick fit, it seems to just be quadratic with weight though, while damage goes more like the fourth power as noted in sibling comment. As for miles driven, AFAIK there's nothing direct non-linear there, just some duty and taxes on the fuel. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/hvilke-avgifter-ma-du-betale/engangsavgift/hva-er-engangsavgiften/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/hv... [2]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/satser/vektarsavgift/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/satser/vektarsavgift/
- devoutsalsa 3y agoIs weight tax the same of different for electric and internal combustion cars?
- magicalhippo 3y agoYes. ICE's have an additional CO2/NOx tax though.
- ghostpepper 3y agoNot sure how far you got in the article but Norway is specifically called out as the country with the best policy the US should mimic to address the problem.
- magicalhippo 3y agoIt doesn't seem to mention the non-linear tax on trucks though, from what I could see. Makes sense given it's an article about regular cars.
- WillAdams 3y agoImpose a tax on tires based on their mass.
- mjhay 3y agoBetter to charge for the vehicle. You don't want to incentivize running on bald tires.
- WillAdams 3y agoBald tires won't pass inspection.
- mjhay 3y agoThat's not a thing in most of the US.
- WillAdams 3y agoGiven that some 1 in 5 accidents are caused by a lack of maintenance, I would argue that it's a threat to public health/safety that they are not.
- mjhay 3y agoYeah, it's not great. Unfortunately, a car is basically required to hold any kind of job in most of the US, aside from the (expensive) cores of few select cities. That's doubly true for low-income folks. It's effectively impossible to enforce safety regs when a large part of the population simply can't afford to maintain a safe vehicle. The alternative is even worse mass homelessness. For similar reasons, extremely dangerous drivers basically never get their license taken away. I live in a snowy place, and the number of people I see running absolutely bald summer tires in the winter is horrifying.
- WillAdams 3y agoMaybe if the police would enforce the laws for proper equipment we could reduce accidents caused by lack of maintenance and that reduction could result in a savings on insurance which would help make things more affordable. That said, one doesn't have to have a car to get to work --- for almost 5 years, rather than put miles on my truck I rode a bicycle to work, and in the past I've walked to work at need --- hoping to get back to riding to my new job, just waiting for a connecting road through a development to be finished and the ride will become markedly shorter, facilitating this.
- sandworm101 3y agoYes. That extends to motorcycles which, in comparison to all cars, do virtually zero damage to roads. Getting everyone out of cars and onto reasonable motorcycles, even sportbikes, would likely do more for the environment than the current plan of everyone driving electric tanks.
- ckdarby 3y agoExcept the additional cost via health care either publicly or private via insurance premiums. Two wheel motorcycles today as they stand should be outlawed.
- sandworm101 3y agoAnd so should bicycles too. The per-mile injury rate, the stat used when comparing a given journey, for bicycles is several times higher than that of motorcycles. And skateboards... they are per-mile death traps. Rollerblades are likely more dangerous per-mile than driving drunk while smoking. If you have to cover a given distance, the safest is not always the slowest. Often the faster means limits risk exposure and come out safer despite the increases in energy and perceived danger.
- sagarm 3y agoBicycles and motorcycles aren't dangerous: cars are.
- sandworm101 3y agoBikes are pretty bad. Basically everyone who has ever learned to ride a bike will at some point be injured, and not by cars but by user errors. They cannot be made safe. When you fall it will hurt. Ive seen horrible stuff from people riding bikes through woods. Speed+trees is dangerous.
- qiqitori 3y agoI injured my ACL by riding a bicycle over a slippery manhole cover, no car involved. ;)
- PinkMilkshake 3y ago> and miles driven That may unfairly impact people who already cannot afford to live close to where the jobs are.
- _ea1k 3y agoThat's true, but a key component would be to decouple the payment from the process of paying for fuel. Once those are separated, providing a tax reduction system for lower incomes would become possible.
- c22 3y agoYou could do this at the gas pump/charger with built in scales.
- Ajedi32 3y agoTotally agreed that construction costs should be distributed in a manner proportional to usage. I'm curious though; is road damage based on total vehicle weight, or just the weight on each tire? If the latter, I think the formula should reflect that in order to incentivize vehicles to distribute weight across more tires in order to minimize road damage where that makes sense. I'm also curious about how much wear is caused by vehicles vs other factors, like the weather. I'd guess that probably depends a lot on the local climate in each state. I should also point out that maintenance costs aren't the only cost associated with road usage; even light cars take up space on the road, creating traffic and thus reducing the utility for other drivers. Any charges should thus include the cost of additional lanes needed to accommodate those vehicles regardless of their weight. In an ideal world I'd probably base the cost on miles driven, plus an additional charge based on an estimate of additional maintenance costs incurred depending on mileage, vehicle weight, number of tires, and the local climate. But then you also have to take into account the bureaucratic cost of enforcement, and how complicated you can make things before those costs exceed the benefits of accurate distribution of costs to consumers. Definitely a complex issue.