3 ms·

The article opens with: > It’s already well-established that heavier vehicles do more damage to roads than lighter ones, so it only makes sense for them to pay

The article opens with: > It’s already well-established that heavier vehicles do more damage to roads than lighter ones, so it only makes sense for them to pay extra for the privilege of driving, say, a GMC Hummer EV. Which as far as I can tell misrepresents the situation. A hummer does about 20x the damage as a regular car. An 18-wheeler does 400x the damage of a regular car. Source: https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh... Of course that's just road damage, and doesn't account for the increase in likelihood of pedestrian deaths. But as far as I can tell, 18-wheelers cause the vast majority of road damage on any paved roads, and if we're charging vehicles fairly, then normal cars pay "almost nothing", a hummer EV pays "20x almost nothing which is still very little", and the very large trucks are the only ones paying a substantial amount. So then the options are: 1) Make deliveries or other services such as garbage pickup much much more expensive because we're honestly charging vehicles by road damage. 2) Acknowledge that smaller consumer vehicles are actually subsidizing road damage caused by garbage pickup etc, but pretend that's not the case and use claims of "heavy EVs are destroying our roads" to make heavier consumer vehicles be the only group paying that subsidy. 3) Acknowledge that smaller consumer vehicles are actually subsidizing road damage caused by garbage pickup etc, and raise money based on that so that we have a functioning road network which benefits everyone with a vehicle. Personally I prefer (3) but anecdotally I've seen a lot of people out there pushing for (2). I'm fine with taxing higher weight vehicles to discourage their use and save cyclist/pedestrian lives (like mine!), but let's not lie about it.

legitster 3y ago
18 wheelers already pay additional tax based on weight and mileage.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Not if they're under 55k lbs. A 54,000 truck will cause thousands of times more damage than a Hummer EV. Does the tax you refer to reflect four orders of magnitude of damage differential? Source: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/hvut/mod1/whatishvut.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/hvut/mod1/whatish... Here's the amount paid for being over 55k lbs: > $100 plus $22 per 1,000 pounds over 55,000 lbs If that's the going rate for weight-based road damage, then scaled down to a residential vehicle, no one without a CDL would ever pay more than pennies. Since gas taxes and vehicle registration fees are needed to fund road construction, I have to conclude that residential vehicles are subsidizing road damage caused by trucks. Which, again, is fine. But let's be honest about it.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    This is correct. Almost all road repair costs are caused by commercial heavy trucks. They should not just pay more, they should be paying substantially all road work costs.
    - margalabargala 3y ago
      If we charge directly based on road damage, this is true. But I'm okay with residential road users subsidizing the use of commercial trucks; they're very useful to have around and charging appropriately would increase the cost of services not-insignificantly. Mileage taxes are interesting; then the people who use the roads the most, and have the most interest in keeping them in good shape, pay the most to do so. I'm also okay with charging heavy vehicles more based on them being a larger threat to life. But saying that tax is "because heavy residential vehicles do more road damage" is disingenuous.
tzs 3y ago
It looks like that chart at streets.mn is based on the well known rule that damage goes as the 4th power of weight. What I've not seen though is what range of weights that applies to. Take for example a chicken, an Eastern grey squirrel, and a mouse. The chicken weighs about 7 times what the squirrel weighs, and the squirrel weighs about 50 times what the mouse weighs. But I'm having a hard time believing that the squirrel crossing a modern highway does over 6 million times as much damage as the mouse crossing that highway, and the chicken crossing the road does over 15 billion times as much damage as a mouse.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  I don't find that so difficult to believe. Sure, big numbers are involved, but similarly are such large numbers involved in "how much damage can a road take before it begins to mechanically fail" As far as I can tell, a mouse does about 10^-19 times as much damage as a car. So a chicken does about 10^-9 times as much damage as a car. Considering weight alone and ignoring the difference between wheels and claws, a billion chickens doing the same damage as the weight of one car seems reasonable. In your example, the chicken, squirrel, and mouse all do such little damage to asphalt that it's all essentially zero. You can calculate the relative values as you did, but it's not really meaningful because it's still such a small number.

legitster 3y ago

18 wheelers already pay additional tax based on weight and mileage.

margalabargala 3y ago
Not if they're under 55k lbs. A 54,000 truck will cause thousands of times more damage than a Hummer EV. Does the tax you refer to reflect four orders of magnitude of damage differential? Source: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/hvut/mod1/whatishvut.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/hvut/mod1/whatish... Here's the amount paid for being over 55k lbs: > $100 plus $22 per 1,000 pounds over 55,000 lbs If that's the going rate for weight-based road damage, then scaled down to a residential vehicle, no one without a CDL would ever pay more than pennies. Since gas taxes and vehicle registration fees are needed to fund road construction, I have to conclude that residential vehicles are subsidizing road damage caused by trucks. Which, again, is fine. But let's be honest about it.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  This is correct. Almost all road repair costs are caused by commercial heavy trucks. They should not just pay more, they should be paying substantially all road work costs.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    If we charge directly based on road damage, this is true. But I'm okay with residential road users subsidizing the use of commercial trucks; they're very useful to have around and charging appropriately would increase the cost of services not-insignificantly. Mileage taxes are interesting; then the people who use the roads the most, and have the most interest in keeping them in good shape, pay the most to do so. I'm also okay with charging heavy vehicles more based on them being a larger threat to life. But saying that tax is "because heavy residential vehicles do more road damage" is disingenuous.

tzs 3y ago

It looks like that chart at streets.mn is based on the well known rule that damage goes as the 4th power of weight. What I've not seen though is what range of weights that applies to. Take for example a chicken, an Eastern grey squirrel, and a mouse. The chicken weighs about 7 times what the squirrel weighs, and the squirrel weighs about 50 times what the mouse weighs. But I'm having a hard time believing that the squirrel crossing a modern highway does over 6 million times as much damage as the mouse crossing that highway, and the chicken crossing the road does over 15 billion times as much damage as a mouse.

margalabargala 3y ago
I don't find that so difficult to believe. Sure, big numbers are involved, but similarly are such large numbers involved in "how much damage can a road take before it begins to mechanically fail" As far as I can tell, a mouse does about 10^-19 times as much damage as a car. So a chicken does about 10^-9 times as much damage as a car. Considering weight alone and ignoring the difference between wheels and claws, a billion chickens doing the same damage as the weight of one car seems reasonable. In your example, the chicken, squirrel, and mouse all do such little damage to asphalt that it's all essentially zero. You can calculate the relative values as you did, but it's not really meaningful because it's still such a small number.