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Yes and so what makes the most sense is to make the tax increase with the 4th power of vehicle weight multiplied by the miles they travel. This way there are no
by chongli 3y ago
Yes and so what makes the most sense is to make the tax increase with the 4th power of vehicle weight multiplied by the miles they travel. This way there are no perverse incentives. Everyone pays their fair share according to how much damage they cause.
- eldaisfish 3y agoTying a tax to distance travelled requires accurate reporting of distance travelled. How is that not a perverse incentive?
- chongli 3y agoWe shouldn't care if you want to buy a 10,000 lb electric truck if you leave it parked in your driveway all year round. If we're not taxing based on distance then the perverse incentive is to drive big trucks until they fall to pieces.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoEasy in places where it requires annual safety checks
- airstrike 2y agowhich is really most anywhere these days, is it not? having lived in different states in different countries, this was always the case for me, but then again that's still a small sample size
- dragontamer 3y agoI love pushing "Tire Taxes". We all know that tires will emit rubber particles down to the point where the tire tred is 2/32th of an inch (from ~8/32ths of a fresh tire). So just... tax the tires based on the ~6/32ths of an inch outer-diameter of the tire that turns into microplastic dust. Calculate the microplastic dust weight of the outer diameter + weight of tires and bam. You have a 1-to-1 correlation of tax to exactly the amount of particles emitted. No weight^4th power required. The tire wear directly correlates to the pollution we care about. So tax / measure the tires directly, don't do anything else that's more indirect.
- NewJazz 3y agoDoesn't account for road wear or pedestrian risk, though.
- dragontamer 3y agoI have to imagine that if Car X wore out 5kg of rubber, that it would have had half the impact of another Car Y that wore out 10kg of rubber. Right? Tire wear has to be directly correlated to road wear. They're in physical contact with each other after all, so it'd be as direct a measurement as any other possible methodology.
- positr0n 3y agoBut rubber does not damage concrete, it's the weight of the vehicle that damages the concrete. As an extreme example, if I floor a 2000lb Miata when the light turns green that will deposit a ton of rubber on the road. But that does nothing compared to just driving through the intersection in a 6000lb suburban.
- dragontamer 3y agoI'm not saying "rubber damages concrete" any more than current gas taxes say "gasoline damages concrete". I'm saying the degregation of rubber is (likely) in direct correlation to the amount of road damage. (Much like gasoline is in direct correlation to miles-traveled, and thus is also an indirect measurement of road damage) There's no need for causation in this discussion. Correlation is enough to be worthy of a good tax design.
- chongli 3y agoYeah. It's the vehicle weight combined with temperature fluctuations and water, ice, and salt. The worst case scenario is when the road develops tiny cracks that fill up with water and then the temperature drops, causing the water to freeze and expand inside those cracks. The cracks grow larger and then when the water thaws and evaporates it leaves behind those large cracks/voids which heavy vehicles collapse due to their weight, turning cracks into potholes.