6 ms·
Cars damage infrastructure in proportion to the fourth power of axle load. Not only are people in big cars killing people in little cars, they're also HEAVILY s
by thot_experiment 2y ago
Cars damage infrastructure in proportion to the fourth power of axle load. Not only are people in big cars killing people in little cars, they're also HEAVILY subsidized by the people they kill.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- dataflow 2y agoI feel like this means taxes should be imposed on cars proportionally to the fourth power of axle load too.
- lostlogin 2y agoThe US is a poster child for ‘user pays’, but I wouldn’t fancy the chance of success.
- erikaww 2y agoCar makers would adjust but road freight would fight this tooth and nail
- dataflow 2y agoGood point, but one could probably easily treat freight vehicles differently.
- coryrc 2y agoNo, they should be paying for their damage. Bring back local railroads if it's a problem. Add more axles, move less at once.
- Groxx 2y agoIf only we had other technologies for moving heavy things without using concrete roads
- stefan_ 2y agoTechnology that was infinitely more efficient and safer, even
- gruez 2y agoDrones? For last mile delivery roads are the only game in town.
- nradov 2y agoThe USA already moves a higher percentage of freight by rail than almost any other country. But rail could never work for time-sensitive loads or last mile delivery.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoYou would be amazed at how much FedEx, UPS, and Amazon traffic moves by train. BNSF (at least) even has "guaranteed delivery" trains. Last mile I will give you. Those shippers use trailers and containers on railroad cars, and trucks do the last mile delivery.
- Groxx 2y agoPerhaps they could make the rail lines and machinery smaller. One might even consider such rail to be "light", in comparison. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that many cities already have rail lines going down roads in city centers. They probably just built the city around a historical freight line, and haven't bothered to remove it.
- yyyk 2y agoHorses? I don't see how you really solve last mile.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoHuh? I've had horses in my basement. The last mile was solved centuries ago.
- blibble 2y agothe freight has more axles, and you could set the baseline weight by vehicle class but maybe this would just incentivise the sort of person that buys an F150 to drive to the shops to simply to upgrade to a big rig (for the tax saving?!)
- bobbylarrybobby 2y agoSegregating regulations by vehicle class is how the CAFE laws failed. Make your vehicle a “light truck” and now you can give it much worse mileage. No, you just have to charge in proportion to damage done and let the economics work out how they will.
- alamortsubite 2y agoAlso penalties for moving violations.
- jl6 2y agoThe unintended consequences of this would be: Massive increase in the cost of public transport as buses pass their tax costs onto users. Massive increase in the cost of freight shipping, which would be passed on to consumers, i.e. everybody, since virtually every part of the economy depends indirectly on freight transport. It would amount to everybody paying, and thus being more or less equivalent to public funding of roads.
- dwattttt 2y agoIt's worth noting that unless the roads are degrading and not being repaired, those costs are already being paid. It's just a question of who is paying it.
- dataflow 2y ago> The unintended consequences of this would be: ... public transport ... freight You could obviously tweak legislation to treat such vehicles differently if you wanted. I was just getting the core idea across, not suggesting my comment should be copy-pasted verbatim into the next bill Congress is passing.
- gamepsys 2y agoFreight -- Ideally this causes more investment into freight rail and more freight to be moved by rail/boat. This might cause short term price increases to expand the infrastructure, but long term it's much cheaper/greener/efficient to move this stuff on rail. Last mile (maybe last 100 miles) will always be by truck, but we have way too much long haul stuff. Public Transport -- If tax payers are currently paying for the external costs of public transportation (via taxes to repair roads) then it won't cost anymore public money if taxpayers continue to cover that cost. For private busses this is a case of tax payers unfairly subsiding their external costs.
- AdrianB1 2y agoIntended consequence would be: cars pay for the damages they do to the road. Even buses. What is wrong with that?
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- Bloating 2y agoI feel like many things too
- spacebanana7 2y agoBecause that function is so convex, almost all of the cumulative damage to roads is done by lorries, buses and fuel trucks. Cars, even big ones, are negligible compared to the fourth power of bus weight.
- xyzzy_plugh 2y agoSure, but there are plenty of roads that don't see much, if any, traffic of that type.
- sarchertech 2y agoThere are very very few paved roads where the largest vehicles on them are large SUVs. I live on a mountain near a road where commercial vehicles are banned and we still get a few large commercial vehicles per day. One of the roads up the mountain has switchbacks near the top that are so tight that nothing longer than 18 feet is allowed up, but at least 2x a week a box truck gets stuck. Heavy cars have many negative impacts but road maintenance isn’t one worth worrying about.
- skhunted 2y agoThere are vehicles that do more damage to roads than large pickup trucks. It's still the case that large pickup trucks do more damage to the road than small cars. Owners of pickup trucks are being subsidized by pedestrians and small car owners. They do not pay enough for the privilege of driving their vehicles in relation to the damage they cause.
- sarchertech 2y agoRoad damage isn’t like hit points. If a road has regular large vehicle traffic, it doesn’t really matter how many smaller passenger vehicles are driving on it—even if they are pickup trucks. Passenger vehicles aren’t going to change how frequently the road needs to be repaved. At the extreme end, imagine a railroad bridge. We don’t care about how fat the mice that regularly cross it are.
- AdrianB1 2y agoWe do it different in Europe: pay disproportionate by engine displacement. My father's car has 10x the taxes as my mother's car just because the engine is 1.6 times larger (2.5 liters, nothing outrageous). At the same time my mother pays for that car quite close to what I pay for each of my bikes that are 8-10 times lighter and have way smaller engines (300cc and 600cc).
- closewith 2y agoWhere in Europe is that? In Ireland, displacement-based taxes were replaced by emission taxes 14 years ago. I think most countries have followed suite.
- AdrianB1 2y agoRomania, but neighboring countries have similar systems.
- M95D 2y ago> We do it different in Europe > Romania Oh, please stop using Romania as an example for Europe. We're the banana country here.
- ncruces 2y agoWhich is a much better system. My country (Portugal) still does mostly displacement, and a turbo-charged 1 liter pays a lot less than a naturally aspirated 1.6 hybrid, despite the former consuming 50% more gas.
- nradov 2y agoThe notion of charging different fees or taxes by engine displacement is idiotic. It has nothing particularly to do with road wear, emissions, or safety hazards.
- heisenbit 2y agoIf you want a measure that can not be easily manipulated and can serve as an albeit imperfect proxy for wear, emissions, weight and last but not least ability to pay then displacement is an option for taxation.