this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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The "problem" with that tax is that if it's applied fairly, it gets very big very fast. The damage to the road goes up with weight, but not linearly. Not a square factor, either. Not even cube. It's to the fourth power.
Start applying that to long haul trucks and the whole industry will be bankrupt in a month. The implication being that we are all subsidizing that industry with taxes on roads. Including that one trucker with a "who is John Galt?" sticker on the back.
That said, this is also a very good argument for improving cargo trains to the point where most long haul trucking goes away.
No reason the tax had to scale exactly to match the damage though. At least make it painful enough so people consider whether a larger vehicle is worth it.
What if it's not a larger vehicle, but transitioning from a petrol burning vehicle to an electric vehicle?
We don't want to give people reasons to hold on to old combustion vehicles any longer than they have to, but the roads of course need to be made safe for passengers and pedestrians and wildlife, I agree.
If they hold on to their existing vehicle than thats just another upside. If they buy a new gasoline car instead of an EV this is bad. But EVs dont have to be insanely heavy if we stop the whole cars getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger crap. They will still be heavier than their gasoline counterpart but one solution might be 2 tax brackets: One for gasoline cars and one for evs that has the same taxation levels but allows for, lets say, 500kg more weight in them