381–388 of 388 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of the cars you see on European streets would seem a bit... small... to many Australians.
And the roads in reverse. Australian roads are massive (and fast) compared to Europe.
Inside cities, Australia definitely does have higher average speeds than inside most European cities though.
I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…
"Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
"But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
Terry Pratchett, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, we need children. That's not a question. The question is if a single couple needs to produce so many children they drive a vehicle so massive is earns tax breaks.
In this context, I assume a "large family" is 3 or 4 children (a 5 seat sedan cannot physically, legally fit 4 children and two parents, and due to the size of modern carseats it can be dicey or impossible to fit 3 of them in compact or midsize sedans even for a 3-child family). Even just maintaining replacement rate fertility requires an average of 2.1 children TFR, which means some families would need to have 3 or…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, if we assume it's based on tire weight, a 50-tonne 18-wheeler actually does (50/9)^4 ≈ 952.6 times as much damage, not 625. > I suspect the reason nobody cares enough to test this is that it would still be a gap large enough to make cars insignificant. That seems likely, yes.
Right, because you don't double up the two front wheels which are used for steering. I suspect that more weight is put on the rear and trailer axles than the front as well, and that two tires in close proximity aren't as good as two tires separated by greater distance. So even 1000x is probably optimistic. My main point though is just that the study happened to use truck axles as a measurement and that can't blindly…
Passenger off-road vehicles with knobby tires might be harder on roads too in a different way than weight.
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There is one issue though. Bike lanes tend to require better road conditions for people to want to use them. Roads do degrade over time due to weather. This means that the difference between a vehicle at x weight vs no vehicle at all will be negligible. I don't know what the x is though.
the vast majority of road degredation isn't due to weather, its due to weight wear. As heavy vehicles travel down the road, they create a "ripple" on the road surface in front of the axle. You can create a similar effect if you run your hand across a loose sheet on top of your bed (you will see the wrinkle in the sheet in front if your hand). This bending is the method of road wear that causes like 99% of the mainten…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, because you don't double up the two front wheels which are used for steering. I suspect that more weight is put on the rear and trailer axles than the front as well, and that two tires in close proximity aren't as good as two tires separated by greater distance. So even 1000x is probably optimistic. My main point though is just that the study happened to use truck axles as a measurement and that can't blindly…
Also, truck tires are also much larger (than an average passenger car) and have a larger contact area. Passenger off-road vehicles with knobby tires might be harder on roads too in a different way than weight.
It would make a significant difference to the calculations, eg 50% wider tires would mean dividing truck severity by 5.
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AFAIK: If you want to claim cheaper rate for part of it, you need to install a second certified meter for that part. If you are willing to go by default rate (which at least in some places assumes some ratio) you don't.
Ah. I guess this is all because you don’t get charged for sewerage on the lawn watering.