11–20 of 158 posts
What’s also funny is in many parts of Europe, their idea of a “small” car seems to be very different from ours. I’ve heard people there classify cars like the Honda CRV or the VW ID.4 as “big”.
Regulations that say a normal household passenger vehicle can't weigh over X can be made to apply to everyone.
Vehicle mileage is taxed at the pump and at the charging station. The material is taxed at sale. Charging an excess tax is just. . . In excess. The pedestrian crash problem has more to do with our terrible alternative transportation traffic mixing. If the US took a more serious approach for bike lanes and pedestrian accessible infrastructure, the injury rate would decrease. Heavy vehicles is not a new problem. Look a…
They aren't safe everywhere, and they create some strong traffic degradation.
4.5 tons over two axles is approximately 25 times the damage of a sedan with 1 ton of weight on each axle. But that's not the same as a semi truck dealing 625 times as much damage as the sedan, or nearly 25 times as much damage as the Hummer EV. Given it costs over $100,000, I don't see 25x as many Hummer EVs hitting the road than big rigs in any given year.
> Consider a standard sedan with two axles and a total weight of 2 tons. Assuming an even distribution, each of its axles would bear the weight of 1 ton. Now consider a semitruck with eight axles and a weight of 40 tons -- each of its axles would weigh 5 tons. The relative damage done by each axle of the truck can be calculated with the following equation, and comes out to 625 times the damage done by each axel of the sedan.
> Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan.
> “The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. It’s not actually zero, but it’s so much smaller -- orders of magnitude smaller -- that we don’t even bother with them,” said Karim Chatti, a civil engineer from Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Not the same for bridges though:
> In reality, the relationship is more complicated. For instance, adding extra axles increases the total weight of the vehicle, making it more damaging, especially to bridges, where the total weight instead of axle weight is the main concern.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
Vehicle mileage is taxed at the pump and at the charging station. The material is taxed at sale. Charging an excess tax is just. . . In excess. The pedestrian crash problem has more to do with our terrible alternative transportation traffic mixing. If the US took a more serious approach for bike lanes and pedestrian accessible infrastructure, the injury rate would decrease. Heavy vehicles is not a new problem. Look a…
If road damage grows exponentially rather than linearly with weight, then so should the taxes. Nothing excess about it, it's just proportional.
But yeah, growing taxes on that proportion would make sense.
How about just not taxing everything and everyone into oblivion? Reduce all the wasteful government spending, and remove most of the government.
At a hefty 3.5T / 7,000 lbs, the Rivians* aren't much lighter than an E-Hummer (4.5T / 9,000 lbs). Isn't road wear non-linear, with heavy vehicles doing disproportionate damage compared to lighter ones? Ever noticed how the trucker lanes on the highway are the first to get potholes? The taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize luxury toys. Let the owners pay a fair amount relative to the strain they're adding to th…
Or is the real measure ground pressure? Apparently semi trucks run 6000lb up front per wheel and 4300lb in the rear. The Rivian runs 1400lb.
With asphalt, which is softer, I imagine the road damage more readily accumulates over time. Whereas the concrete on freeways I guess has an actual sheer strength and either breaks or it doesn’t.
I am neither a mechanical nor civil engineer, so just curious how the wear manifests.
A left-inclined publication wants more government interference and more taxes? I'm shocked! How about just not taxing everything and everyone into oblivion? Reduce all the wasteful government spending, and remove most of the government.