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If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

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Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#71

Post by mjhay »

sandworm101 wrote: post #57
ckdarby wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the additional cost via health care either publicly or private via insurance premiums. Two wheel motorcycles today as they stand should be outlawed.

And so should bicycles too. The per-mile injury rate, the stat used when comparing a given journey, for bicycles is several times higher than that of motorcycles. And skateboards... they are per-mile death traps. Rollerblades are likely more dangerous per-mile than driving drunk while smoking. If you have to cover a given distance, the safest is not always the slowest. Often the faster means limits risk exposure and…

The health benefits of cycling outweigh the danger by many times. It's nonsense to only look at the costs of crashes. Besides, it's the cars that are dangerous, not the bikes (in addition to causing pollution, needing more infrastructure, etc).

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#72

Post by mjhay »

WillAdams wrote: post #40
_ea1k wrote: post #4

Agreed, all road taxes should be based on weight and miles driven. Make sure that it is non-linear, since road damage and weight aren't linear. And make sure that it affects fuel delivery trucks in the same way that it affects other heavy vehicles. Anything else would be plainly unfair.

Impose a tax on tires based on their mass.

Better to charge for the vehicle. You don't want to incentivize running on bald tires.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#73

Post by qiqitori »

sagarm wrote: post #62
sandworm101 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so should bicycles too. The per-mile injury rate, the stat used when comparing a given journey, for bicycles is several times higher than that of motorcycles. And skateboards... they are per-mile death traps. Rollerblades are likely more dangerous per-mile than driving drunk while smoking. If you have to cover a given distance, the safest is not always the slowest. Often the faster means limits risk exposure and…

Bicycles and motorcycles aren't dangerous: cars are.

I injured my ACL by riding a bicycle over a slippery manhole cover, no car involved. ;)

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#74

Post by Gigachad »

whalesalad wrote: post #61
Gigachad wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People do not consider the weight of the vehicle when purchasing. No one cares. And it's not something we should need to consider. Of course they don’t care. Because it’s only others being hurt. Which is why we need to push the problem back to the source. We shouldn’t allow deadly machines to be operated around urban spaces. If you need one out on the farm, that’s fine. But it’s not appropriate to take in to the ci…

Who is being hurt? Deadly machines? This is a very unpleasant curmudgeonly take. The context of this discussion is regarding road use and wear and tear.

Have you taken a look at the road fatalities in the US recently. People are quite literally being killed at an increasing rate. And these oversized cars are directly more deadly.

You might not care about putting lives over appearances. But others do.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#75

Post by landemva »

blamazon wrote: post #26
ke88y wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the alternative isn’t working either. Americas infrastructure trajectory is highly unsustainable even without decimating the gas tax. Eventually something gives. Lately it’s been bridges.

It's not necessarily working to even raise it either - Pennsylvania has the highest gas tax and the second highest number of bridges in poor condition in the country.

But the Turnpike upgrades are awesome.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#76

Post by sandworm101 »

duskwuff wrote: post #63
sandworm101 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That extends to motorcycles which, in comparison to all cars, do virtually zero damage to roads. Getting everyone out of cars and onto reasonable motorcycles, even sportbikes, would likely do more for the environment than the current plan of everyone driving electric tanks.

Motorcycles are shockingly fuel-inefficient. Some "touring" models get as little as 30 mpg, and few full-size motorcycles get above 60 mpg. While that isn't terrible , it's also not substantially better than a small car, and with much worse cargo capacity and crash survivability.

It is all about speed. Motorcycles are aerodynamic pigs. At low speeds they are very efficient, but at highway speeds they are horrible. Bikes are also not generally tuned for efficiency but horsepower. Find a modern california-spec bike witha modern engine like honda's VFR series. Even being much heavier, they use about 50% of the gas compared to the likes of the R1/6 which are tuned for horsepower.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#77

Post by AussieWog93 »

duskwuff wrote: post #63
sandworm101 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That extends to motorcycles which, in comparison to all cars, do virtually zero damage to roads. Getting everyone out of cars and onto reasonable motorcycles, even sportbikes, would likely do more for the environment than the current plan of everyone driving electric tanks.

Motorcycles are shockingly fuel-inefficient. Some "touring" models get as little as 30 mpg, and few full-size motorcycles get above 60 mpg. While that isn't terrible , it's also not substantially better than a small car, and with much worse cargo capacity and crash survivability.

I don't have the specific numbers, but I remember putting like 5L of petrol in the tank and riding for a full day when I was in Vietnam. That'd get you maybe 100km in a car.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#78

Post by softgrow »

Its about bringing externalaties to account, ie if you cost someone else money be it through particulate pollution, noise pollution, road maintenance, road provision you should pay that. So you can choose, but you must pay the full cost of your decision. If you get this right then everyone will choose optimally and the overall costs will diminish. Gas tax is roughly correlated but not great and a weight tax is better but still not exact.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#79

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

linsomniac wrote: post #21

America is not a nation of light vehicles, and that is largely due to the MPG standards that have been legislated for decades. An "out" was given based on vehicle weight, with heavier vehicles not having to meet as high a standard as lighter ones. Which is part of why trucks have gotten so huge over the past few decades.

It isn't an exception for weight, but rather the misguided footprint regulation that incentivizes larger vehicles that are allowed to have lower fuel economy. That coupled with the silliness of hatchback cars being classified as trucks has distorted the market and ruined the options for small vehicles that are truly trucks.

Re: If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose

#80

Post by xethos »

epivosism wrote: post #9

Strange they skipped the step of 1) taxing cars which cause more injuries per mile, 2) taxing resources (including externality cost) so that if you use more, you pay more. Instead they are taxing a pretty bad proxy for those actual policy goals. i.e. this incentivizes companies to reduce weight rather than add safety measures, and to use light materials regardless of if they cause more environmental damage. Hypotheti…

> Wired has really fallen

I mean maybe, but TFA is from Slate. Moreover, the article argues in favour of taxing the thing we want less of: weight. Weight means more power required to start, more mass to change direction and stop, more materials required for the larger batteries, and more of a literal impact on pedestrians.

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