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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Fuck Cars
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Can't tell if /s or not... Infrastructure isn't housing, it's roads, bridges, etc
Great, but the question stands, why should I be penelized for needing a vehicle that fixes and builds your housing?
I don't know what they do where you live, but here we have license plates for work vehicles and personal vehicles. Work vehicles are subject to different tax and rules. This tax would apply to personal vehicles, ideally, as those are the problem.
Why should work vehicles be harder to use and get higher taxes?
Why should my tax dollars go to maintaining your highways when I don't own a car?
Gas tax does that.
No, it doesn't. Gas tax goes into the tax pool which is used to pay for most things that taxes pay for. We all pay for roads just as we all pay for hospitals, regardless of if we personally use them.
The taxes for larger vehicles is already done, it goes into the same pool that pays for maintenance. If you think the government is not fixing the roads as it should, that is a sepperate issue.
You have a 1 ton truck. The article refers to a 3.5 ton vehicle, presumably a personal car. Why are you fighting as if this is directed at you?
I've read the rest of your comments and must simply conclude that you are either here to troll or have literally no insight into how countries are run. The rest of your profile (because I did look, I'm a loser) gives off an 'arguing for the sake of arguing' / Devils Advocate vibe. If you are actually here in good faith, I recommend you look up what roads cost and hopefully realize that roads and subsidized and a net loss. If your "gas tax" actually did pay for your road usage, you would not be able to afford gas, and the 3.5 ton vehicles roaming around out there certainly do not pay their fair share in terms of damage to the roads. Road damage is exponential to vehicle weight.
Great question.
The better pitch is to consider the "tax" like an additional permit with increased costs, including mandatory more expensive insurance. It's the cost of doing business, wrapped into your overhead. The disparity between the large pickups and the smaller sedans of yesteryear are staggering; imagine if you could buy and operate a semi truck with the same costs and licensing as a sedan. Trailers parked in front of your house completely obscuring the street, or taking up extra spots at the grocery store. People who don't know the size of their vehicle knocking over signs and mailboxes. More roadkill, dead pets, and pedestrian fatalities because there are so many blind spots for such a big truck.
Obviously, pickups and semis are still quite different in size, but the point is that pickups and large SUVs are now so much bigger than sedans--bigger than what we built our streets and bridges for--that they present additional danger.
In short: these machines can be used to perform specific tasks, but they are not the same size, shape, or weight of our lived environment. Additional regulation is needed to offset the real effects on people and infrastructure (e.g., more difficult licensing, higher registration fees, higher tolls, etc.).
Everything you mention should be accounted for by higher insurance and the gas tax.
I think what we are running into is the conflict between freedom vs safety. I think it will get more apparent as people are not able to afford things that we have reached the point where we have too much regulation and things will get too expensive for people to afford.
Nah. People can't drive a bus or a semi without a CDL. It's not hard to get, sure, but you still have to go through at least some training and weeding out process, because those vehicles are more dangerous than a car. Bigger SUVs are now reaching that point, particularly if standard safety infrastructure is not designed for them. Once you hit that point, any person's freedom to drive it is outweighed by the freedom of everyone else to not be threatened by it. We can either redo every damn road in America, while also accepting much higher death rates, or we can limit these larger vehicles. Pretty obvious what the better option is.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "regulation". Increasing the cost, such as by mandating higher and more comprehensive insurance, or instituting a gas tax are both regulatory measures.
Why should you AS a member of society contribute to its betterment? You must know that driving over potholes with a pickup truck full of Materials and equipment tends to have negative consequences
The gas tax should about pay for the potholes. But do you really think the cost of filling potholes is that much relative to the size of the government?
@LovesTha @CableMonster @DriftinGrifter Okay, let's break this one down a little bit:
"Since 1990, U.S. pickup trucks have added almost 1,300 pounds on average. Some of the biggest vehicles on the market now weigh almost 7,000 pounds — or about three Honda Civics."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dangerous-rise-of-the-supersized-pickup-truck
"Moreover, pickups’ weight increased by 32% between 1990 and 2021 ... In the 1980s, about half of pickup trucks were categorized as small or midsize. But by the 2010s, small pickups had nearly vanished as Americans increasingly bought into the big truck lifestyle."
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/pickup-trucks-f150-size-weight-safety
"A [Consumer Reports] analysis of industry data shows that the hood height of passenger trucks has increased by an average of at least 11 percent since 2000 and that new pickups grew 24 percent heavier on average from 2000 to 2018. On some heavy-duty trucks, such as the Ford F-250, the front edge of the hood is now 55 inches or more off the ground—as tall as the roof of some sedans."
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-dangers-of-big-trucks/
"As pickups transitioned from workhorses to lifestyle vehicles, their design shifted accordingly: Cabs expanded to accommodate more passengers, while beds shrank.
"The first generation of F-150s was 36% cab and 64% bed by length. By 2021, the ratio flipped, with 63% cab and 37% bed."
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/pickup-trucks-f150-size-weight-safety
"The generalized fourth-power law explains why road damage is disproportionately inflicted by the heftiest vehicles. Developed after extensive federal roadway testing during the 1950s, the law is a rule of thumb showing that roadway stress caused by two vehicles is a function of their relative weight per axle scaled to the fourth power. As a result, a single 80,000-pound auto hauler with five axles can cause around 4,000 times the destruction of a two-ton car."
https://slate.com/business/2023/06/electric-vehicles-auto-haulers-weight-capacity-roads.html
In Australia, main roads are generally funded by federal and state governments through a mix of fuel excise and consolidated revenue. Local streets, which account for most of the road network, are funded by local councils through rates.
Despite the added cost, receive several tax breaks under Australia's tax code.
"Temporary Full Expensing allowed for vehicles to be claimed as an immediate, one-off tax deductible expense, and while that deduction was capped at $60,000 for passenger vehicles, there was no limit for vehicles that can carry at least a tonne.
"And the Loss Carry Back tax offset allows a business to claim the purchase of a new vehicle against the previous year's profits if that vehicle creates a net loss for the business."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-09/australian-cars-getting-bigger-should-government-intervene/103287604
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@LovesTha @CableMonster @DriftinGrifter So pick-up trucks are now typically larger, heavier, and cause more road damage than their '90s counterparts.
All while having smaller cabs, making them less effective tools for transporting construction supplies and equipment.
"Currently, automakers must hit a fleet-wide target for cars of 181 grams of CO2 emitted per mile, but 261 for light trucks, a 36 percent difference. By 2026, cars must average out to 132 grams of CO2 per mile compared with 187 for light trucks, a 34 percent difference."
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abk7b/bidens-new-fuel-economy-standards-still-allow-cars-to-pollute-more-if-theyre-not-called-cars
"Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned economic pressure from natural disasters will continue through 2023 after modelling showed severe flooding across the country last year cost the economy $5 billion."
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/floods-cost-economy-5-billion-last-year-20230112-p5cc1t.html
"More than 7,500 pedestrians were killed by drivers last year — the highest number since 1981. The final tally may be even greater given that Oklahoma was unable to provide data due to a technical issue."
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car
"The chances of a pedestrian dying in a single-vehicle crash were 68 percent higher when that vehicle was a light truck relative to a car, all else being equal.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/higher-vehicle-hoods-significantly-increase-pedestrian-deaths-study-finds/
"Tailpipe pollution contributes to the premature death of 11,105 Australians every year, according to new research.
"The modelling from the University of Melbourne claims vehicle emissions in Australia are also to blame for more than 12,000 hospitalisations annually due to cardiovascular issues, along with almost 7000 respiratory hospitalisations per year."
https://www.drive.com.au/news/emissions-kill-10x-more-australians-than-road-toll/
So that's 10 good reasons right there.
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@LovesTha @CableMonster @DriftinGrifter So let's sum this up then.
Modern pickup trucks are substantially larger and heavier than their '90s counterparts, with a smaller cab.
That means they weigh far more, are far bigger, and yet carry less than the vehicles that did the same job 30 years ago.
At least in Australia, they are directly subsidised by the federal tax system. Federal and state taxes pay for main roads.
And they're giant economic externality machines.
On local streets, which are funded by local councils, they cause additional road damage that is cross-subsidised by local councils.
They generate externalised costs from higher emissions, in the term of more frequent and severe bushfires, floods, droughts, and hurricanes.
They generate externalities in terms of pedestrian injuries and deaths that are subsidised by the healthcare system.
They generate higher health costs from air pollution. Again, these costs are cross subsidised.
That's without even getting into the massive subsidies at play with car-dependent suburban sprawl.
Or how modern pickup trucks are a massively inefficient use of road space.
Or how businesses are forced to cross-subsidise car ownership by needing to have large parking lots for motorists.
So yeah, it's probably not unreasonable to ask you to pay your fair share for some of those costs.
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