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Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price. What can be done?
(theconversation.com)
Make rego 10x for these yank tank wanks
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
102 points (99.0% liked)
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Ban Ford Rangers at least. The drivers tend to be inconsiderate psychos.
They can ride eBikes instead.
Ban F-trucks, Silverados and RAMs.
I saw an F350 Super Duty parked in a suburban mains street the other day.
It is so big, it needed Interstate Heavy Vehicle plates. It was not a tradies Utes; It was not a Tow Vehicle, It wasn’t even an Oversized Load pilot. It was just compensating someone’s inadequacy.
It had a sticker on the window “Patriotism is not Racism” and it looked like a MAGA sticker but with an Australian Flag instead of the Stars and Stripes.
With all my heart, I wanted to get a paint marker and write “GAGYGF Seppo Cunt”, but I was on work uniform and did not have a paint pen. Also, I am not a complete arsehole.
Make an anger management course part of the requirements to register one.
Currently I think it's the other way around. Before you are allowed to own one you sign a contract saying you will at every opportunity drive millimetres from the bumper of the car in front.
Ranger Danger!
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(1 replies)
Increasing the weight of the car by 2x increases the road damage by 16x.
We should charge rego by weight and volume. We should measure safety by damage inflicted, not damage deflected.
We already to. IMHO rego is weight based.
Rego is weight-based, but it's utterly fucked.
My 900kg hatchback costs $149 more to register than a ute up to 4500kg out in the country.
In the city, the rego difference is $1.10.
What's worse, their FAQ says a lot of TAC claims for utes are paid by workcover, not the TAC. That's why it's cheaper.
...so people who purchase a roadblimp to use for school dropoffs are dodging the TAC charge, whilst being a much larger hazard than everyone else.
https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/about-the-tac/our-organisation/transport-accident-charge?drop=6
Canberra charges based on emissions category, with EVs being cheapest to register, and big engine diesels being the most expensive
They are categorised by their CO2 emissions in g/km, so the big and least efficient pay much more
News article, as the ACT government doesn't seem to publish the details in an easy to read format
I did not realize that rego is state specific. IMHO NSW has most sane method.
In NSW your hatchback will cost $270 and 3 tonne SUV $949.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/vehicle-registration/fees-concessions-and-forms/vehicle-registration-fees
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(6 replies)
Depends on the state. NSW for example is one that does vary depending on weight (based on weight ranges, not a full sliding scale) - there's a ~$180 difference between my sedan and van due to the van's higher tare weight placing it in the next category up. QLD on the other hand is one that doesn't - they charge based on the cylinder count instead.
Why is rego on a little i20 so damn expensive then
All rego-s are expensive. my last one was 600 for car just above 1500kg
check this.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/vehicle-registration/fees-concessions-and-forms/vehicle-registration-fees
First, the “SUV loophole”: under US law, most SUVs are classified as light trucks, meaning they’re subject to less stringent fuel-efficiency and crash-safety standards than passenger cars.
This has always been baffling to me. Make the standards universal and I reckon people would make very different choices.
just remove the tax rebate/incentive
Could it be so simple?
Pretty much yes.
Smaller cars and tax the ultra wealthy. Really not that complex.
If the vehicle has RANGER on the back i just automatically assume they are a cunt.
Ranger Raptor RUGGED X TUFF BLACK BLOKE EDITION
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(2 replies)
Pretty early the article points out that the top selling car in 2011 was far smaller than the best selling car now, in 2025, a Ford Ranger
It then says:
Four in five new cars sold in Australia are SUVs or utes – more than double the share of 20 years ago.
And follows up by pointing out two parts of US legislation that are driving manufacturing in the US to produce larger cars and ends by pointing out the extra risks with larger cars and how the situation can be improved using local legislation.
Why does the article ignore that the 2011 top selling car was from an Asian manufacturer and that Asian and European manufacturers exist. I went looking for data on sales from regions / brands over time but failed a bit. Anyone want to fill in the gaps? Obviously Mazda is no longer selling the top selling model and Ford is, but was there a swing in sales to Ford, a consolidation of sales on one model or maybe more that people that loved Ford just started buying the bigger cars? Any chance someone knows of some sort of data that helps fill in the gaps?
Speed limit Rangers to 40kph within city limits. They usually speed through school zones and roadworks so it won't slow them down but we might get a few disqualified from driving which will help.
Zero BAC requirement for vehicles exceeding various hazard thresholds? Say, 2.5T GVM, vehicle width/length, and a particular vision path requirement.
I'm guessing the sales of emotional support vehicles would drop overnight with that policy.
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(5 replies)
Let us bully them again, these dipshits with their shit over sized vehicles used to be publicly mocked for their insecurities, bring that back and you will see a drop in sales for them, shame works wonders.
Double the price of gas. Problem will solve itself.
We have done more than that over the thirty years. It hasn't helped.
$1.65 AUD/L (as per brief google search) is not that expensive. Although, I also find it funny that a Ranger is considered a “large” vehicle. That’s a mini truck in NA. The cousin humper trucks here could literally drive over a Ranger.
Replace petrol taxes with a formula based on miles driven and weight of car.
People are surprisingly unkeen on tracking in their car. So kilometers driven wouldn't work.
I'd say just go with a fee based on the weight of the vehicle, exponential of course. We need fewer heavy cars, fewer kilometers driven will be a side effect. And as a bonus effect maybe I'd be able to buy an EV without a range that's 8 times what I actually need.
Eh, people can submit odometer readings once a year with their rego renewal.
Honesty based should be good enough. Penalties can apply if you're caught tampering or severely underreporting.
Have you actually driven outside the city here? I need the 400km my EV has to get between capital cities
A child’s skull doesn’t know whether it’s steel or lithium making up that extra 0.5T.
A child got by my small long range EV would be more likely to survive than one hit by a similar weight internal combustion vehicle as mine is a car (with proper pedestrian safety) and the other would be much higher and larger.
A child still cares that the front of the vehicle is low, that it doesn't have a bull bar. A kid would be better off hit by an electric car than by a landcruiser
A 2t EV is much smaller than a 2t diesel
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(6 replies)
Odometer reading is a relatively unobtrusive metadatum.
It is recorded when the vehicle is serviced so it is already in someone’s database.
If kms travelled had to be reported annually at the time of registration, no-one will complain (except sov-shit cookers, and they don’t pay rego anyway).
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(1 replies)
Big fan of fire
I thought that was specifically a North American issue. Damn. Stay safe pedestrians (those drivers of too-large vehicles won't even see you when they run you over)!
"Second, under US fuel economy rules, fuel-efficiency targets are adjusted based on the size of the vehicle’s “footprint” — the area between its wheels. In practice, this means larger vehicles are allowed to consume more fuel while still meeting the target."
So this is the problem (in US) remove that rule and cars will shrink again. Deformities often caused by unnatural pressure, and this is an example.
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