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Autobesity: More than 150 car models too big for regular UK parking spaces
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
571 points (98.3% liked)
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Cars should be taxed based on their potential for road wear, which is calculated approximately by their weight to the fourth power.
Adding such a tax, where every vehicle paya relative to what they do to the road surface they roll on, would instantly make all SUVs unviable. It would also increase the incentives for shipping freight by rail by an incredible amount.
Yes please, apply the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polluter_pays_principle
The absence of it's application means you make others pay for the costly decisions of a few, incentivizing and subsidizing damaging behaviour.
The absence also often means wealth transfer from poor to rich, as you need to have some wealth to be able to cause significant 'pollution'.
It makes so much sense. "You want this? Ok, then pay for what it entails, all the consequences." Only then people make informed decisions.
Dude, we are still stuck with half of America thinking more CO2 is good because it's "extra plant food". This policy you suggest would have them countering saying they should pay less for helping to feed the forests with their vehicle's emissions.
It's a great solution, but I don't know how we could get it passed.
Great idea, I hear Aramco is the world's biggest polluter, let's start there.
You can start from several points in parallel.
There's no need to wait for Aramco.
Road wear comes from weight and power, so does pollution. Add size to the equation and you can estimate a cars dangerousness. Look only at size and you can see a cars damage to urban spaces. Hence, private vehicles should be taxed based on their size, weight and power. Bonus points for tire width, because tires are a non-recycable environmental problem and super-wide tires add nothing to the world but damage.
Tyre width relates to grip and handling does it not?
Thatβs relevant to certain rural communities, but I see a lot more wide tyres on suspension lowered BMW with bad chrome jobs.
Feels like the kind of thing that shouldnβt be encouraged for Inner City vehicles, I wonder what the correlation is between these vehicles and the kinds of arsehole tearing up a 20mph at 60mph at 4am.
Ceteris paribus, it mostly does. But that also means, that they can be used to driver faster holding the probability of an accident constant, while raising the severity of damage in case of an accident. Incidents where they would have prevented an accident are likely to be insignificant, while at the same time, more grip is likely to induce more risk-seeking driving, hence resulting in a net-negative to overall safety.
However, keep in mind that super wide tires are never installed for safety reasons anyway, but mostly for cosmetic purposes and the drivers couldn't care less for the risks and damages that come with wider tires. Therefore society has to prohibit it in self-defence.
Dutch cars are taxed on weight, with temporary exceptions for EVs.
Does it scale to the fourth power? If yes, colour me impressed.
No.
You could always tax by emissions and weight. EVs are not really the solution to the general car problem anyway. Mass transit is, at least in cities and other densely populated areas.
I think we agree but I still need to point out: Individual transport will always be a requirement for living in rural areas. The βfuck carsβ sentiment only makes sense in cities with more than ~3 million inhabitants.
While I agree with the sentiment on cars in the city, I'd say that it is already viable in much smaller cities. I live in a city with 350k inhabitants and I'm doing quite well without a car.
For sure. But forbidding cars doesn't make sense until you have several millions of people in a single city.
What are you smoking lmao, do you seriously think anything below 3 million people is rural?
rural is when it takes you an hour to reach the nearest grocery store by car.
That's not rural, that's ultra remote wilderness. Like what place doesn't have a grocery store in a 100km radius? Some place deep in the Australian outback?
Village of ~10k, nearest grocery store is 25min walk, 10min bike, 5min car.
There are also three smaller stores a 2 min walk away. Europe for reference
I sincerely doubt there is a a place in Europe outside of maybe remote Scandinavia or Russia where you can't get to a grocery store after driving for an hour.
i'm very curious what on earth your definition of rural is then, your parent's backyard?
My definition of rural is a place with some semblance of human habitation that is not urban. A speck of land characterized by villages, farms or forestry. Where you have limited access to the amenities found in cities.
However, what village does not have a grocery store? Or at least not one in the next bigger village?
Do you have some examples of villages without a grocery store an hour of driving away?
3 million is gigantic! The country I'm in currently barely has that many people
You can do car-free at any size if its planned right.
All UK residents pay road tax, whether they own a vehicle or not. You're referring to emissions tax, which only the vehicle owner pays.
Technically correct, but everyone colloquially still refers to the tax that you pay on your car as road tax even though it's now emissions-based
It's called 'vehicle exercise duty'. At least get it right if you're going to be pedantic. It is directly related to emissions, therefore emissions tax is more appropriate for a nickname.
Small diesel car is much better than huge EV car in any city. Just look at any comparision on effectiveness of transport means and how cars are the least effective. If we allow to have now even bigger cars on our roads, then we end with even less effective communication, especially in places where buses get stuck in traffic.
I'd rather a quiet EV than a noisy & polluting combustion engine personally.
Living on a busy road has honestly made me dislike cars much more though, they are SO NOISY, and people around here rev their motorbikes and car engines so damn much especially at night time. I'm a deep sleeper so I don't hear it unless I'm awake, but I feel sorry for the neighbours.
Even the buses that go past are way quieter than the cars (the electric ones are completely silent), dunno if they're using more expensive tyres or something π€·ββοΈ.
Also I can forget opening windows during rush hour periods. The exhaust smell takes over the house pretty quickly, especially when there's start/stop traffic βΉοΈ
Tesla model S is heavier than my diesel truck. Many EVs probably are
I think it's probably likely that EVs are inherently a little heavier than ICEs, but I don't think it explains all of the weight growth trend of EVs. If we want to make sure that EVs do not become uncompetitive in relation to ICEs under this type of scheme, you could simply give them the first N kilograms off. This makes sure that the property of road wear still gets priced in for relatively heavier EVs, without making them directly uncompetitive.
You'd need some carve out for electric vehicles, they are super heavy compared to a gas car of the same size. (Assuming you want to encourage electric over gas)
As someone who lives in a country that actually has this system. No. It's a shitty system. It results in old shitty cars that pollute like insanity. Some cars are more economical and safer than some badly built cars with less safety features and those safer cars are actually punished with this system.
You are literally better off buying an old banger that is falling apart and a road hazard than a new car because of our stupid tax system. And the people who drive SUVs here are usually rich and don't care about higher road tax.