No, your Ford F-350 SuperDuty does not entitle you to roll coal just to drive to and from your job at Bass Pro Shop, Dale.
I think if we just tax vehicles at the rate they destroy the road, we’d quickly see folks stop having giant vehicles. Set the standard as a bicycle (and be unreasonable about the weight, so 25kg), and then use the lovely X^4 function to determine how much to tax.
A bicycle (and let’s just say the average person is 100kg, and added to the bicycle’s weight, to be unreasonable again) costs $0.50 to register… while the f350 (found a weight for the lightest around 6000 lbs, or 2721.5kg) should be about $0.50 * (2721.5kg/125kg)^4 = $112347.47. I think that would do just fine. Maybe we could adjust down a little, so the bike could be $0.05, and the truck $11234.75.
I know… and I also know that we currently depend on truck rigs for shipping in everything, so the taxes would ultimately focus on them MUCH MORE than even the assholes in their coal rollers. That would mean the ‘punishing’ factor of the taxation would be diluted for them, even if we used GCWR of a vehicle as the standard for taxing.
Sadly, this isn’t a “the market can handle it” thing either. Gas stations have underground tanks which have to be dug up and disposed of before the land can be used again, and it’s expensive. So gasoline infrastructure will remain for a while regardless of how many gas powered vehicles there are.
I think if we just tax vehicles at the rate they destroy the road, we’d quickly see folks stop having giant vehicles. Set the standard as a bicycle (and be unreasonable about the weight, so 25kg), and then use the lovely X^4 function to determine how much to tax.
A bicycle (and let’s just say the average person is 100kg, and added to the bicycle’s weight, to be unreasonable again) costs $0.50 to register… while the f350 (found a weight for the lightest around 6000 lbs, or 2721.5kg) should be about $0.50 * (2721.5kg/125kg)^4 = $112347.47. I think that would do just fine. Maybe we could adjust down a little, so the bike could be $0.05, and the truck $11234.75.
Yes, but that makes sense. Don’t you know that’s not allowed?! /s
I know… and I also know that we currently depend on truck rigs for shipping in everything, so the taxes would ultimately focus on them MUCH MORE than even the assholes in their coal rollers. That would mean the ‘punishing’ factor of the taxation would be diluted for them, even if we used GCWR of a vehicle as the standard for taxing.
Sadly, this isn’t a “the market can handle it” thing either. Gas stations have underground tanks which have to be dug up and disposed of before the land can be used again, and it’s expensive. So gasoline infrastructure will remain for a while regardless of how many gas powered vehicles there are.