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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the exceedingly-crumbly dept.

Phys.org:

To fix the potholes and crumbling roads, federal, state and local governments rely on fuel taxes, which raise more than US$80 billion a year and pay for around three-quarters of what the U.S. spends on building new roads and maintaining them.

I recently purchased an electric car, the Tesla Model 3. While swerving down a particularly rutted highway in New York, the economist in me began to wonder, what will happen to the roads as fewer and fewer cars run on gasoline? Who will pay to fix the streets?

Will toll roads become universal to bridge the funding gap?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:49PM (55 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:49PM (#806933) Journal

    Trucks already pay mileage taxes. Just extend that to cars. With GPS, it's a simple matter to keep track of how many miles you travel in each state. Just have the computer spit it out each month, or each quarter, or whatever. Send the statement along with your payment to your county or state capital. The state can worry about balancing funds among the other states. Problem solved. Or, maybe you don't even get the printout - the data goes straight to the state, and the state bills you. That's even simpler.

    Whatever, the roads are going to be paid for.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:14PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:14PM (#806950)

    Around here, a lot of the roads are not being paid for, terrible condition. Partly it's our climate, many freeze-thaw cycles over the winter with temps averaging around freezing. Once there is a crack for water to get in, the roads will crack. Since this isn't very dependent on traffic, the cost could be spread over all road users--which is nearly everyone, so the general tax fund.

    Back to user taxes -- if the tax is for the damage done, then trucks should pay the largest part by far. Road damage from weight goes as the 4th or 5th power of the weight. Bicycles don't damage roads, cars very little and trucks (overload in particular) do most of the damage.

    • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:32PM

      by Sulla (5173) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:32PM (#807023) Journal

      State of Oregon has been looking into a GPS mileage tax to pay for road work.
      http://www.myorego.org/ [myorego.org]

      https://www.oregon.gov/das/OEA/Documents/2017report.pdf [oregon.gov]
      Is a report they produce every two years about the state of the roads, who does the most damage, etc.

      When i last looked back in 2015 they were talking about how there is essentially no difference in damage done by light trucks and by cars. Previously they lumped all vehicles less than 8,000lb together because they did the same amount of damage, they have raised that to 10,000lb because they found that the extra 2k didn't effect road damage enough to have a separate group. When the program first launched it was to get all the small fuel efficient cars that are doing just as much damage as a truck, but not paying nearly as much, to pay their share of the road repair costs.

      --
      Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:21PM (18 children)

    by Farkus888 (5159) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:21PM (#806959)

    I could have sworn I've seen you ranting about privacy before. I don't want the government having direct access to GPS of my every movement. It is bad enough now when all they have to do is ask Google nicely.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:01PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:01PM (#806993)

      That is always the solution from these people: more spying and more taxes. No matter what the problem, it can be used as an excuse for those two activities.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (10 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (#807006) Journal

        That is always the solution from these people: more spying and more taxes.

        I always suspected Runaway of being a lefty who hasn't yet gotten out of the closet. (large grin)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:40PM (2 children)

          by Sulla (5173) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:40PM (#807028) Journal

          So we get to tax one of the most environmentally dangerous parts of the vehicle and give a market solution to replacing them? Sounds pretty good idea.

          --
          Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
          • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:43PM

            by Sulla (5173) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:43PM (#807030) Journal

            Sorry, resized browser to watch your tire video and replied to the wrong one of your posts.

            --
            Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:47PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:47PM (#807032) Journal

            Sounds pretty good idea.

            Well, it is one, isn't it?

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:52PM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:52PM (#807037) Journal

          I can't get out of the closet because your large ass is in the way. Move over!!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:05PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:05PM (#807048)

            Lame

            • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:16PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:16PM (#807063) Journal

              He's lame? That's why he doesn't get out of the way?

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM (#807052)

          It has nothing to do with left vs right. They are on the same side. It is republicrat authoritarians vs the rest of us.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:14PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:14PM (#807057) Journal

            Yeah, maybe... but I can't make fun of Runaway based on what you said.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:06PM (#807218)

            what kind of dumb bitch modded the post troll? oh, that's right, the typical suck ass american voter.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:03AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:03AM (#807508)

              The kind of bitch that just modded your protest at being modded troll, you troll biatch! You don't understand what we do here, do you? Well, fuck off, looser!

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:00PM (5 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:00PM (#807043) Journal

      Yes, I rant about privacy. But, the fact is, they're watching us anyway - might as well make some use out of it.

      Actually, though, it isn't necessary to log every mile you travel, and report every mile to the gubbermint. The vehicle has multiple onboard computers anyway. Give them the software to work this stuff out. The only detail necessary in your report to the state looks about like this:

      Alabama: 2356 miles
      Alaska: 0
      Arizona 0
      Arkansas 780 miles
      California 0
      Colorado 0
      Connecticut 0
      Delaware 0
      Florida 9128 miles
      Georgia 10575 miles
      etc and so forth

      Trucking companies make a similar report, but the numbers are much, MUCH bigger. I've never heard of any of the states auditing a trucking company, trying to get an extra thousand miles worth of taxes out of them. It's pretty damned tough to chase down those last few miles! Set up the software, then trust it to do the job properly.

      • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:41PM

        by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:41PM (#807200) Journal

        The weigh stations that trucks have to drive through record the DOT numbers of commercial vehicles, so states have first pass rough data on it.

        With electronic driving records, trucking companies already have high quality miles per vehicle/driver/state.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:25PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:25PM (#807330)

        That makes sense, but instead of recording mileage, which is only a mediocre proxy for road wear, the car should record kilowatt hours. The amount of energy a car uses to move is a good proxy for road wear.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:23AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:23AM (#807368)

          The amount of energy a car uses to move is a good proxy for road wear.

          Bullshit.
          The only deficiency of mileage is that it doesn't include vehicle weight, which is by far the biggest factor in road wear. And at least for cars and light trucks, this is trivially accounted for by considering the vehicle's weight from the registration database. (For commercial trucks, on the other hand, the actual vehicle weight may vary a factor of two or more depending on loading.)
          Power usage isn't an improvement, as it has a lot more to do with acceleration habits and traffic anticipation than with vehicle weight, and these have no significant relation to road wear.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:07AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:07AM (#807510)

            Because energy is never about mass X velocity. so that would have nothing to do with . . . are you always this stupid, or only when you post on the intertubes?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:16AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:16AM (#807891)

              First, you need mass raised to the 4th power or so to reflect actual road wear, so "mass X velocity" won't cut it.
              If we want to get pedantic, road wear is related to axle weight4, not mass, but since the current crop of EVs generally have 2 axles and more-or-less symmetric weight distributions, that's practically a constant factor; it's only worth worrying about the distinction when freight trucks start going electric in any kind of scale.

              Because energy is never about mass X velocity

              Pretty much:

              • Air resistance as a force is drag coefficient × frontal area × velocity2, so the power is proportional to a·v3, and the energy to travel a given distance at that speed is just a·v2. Frontal area is only weakly related to mass, drag coefficient has no relationship (but varies widely between vehicle types in the same weight class), and you've got velocity to the wrong power.
              • Kinetic energy is mass × velocity2, and is input each time you accelerate from zero to a given velocity -- it's completely independent of distance traveled once you get up to speed, and thus has fuck-all to do with road wear
              • Rolling resistance modeled as a constant force means power is some coefficient of weight × velocity, which might be what you're thinking of, but energy for a given distance has no velocity dependence. (Actual rolling resistance with car tires is weakly dependent on velocity, but the power is much less than 1.) And of course this is dwarfed by air resistance in highway driving, and by kinetic energy for repeated accelerations in city driving. I guess it's relevant if you're tooling down a back road at 30 miles per hour.
              • Fluid friction (e.g. from journal bearings) actually is force × velocity; this matters for trains, but in road vehicles bearing friction is completely overwhelmed by the rolling resistance of soft tires.

              So yeah, at least in the context of EV energy consumption, energy is never about "mass X velocity".

              are you always this stupid

              no u

  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:31PM (3 children)

    by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:31PM (#806964) Journal

    With GPS, it's a simple matter to keep track of how many miles you travel in each state. Just have the computer spit it out each month, or each quarter, or whatever.

    Would owners of cars manufactured before the transition be required to buy a tamper-evident GPS unit specifically for this purpose? To what extent would law enforcement be able to subpoena records from this unit in order to put a person of interest at the scene of a crime?

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:03PM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:03PM (#807046) Journal

      I thought we were only considering electric vehicles, which don't pay a tax at the gas pump. No need to install this stuff on a gas guzzler, is there? And, I'm pretty sure that all the electrics out there have the capability to do this. All that is required is an update from Musky Man, or whoever sold the vehicle.

      • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:59AM (1 child)

        by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:59AM (#807462) Journal

        I'm pretty sure that all the electrics out there have the capability to [count electric miles in each U.S. state]. All that is required is an update from [the auto maker]

        I'm not so sure that an update would be practical for extended-range electric vehicles (also called plug-in hybrids), such as Toyota Prius and Holden/Chevy Volt, or early all-battery EVs that predate wide Tesla availability, such as Nissan Leaf.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:34PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:34PM (#807641) Journal

          Fair enough - maybe they can't all be updated. But, the feds can certainly mandate that all new cars have that ability.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:47PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:47PM (#806979)

    You don't need a freaking GPS, although the governments will doubtless claim you do. Cars already have odometers, and they are already tamper resistant. Just report that.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (#806983)

      A tire tax. Tire wear is a function of mileage.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:06PM (#806998)

        this would actually work better than fuel today.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:28PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:28PM (#807020) Journal

        A tire tax. Tire wear is a function of mileage.

        Wait.. I have a vision. I see... I see it now...
        I see wheels with no tires [youtube.com] becoming a mundane reality

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:06PM (#807261)

        No, tire wear is not a simple function of mileage -- I posted above on this, copying here as well:

        Tire wear is a bad metric, very slight changes in driving style can make huge differences in wear. My SO accelerates moderately while unwinding the steering wheel after a city corner, this is a common behavior. I wait until I'm nearly straightened out before accelerating moderately. I also lift the throttle when I see a red light ahead, coast down and minimize braking. I get nearly twice the tire mileage that she gets. I adjusted my driving style at some point in my middle age after working with tire experts at a couple of different tire manufacturers.

        It's the combined turning and accelerating that makes all the difference to the front(drive) tires. But it's hard to see that this would have any appreciable effect on wearing out the roads faster?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (#806984)

      This doesn't work for interstate travel

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:20PM (2 children)

        by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:20PM (#807011) Journal

        This doesn't work for interstate travel

        The current fuel tax doesn't really work for that either. I live and work in Rhode Island, but I can't remember the last time I bought gas in this state. Might happen three or four times a year. I cross from RI to MA and back to RI every day on my way to work, and the gas station I always stop at is in the middle of that MA portion. Most of my driving is in RI, but nearly all of my fuel taxes go to MA.

        But either fuel or tires is probably good enough for most situations...it's not perfectly fair, but that unfairness is likely to go in both directions and more or less balance out.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:36PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:36PM (#807024) Journal

          Oh sorry, you replied to the odometer suggestion not the tire tax suggestion. That depends on how often they read the thing but it's probably "good enough" too...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:43AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:43AM (#807455)

          It may not be perfectly fair but it is perfectly simple.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM (#807053) Journal

        Actually, it does work for interstate travel, with a little discipline. Keep a notepad (or tape recorder if you prefer) and record your odometer reading each time you cross a state line. I did it for years. As a truck driver, you have to turn all those numbers in at the end of each trip anyway, so you get used to doing it. Most drivers keep their log books close at hand, and write the numbers in the log book. I never did that because it gives the diesel cops more evidence to bust you with. They tend to take log book violations seriously.

        With all of that said - private citizens aren't ever going to exercise that kind of discipline. So, you hand the duty over to the onboard computers.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (#807007)

    Some countries tax tires to pay for roads - not saying that's a good idea, but it is one...

    The fuel tax in the US doesn't even completely pay for maintenance of the existing road network, much less its expansion or other un-recovered costs of vehicle use such as: pollution, direct health risks due to traumatic injury, simple waste of time/life spend sitting in metal boxes for un-necessary travel.

    The highway system in the US is, in addition to an essential cog in the economic engine, one giant taxpayer funded amusement park. People love getting in their cars and going places for any reason or no reason at all. There are real costs associated with this, and not all of them are currently being borne by the people choosing to do the driving.

    I hope we continue to be a wealthy enough society to provide such frivolous amusement with taxpayer cost-assistance.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:27PM (1 child)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:27PM (#807332) Journal

      Yeah, the federal tax on gasoline has been stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon since the mid 1990s. Every other such tax I know of is a percentage, but somehow that one is a fixed amount. Inflation has reduced the purchasing power of those tax moneys by over 50%. The setup is an outrageous giveaway to Big Oil.

      Yes, Americans like to drive. One thing that struck me last time I visited Canada was how much less road there was. Texas cities have gone big into roads. Lots of limited access highways. and new massive, stacked interchanges for them, with much reworking to cut down on traffic weaving. It's quite the stunning display of wealth. Meanwhile, Canadian cities will have intersections with stoplights where Texas cities would have an interchange. The freaking Trans Canada highway gets the old stoplight treatment even in major cities.

      However, Texas has gotten sneaky about funding all those roads. It's not just that they're going for tolls, it's the underhanded manner they're going about it. Can't turn an existing, free public highway into a toll road. So, they built these "service" roads on the outer edges of the new limited access toll highway, and designated those as the official state highway. There are places where there are 14 lanes of road. 4 each direction for the toll road in the middle, and 3 more each direction for the free state highway. They also made a shabby start with the collection system. Photograph your license plate, and bill you later. One of the early problems was they wouldn't give people much time to pay. You might get a notice of a bill for the toll road on or after the day it was due, with a warning of a big penalty if you were late.

      Anyway, the headline is disingenuous. It's not the fault of the electric car that there's going to be even less money for roads. It's the fault of the revenue system.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:31AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:31AM (#807375)

        Every other such tax I know of is a percentage, but somehow that one is a fixed amount.

        Imagine it's a percentage. Imagine fuel prices drop. Imagine people driving more (and more to the point, companies using more trucking and less e.g. train freight), putting more wear on the roads, but you simultaneously have less funds for road repair.

        It should certainly allow for inflation somehow, but I don't see that a percentage is a better way to do that than directly indexing it to inflation.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:38PM (12 children)

    by Whoever (4524) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:38PM (#807091) Journal

    Trucks don't pay sufficient taxes to cover the cost of the damage they do to roads. Why should EVs be taxed according to societal cost when trucks are not? That's not including the effects of pollution from ICE trucks and cars .....

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:42PM (11 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:42PM (#807095) Journal

      I don't know who told you that story. Trucks DO pay their share, and then some.

      • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:39AM (9 children)

        by Whoever (4524) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:39AM (#807451) Journal

        https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-industry-subsidy/ [truecostblog.com]

        There are lots of other links. Trucks don't pay their way.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:54AM (8 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:54AM (#807459) Journal

          That story is badly skewed. Look at the claim that railroads aren't subsidized, for starters. Do you really believe that? Texas is well known (among truckers at least) for raking money off of every other industry, to subsidize it's railways. You're looking at a political nonsense article there.

          I'm not going into all of their numbers, but I will point out that one individual truck might pay more than $50,000 in road taxes in a year. Private vehicles? Using their own numbers, a POV doesn't come close to paying it's share compared to an 18-wheeler.

          Besides - if the trucking industry is taxed more - who will ultimately pay those taxes? Bob and Betty consumer ultimately pays all shipping costs, and that's not going to change.

          Time for work - maybe I'll get back to this tomorrow.

          • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:49AM (7 children)

            by Whoever (4524) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:49AM (#807492) Journal

            1. Faulty logic: Whether or not trains are subsidized is irrelevant to the question of whether trucks pay their fair share.
            2. Faulty logic: the fact that trucks already pay a lot of tax does not mean they pay their way.
            3. You conflate policy issues (should trucks pay the full cost of the damage they do) with factual issues (do trucks pay the full cost of the costs they cause).

            Here is another article:
            https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0215-sunday-cars-weight-20150215-story.html [latimes.com]

            Does that $50,000/year represent 9600 times the amount paid for the average car?

            More links:
            https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/06/02/trucking-industry-imposes-up-to-128-billion-in-costs-on-society-each-year/ [streetsblog.org]
            Older article:
            https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/25/us/study-asserts-heavy-trucks-cause-big-damage-to-roads.html [nytimes.com]
            This looks like the source for the 9,600 times average car costs:
            http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf [gao.gov]
            More recent:
            https://www.overdriveonline.com/do-truckers-pay-enough-for-highways-white-house-suggests-not/ [overdriveonline.com]

            Is that enough citations for you? There are plenty more.

            I fully expect you will reply with some bullshit with no citations, no facts behind your claims. But maybe you will surprise me.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:18PM (5 children)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:18PM (#807631) Journal

              Citation needed for that 9600 number. You are aware, I believe, that some asshole told Congress that fewer than 1% of opiate prescriptions resulted in addictions. No one seems to know where that lie came from, but it was used to justify all kinds of stupid shit. What is the source for that number? The government estimated it? Citation desperately needed.

              You do offer something good with that second link - shipping by rail. I like the idea. Back when it cost roughly fifty cents per ton to ship stuff by truck, it then cost two cents per ton to ship by rail. Rail is cheap, cheap, cheap. Are you aware of any problems with shipping by rail? No? Well, let me help you. Rail shipment is about as dependable as a teenage daredevil driver with ADD, epilepsy, narcolepsy, alcoholism, AND a drug addiction. That is - you ship it, and you may or may not ever see it again.

              I enjoyed my coast-to-coast runs. Take something or other out to San Diego, hop back across the mountains to Nogales, and load up lettuce or whatever. When you're loaded, haul ass for Miami, Elizabeth City, New York City, Rhode Island, Quebed, Toronto - or wherever. I could have that lettuce or whatever at the market in 3 1/2 days - 5 days if going to Nova Scotia. Try that with a train. Railcars might show up this summer, some time. And, when it arrives, you may have to open a valve and let that lettuce run out on the ground.

              Yeah - put that shit on a train. And, you better start growing lettuce locally, or you'll do without.

              That next link - NYT publishes a private study. Uh-huh - haven't we seen enough private studies used to push something to make someone rich? Private studies are never political, are they?

              The Overdrive article is interesting. Trump wants toll roads - that should surprise no one, Trump likes rich people, and toll roads will help to make more rich people. Put the highways in private hands, and those private hands can skim trillions off the economy. The ATA prefers to raise alrady existing taxes. No new rich bastards in the making that way.

              That PDF from the GAO is 146 pages - it will take more than a minute or two to read it. I'll give the GAO some credibility. I'll note that the title of the article is "Excessive truck weight: an expensive burden we can no longer support." Which leads me to believe that they may not be talking about legally loaded and legally operated trucks at all. But, I'll go through it . . . BBL.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:54AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:54AM (#807907)

                Dunno exactly where that 9600 figure is from (I've seen it around, but never seen a source or justification). It's a little optimistic or pessimistic, depending on your perspective, but just barely in the range of credibility.
                Road wear is generally considered proportional to axle weight4. If a passenger car has axle weights of, say, 2500/2500 pounds, and a tractor-trailer has axle/tandem weights of 15,000, 30,000, and 30,000 pounds (i.e. 15,000 per axle), that's a factor of 1296 per axle, and with 2.5x as many axles, a total of 3240. (If the load distribution is less even, it gets worse: 15k/26k/34k yields factors of 1296/2x731/2x2138 -- vs 1/1 for that 50/50 passenger car, that's a total factor of 3517.)

                The 9600 figure seems like either somebody took the whole weight to the 4th power (inadvertently pretending 50k pound trucks have only two axles) or is comparing a maxed-out truck or rig to a fairly light passenger car. For instance, it's roughly what you'd get if you compared a 4000-pound car and the heaviest legal 2-axle truck fully loaded to its 40k GVWR (both with 50/50 weight distribution).

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @01:03AM (3 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @01:03AM (#807914)

                Oh, and I forgot to get back to dollars, but if you take a more realistic 3000-4000 ratio... $50k/year for a truck would be equivalent to $12-$17/year for a passenger car.
                I don't know about other states, but I'm sure paying more than double that here in IN.

                • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:43PM (2 children)

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:43PM (#808121) Journal

                  I meant to reply to this earlier. Your vehicle registration doesn't play into this discussion, really. You pay somewhere between 20 and fifty dollars for your registration, whereas 18-wheelers pay somewhere between 150 and 500. Probably more than that now, but there were times when I was routed through Illinois to renew plates on a tractor and/or a trailer. $100 a pop for the trailers, and I think it was $120 for the tractors. That was registration only, and did not contribute to highway taxes, fuel taxes, the bingo card fees, business tax, or anything else.

                  Similarly, someone mentioned the purchase price of a private vehicle being comparable the taxes paid by a big truck. Except, that has no bearing on the discussion at all. The purchase price of any vehicle goes to the manufacturer, the dealer, a bit of sales tax, and nothing to road use.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @07:09PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @07:09PM (#808275)

                    Your vehicle registration doesn't play into this discussion, really. You pay somewhere between 20 and fifty dollars for your registration, whereas 18-wheelers pay somewhere between 150 and 500.

                    Not clear if you're saying it doesn't count because it goes into the general fund rather than specifically going to road upkeep, or just because it's a smaller number than commercial vehicles pay?
                    If the former, note that Indiana allows counties to levy a excise and wheel taxes that get paid along with, and in addition to, your state vehicle registration fee, specifically to cover road upkeep. (In my county, this is an extra $25/year for passenger cars.) Besides, fuel taxes and the like often go into the general fund as well -- if that's the criteria for exclusion, it becomes impossible to have a meaningful discussion of whether any class of vehicles pays "their share", since no matter how much anyone pays, the politicians can (and too often do) spend it on other stuff and leave the roads unrepaired.
                    If the latter, well, what I'm seeing is, tractor-trailers pay 10x as much, while doing 1000+x the road damage. So add that tiny $500 into your $50000 figure you mention, and it's still significantly less than passenger cars are paying in proportion to road wear.

                    But even disregarding registration/excise/wheel taxes entirely, look at just the gas tax. Indiana's state gas tax is 29 cents/gallon. At 30 mpg and 15k/year, that's 500 gallons per year, or $145. (We additionally pay normal sales tax on gasoline, but I'll ignore that because I know most states don't.) The state taxes diesel (and other non-gasoline fuels) at 48 cents/gallon, so combining the increased per-gallon with increased fuel consumption, of, say, 4mpg, a tractor-trailer might be paying 12 cents/mile in fuel tax vs 1 cent/mile for our passenger vehicle. Again, paying ~ten times as much, but doing thousands of times the road wear.
                    Same story for tolls -- tolls on I80 are $11.10 end-to-end for passenger vehicles, and up to $130.80 for 7+ axles. Once again, it looks like tractor-trailers are doing multiple orders of magnitude more road wear, and only paying one order of magnitude more.

                    I'm open to being convinced that there's really some hidden subsidy for cars, or some tax I'm not understanding for commercial trucking. But so far, the numbers just don't seem to be adding up.

                    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 01 2019, @12:42AM

                      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 01 2019, @12:42AM (#808489) Journal

                      Go with the former. All taxes, fees, etc, had some intended use when they were passed by the legislature. To my knowledge, no registration fees were ever intended for highway maintenance. Those monies were intended for other things. Fuel tax, highway use tax, mileage tax, etc were all intended for infrastructure upkeep. All of that is a generalization, I suppose, and I probably shouldn't have brought it in here.

                      I've not heard of that wheel tax - it would definitely count in this discussion.

                      But, we're kind of distracted here, because politicians don't use our money for it's intended purpose, often as not.

                      I'll restate my argument against that 9600 times as much damage, for clarity. I found that number in the PDF that was offered. That PDF was published in 1978, and it very specifically discusses overweight trucks. It discusses trucks in one instance that are routinely 30,000 pounds overweight. It also discusses the individual states failing to enforce federal laws, both on federally funded roads, as well as state funded roads. In the context of the discussion in that PDF, I can, and do, believe that some trucks in that era were probably causing that much damage to the infrastructure.

                      There is no fault with the concept that heavier vehicles cause more damage than lighter vehicles. The Federal DOT has a rather complex formula for determining permissible weights on the axles, as well as gross weights. Those trucks that are operated legally, and conform to federal guidelines are certainly causing hundreds of times as much damage as the typical privately owned vehicle, and maybe even a thousand times. But, that almost ten thousand times as much damage is out of the question. It's an obsolete number from a bygone era.

                      Long story short, I've argued primarily against that high shock-value number, which is simply not true.

                      I still believe that trucks pay their fair share, but you have made a case for re-examining that idea. Maybe they don't pay their full fair share. If you or I were to make the effort to find out, I'm still certain that it's pretty close to fair. That was what the federal government was shooting for when they imposed the current weight limits and taxing scheme, after all.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:31PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:31PM (#807636) Journal

              Oh, the PDF is from 1978 or so. It's obsolete. The trucking industry is almost unrecognizably changed from those days. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse, but it's a whole new world out there today. I did see that magic number of 9600 in the PDF, so obviously, that number has been around for a long time. Still want a citation: where did it come from? The PDF focuses on overweight trucks, and I can imagine that a grossly overloaded truck might cause as much damage as almost ten thousand cars.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:00AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:00AM (#807506)

        Spoken like a true, subsidized by the rest of us, trucker. Or some freeloader of VA benefits from having floated around, on the taxpayer's dime, for a couple of years? You are are parasite, Runaway! A not very smart one, yes, but good enough to suck the lifeblood out of America without actually killing it. But Trump will take it too far.

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:31PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:31PM (#807141) Journal

    Good thing I can walk to work.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (#807239)

    Anything that involves GPS and "the state" is a no go.

    There are other ways to do mileage counts, like the odometer on a car, or just simply a tax on tires. These also have the benefits of the state on spying on you.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:15PM (#807265)

      I live near Canada, we already go over the border to get some drugs that are over-the-counter there (and prescription in USA). If a big US tire tax was levied, I'd by tires in Canada too.

  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:53PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:53PM (#807349)

    In California, smog check places require you to report your mileage along with the smog check results to renew your registration. Just get people to keep coming in, skip the smog check part, and get the smog check places to give them a mileage bill (and option to immediately pay) after they electronically submit the smog results to the DMV.