Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by oppositelock on Monday May 22, 2017 @05:39PM
(#14397150)
How is trucking subsidized?
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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by muninn_ on Monday May 22, 2017 @05:41PM
(#14397162)
Highway funding for one. Instead of improving highway infrastructure with tax money, improve rail lines.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by jacobolus on Monday May 22, 2017 @05:56PM
(#14397245)
Indeed. Trucks cause several orders of magnitude more road wear than cars, because road wear scales like weight per wheel to the fourth power (this might not always be the perfect model http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=261 but even so the general idea holds), and trucks weigh a whole lot. If trucks had to pay their fair share of road maintenance, shipping by truck would probably be noticeably more expensive.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by trothamel on Monday May 22, 2017 @06:01PM
(#14397277)
Federal highway funding appears to be mostly funded by gas taxes on highway users. It costs $44B, and $39B is funded by gas tax revenue.
While $5B is still a lot of money, it's smaller than the $8B that funds mass transit.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by ashark on Monday May 22, 2017 @06:28PM
(#14397386)
Trucks do disproportionately more damage do the roads than they pay in taxes for fuel, though. You're subsidizing trucking every time you fuel up your passenger vehicle.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by hansthehorse on Monday May 22, 2017 @07:24PM
(#14397655)
This is the reason, at the federal level, diesel fuel is taxed more than gasoline. Diesel = 24.4c/gal and Gas = 18.4c/gal.
The difference isn't enough to compensate for the increased wear but there is a difference.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by Voyage_wanderer on Monday May 22, 2017 @07:43PM
(#14397731)
Are you sure? Truck burns 6 miles/ gallon. New EPA regulations in 21 century actually increased fuel consumptions since about 20% of engine's power goes to cleaning the air. Modern car use 30+Miles/gallon.
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by ashark on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @09:05AM
(#14400788)
Road wear isn't linear with weight. Estimates I've seen put a heavy 18-wheeler at the equivalent of more than 9,000 cars traveling over the same stretch of road. Way, way more than 5x the damage (6mpg vs 30mpg).
Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo...
by ProfessorLayton on Monday May 22, 2017 @06:48PM
(#14397492)
This subsidy is going to take an interesting turn with vehicle electrification. Right now the lower the MPG, the more taxes you pay. Moving to a tax per miles driven is going to punish those that have the most efficient vehicles in a more upfront manner than it is today (Hidden in gasoline prices).