Liberty is not an absolute thing. My freedom to drive my car ends where it encroaches on other peoples freedom to have a passable living environment.
We've banned smoking in public spaces for exactly the same reasons. The current system is really the tyranny of the majority. Let's just be honest about that and not use euphemisms like "accounting for externalities".
It’s easy to gauge how many lives are lost due to the automobile. But how many lives are saved? How many lives are enriched? How many lives are even made possible because of the automobile?
You can look at only the costs of a thing, but I find the appeal to emotion, similar to gun control arguments, to be entirely unconvincing.
Furthermore, technology has steadily improved the safety of these machines, and I’m convinced we’re less than a decade away from a quantum leap in safety by automating more and more of the driving process.
As automobiles get quieter, safer, less polluting, available on demand, and less expensive, I’m afraid you’re going to see quite a bit more of them, not less.
It’s nothing less than economic warfare to ban diesel cars outright from entering a city. Ban the sale of new diesels if you want. Tax the hell out of diesel fuel if you want. Add a toll booth and set a lower speed limit. But your well meaning compatriots spent their hard earned money to buy their vehicles and if you’d just assume fuck them over for it, I’m sure they will find a way to repay the favor. Probably by not coming to your city (and spending their money there) in the first place. To which you might say, “Good riddance!” And we have an expression for that too.
Oftentimes there is an entirely valid reason to get in a car and drive somewhere. I know, this may be shocking to you. Shocking to the people talking about bicycling a couch uphill downthread too.
There are 45 million passenger cars in Germany (for 82 million people) so it seems you’re in the minority on this. Before you call for just outright banning cars, maybe consider how you could make public policy which would decrease the number of cars by 10% without increasing the cost of cars.
Me too, I can't wait for self-driving electric cars to be used inside the city. That will take care of the local pollution burden put on residents today, and hopefully put cars in a more submissive role in traffic, where they belong.
I’m sorry you can’t imagine the range of human conditions which can make cars a absolute necessary part of modern life for some people, even in dense urban environments.
The funniest example that comes to mind is you (or your wife’s) water breaks and it’s time to head to the hospital. Quick, let’s get on the bus!
You honestly think the only way people should be able to get privately and expeditiously from point A to point B (while potentially transporting hundreds of pounds of cargo) is calling emergency services?
I took a guess of $2.50 per gallon in total net externality. Turns out after a bit of Googling a study out of Harvard University [1] put the number at $2.10. So, yeah I do believe it, seriously!
By the way, those $2.50 peanuts would add up to $360 billion per year in the US.
I don’t have a problem with a gas tax that tries to fully cover the externalities of driving, as long as the money is earmarked to actually try to offset the cost.
[1] - https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/heep/ee-workshop_131024...
I guess I sometimes feel this way about some things, but then pretty quickly get over it and realize that other people have different utility functions than me, and that I kinda like this whole life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness thing.
I much rather take the approach that externalities be accounted for properly than to ban anything that produces an externality.
So it’s rather much more like; how many trees do you want me to plant to keep my car? Or more probably, enjoy the $2.50/gal I just paid your town in taxes to fill up my gas tank. Instead of, fuck off with your dirty car you’re not welcome here.