> because heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear for roads

That is true, the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight. What this means is that cars don't cause much fatigue damage to the roads - it's the trucks that do. A semi loaded to the legal limit causes 9,000 times as much damage as a car.

Really, the heavy loads need to go by rail, not highway.

It really puzzles me, even as a rail fan, how it is said that America’s freight rail is the envy of the world, but in every town there are abandoned tracks pulling right up to downtown warehouses.

It just seems like we let good infrastructure go to waste. It’s probably a tax thing, iirc the rail companies pulled up half their mileage because they were on the hook for property taxes on all that acreage (turned lots of double tracks into single tracks, and old single tracks into recreational bike trails)

You're right. The railroads have to pay all the costs associated with the tracks, the truckers shifted those costs onto everyone else.

> old single tracks into recreational bike trails

This is rampant in Seattle. They've not only torn up the tracks and turned them into bike trails, in order to install light rail, they've had to blast new right-of-ways at incredible cost.

Couldn't the government lay and maintain the network of tracks and lease them out to the freight companies ?

At least with a bike trail, its much easier to turn it back into rail if needed.

> the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight

Slight correction - damage per axle is proportional to 4th power of load per axle. In practice it means slightly less than 4th power of weight (due to semis usually having more axles).

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

I believe the Washington state gas tax charged to standard internal combustion vehicles is much a lot about volume + mass; moving more stuff around less efficiently is going to inherently take more calories & therefore more tax will be paid.

That said, I've been really disappointed with the way the Washington state EV tax you reference was implemented. I mean, I'm just fine paying my fair share, but I should be taxed in the same manner as any other user of the same resources.

To that end, we have vehicle inspection stations & using those to check odometer readings on an annual basis would make for fair taxation.

As it is, I stopped paying registration, insurance and left our Leaf sitting in the driveway since the pandemic started because of the way this tax is levied.

The WA EV fee is actually 2 fees, one 150$ and a new 75$ so 225$ total.

Thanks for correcting me. I initially typed "something around $250", but I decided to google it first, and it turned out articles from about the $150 fee, without ever mentioning the $75 one. So I changed it to $150.

But after your comment, I went to check my most recent registration fees I paid last year, and you are fully correct. The total of all EV fees indeed comes out to $225.

The articles you read we're probably just from before the new fee was enacted. WA who's governor ran for president by calling out other candidates for not being green enough has the highest EV fees in the nation disincentivizing EV ownership. The irony is palpable.

I’m confused why you’re so willing to ignore mileage. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car will do a lot more wear and tear on the roads than a Ford F-150 driven occasionally to the store.

We have the data to track mileage. Odometers are regulated and DMV already records mileage at various checkpoints. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Road damage follows a power-log rule based on vehicle mass/volume. The vast majority of road damage is caused by the largest of vehicles. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car and an occasionally-driven F-150 both cause relatively little wear-and-tear on the road.

But, the few times the F-150 is driven, its mass is substantially more likely to cause road damage than the Leaf. [1]

https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...

Distance or Mileage involves an invasive inspection. It also runs the risk of violating privacy depending on how it's tracked.

Tracking it also just plain expensive, even if it's only required to report / measure mileage at time or distance intervals.

Arguably someone is _likely_ to drive however far they need to drive irrespective of the taxes and wear on any particular section of road is going to be roughly the same for any quantity of mass and axle count.

Speaking of mass, cargo vehicles should be taxed assuming some fixed duty load, like say 1/3rd of a year use at their maximum capacity rating, including towed equipment.

As noted above/below, most US states already track mileage via checkpointing (at sale, recurring inspection, registration renewal, etc). I’m not suggesting they track anything they aren’t already doing. Nor is the inspection invasive: you write down your mileage on the form and signing affirms you aren’t lying.

I also don’t intend that the mileage basis would be designed to stop driving. It just seems more fair to tax that way. Right now I pay a flat tax for my EV. If I drive daily, I’m probably underpaying my share of road maintenance. If I drive rarely, I’m overpaying. Gas taxes already roughly track usage because the more you drive / the bigger your car, the more gas it takes to move it around. So again, this isn’t changing how states conceive of road maintenance, just leveling the playing field for EVs and hybrids.

One can't determine distances driven outside of the tax jurisdiction based on that.

We have geofencing set in place for fuel tax incentives in Canadian provinces. Truck operators need to report that if they want part of their fuel tax money back. In Europe it's basically the same and gen2 smart tachographs already record GNSS coordinates at the start and end of the trip along with distance, as a non tampering measure, so there's data trail that can theoretically be used against you if you misreport. You are required by law to keep the tachograph files for two years and supply them to the control authority if needed.

Can’t speak for Canada, but likewise in the US, gas taxes are paid at the pump where there’s no geofencing

Yes, you pay the tax at the pump like everybody else buy you may get a refund for certain acitvities like [1][2] in some provinces, notably Ontario.

  1. https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/bulletins/gt/1_2001.html
  2. https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/refund/pto/index.html

Also there's the situation in some EU states where truck operators are eligible for rebates on diesel tax:

https://www.eurovat.eu/en/diesel-tax-reclaim

In this case I think they just use the vehicle and refill documents. But the truck operators still need to report the drivers' working times per EU state because of the different labour laws in each EU state [3].

  3. https://trans.info/en/key-changes-for-the-road-transport-industry-in-europe-in-2021-216319

it doesn't need to be invasive or expensive. in my state I need to get an emissions test every few years, which simply consists of plugging into the ODB jack and reading some values. just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.

I suppose you could argue that some people do significant driving off of public roads, but that's probably rare enough that special exemptions would be feasible.

all of this sidesteps the real issue, which is that personal vehicles do negligible damage to the road. road wear from commuter traffic is almost negligible compared to large trucks.

It does however lead to a lot more tampering with odometers.

In New Zealand diesel vehicles pay a significant tax per kilometre, and so there are a lot of people disconnecting odometers. There are even people for who their only income is from "rewinding" or reprogramming electronic odo readings (using a variety of techniques, sometimes cracking ECUs etcetera). There is some incentive to reduce recorded milage to enhance resale value, but a lot more incentive to reduce taxes. Edit: I could be a victim of selection bias here because most people will happily admit to ripping off the government while fewer people will admit to ripping of other individuals.

Large commercial vehicles have government mandated secondary odometers, which I haven't heard as much about tampering: maybe because tampering happens less, or maybe because the penalties are higher, or maybe it happens but I am not in the loop. Also the likelyhood of getting caught tampering truck odos is higher because trucks are stopped far more often than cars, and trucks are checked far more carefully.

> just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.

An odometer reading won't say anything about where I drove that vehicle. If you take your car offroading or go on road trips a few times a year, that alone will skew the numbers heavily. With that in mind, odometer reading works fine for emission tests, but not so much for road damages. And constant vehicle location tracking reported to the government for the purpose of paying annual registration fees sounds pretty invasive to me.

But also, perfect is the enemy of the good. While the solution I proposed is not as comprehensive as the one that includes tracking mileage (and dealing with all the problems and issues associated with it), it is still significantly better than what we have now.

I’ve read they sell tax-exempt diesel for off-road farming equipment, dyed red to try to catch fraud.

The state inspection that cars have annually in most states record mileage.

Most? I don’t recall even CA recording mileage for a smog and I’ve never had a car inspected elsewhere except after being totaled out.

Despite the fact that the CA smog test is an absolute joke of an inspection (no inspection of tires, brakes, lights, etc.), it does in fact include an odometer reading.

MA does for an annual inspection. I'd be surprised if it was that unusual in the US.

I think only about 15 states have period safety inspections.

You could just do it based on tire load index and tread wear rating, with rebates based on remaining tread depth when disposing the used tires.

So tax the insurance which already invasively tracks everything.

Why wouldn't we just pay for infrastructure that transports all the things that we all buy and benefit from from the general fund?

I benefit when my neighbor can drive his kids to school.

I am totally ok with that too, personally. But there is quite a solid number of people in western WA (mostly Seattle area) who don't drive and vehemently oppose what you propose.

I gave up on trying to bring it up ever again irl, because I instantly get accused of "well, of course you would be in favor of that. Because you drive, so it benefits you when the costs of maintaining roads are amortized across everyone, including those who don't even drive."

Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair (which results mostly from the fact that it is possible due to it being more granular).

> Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair

It's more granular and still unfair.

Think about it this way, if all roads disappeared tomorrow, what would be your biggest problem?

In my opinion, it'd be food. I own a bicycle and live within cycling distance of a grocery store but where would they get the food?

The next thing that gets brought up is something like, "well, if it weren't for all those people driving that aren't shipping goods, road maintenance would be much less." That's true except I also benefit from commuters being able to work. All those commuters are busy driving to their jobs _at_ all the places that supply me with goods.

The idea that only the people that drive on the roads themselves are the ones using it is incredibly surface level thinking. In fact, we all know that the vehicles that do the most damage to roads are the large trucks shipping goods and the only reason they exist is to bring me stuff.

I don’t think we disagree? Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance. Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage (more driving / more weight translates into more taxes paid). Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist, and so the gas tax no longer effectively covers those drivers.

> Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance.

If I sold my car I'd still benefit from the roads.

> Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage

They apply based (roughly) on miles driven, not usage. Everything I buy was someway or another on a road in order for it to reach my house.

> Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist

I'm saying the instinct to further this line of thought is furthering the error. The benefit that I derive from roads overall is much greater than the benefit I get from them by directly driving on them. They basically make the economy work.

>We have the data to track mileage. Odometers are regulated and DMV already records mileage at various checkpoints. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Because it's a regressive tax and you can't even minimize it by driving a small economy car like you can with fuel taxes.

I’m suggesting mileage and mass both be used as factors, so your small economy car would certainly minimize the taxes.