With how popular huge SUVs seem to be, that would be a very unpopular measure. Then you also have the car manufacturer lobbies squeezing your balls if you try to pass something like that.
I’d like a middle ground where these cars have much higher insurance premiums and are heavily taxed in proportion to their space usage.
Want to drive around in a car that weighs 3x my city car, then you need to pay 3x as more.
Road damage caused by a vehicle is proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight. That leaves out other externalities such as deaths and injuries caused to pedestrians, cyclists and people in other motor vehicles.
But taxes should reflect externalities, so a bit part of vehicle tax should also rise as the fourth power of vehicle weight. Double the weight, sixteen times the tax. I’d make enforcement simpler by setting a zero-rate mimimum of 1000 kg.
By the way, use of this formula also illustrates the imbecility of those demanding a tax on bicycles. If the base rate is, let’s say, £100 per annum for an unladen 1-tonne vehicle, then that for a bike weighing 20kg would be £100/100**4. That is, 1/10,000 of a pound, or 1/100 of a penny. And other bicycle-caused externalities aren’t much different in proportion to those caused by a motor vehicle.
With how popular huge SUVs seem to be, that would be a very unpopular measure. Then you also have the car manufacturer lobbies squeezing your balls if you try to pass something like that.
I’d like a middle ground where these cars have much higher insurance premiums and are heavily taxed in proportion to their space usage.
Want to drive around in a car that weighs 3x my city car, then you need to pay 3x as more.
Road damage caused by a vehicle is proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight. That leaves out other externalities such as deaths and injuries caused to pedestrians, cyclists and people in other motor vehicles.
But taxes should reflect externalities, so a bit part of vehicle tax should also rise as the fourth power of vehicle weight. Double the weight, sixteen times the tax. I’d make enforcement simpler by setting a zero-rate mimimum of 1000 kg.
By the way, use of this formula also illustrates the imbecility of those demanding a tax on bicycles. If the base rate is, let’s say, £100 per annum for an unladen 1-tonne vehicle, then that for a bike weighing 20kg would be £100/100**4. That is, 1/10,000 of a pound, or 1/100 of a penny. And other bicycle-caused externalities aren’t much different in proportion to those caused by a motor vehicle.