Electric Vehicles? Towing? Hauling?
There seems to be quite a push lately for zero emission vehicles and electric only vehicles. How on Earth would these ever work for us? You can't go cross country in an electric vehicle in a pra...
Forum Discussion
JaxDad wrote:
Better solution? You bet. Pay tuition, pay per mile you drive, any for what YOU use, not for someone else’s use.
Pay per mile works if everyone drives similar vehicles...and when gas tax came out, most were getting 10mpg (passenger car or pickup truck), so it was pretty much pay per mile...with just a few outliers.
Of course, per mile isn't perfect. A 1.5ton compact is doing far less damage to the pavement compared to a 12.5 ton RV and it's not a linear relationship but an exponential relationship so it's many times the damage. Also, your RV is taking up more capacity than a compact car...again several times as much capacity.
Road maintenance and upgrades can be broken down into two primary components:
- Fixing damaged pavement due to wear and tear...this is mostly a function of vehicle weight and trucks (including RVs) make up the vast majority of this damage. When we design pavement, we totally ignore passenger cars because they do so little damage.
- Providing sufficient capacity, you need X number of lanes, added turn lanes, traffic signals over stop signs etc..., this is mostly a function of the number of vehicles but slow lumbering vehicles, like RVs tend to reduce capacity by more than a faster more nimble passenger car.
Bad MPG is typically associated with larger vehicles that increase maintenance costs...so again, while not perfect, pretty much matches up with paying for what you use.
Now if you want to talk about unfair, large commercial trucks pay no where close to their fair share. Even though they may pay thousands per year in fuel tax, they often do millions in damage to pavement.
