Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

As a small fleet owner I would gladly deal with increased car accidents if it meant they didn't salt the roads.

I would gladly buy studded tires and chain up if they didn't salt the roads.

I would gladly deal with worse traffic in the winter if they didn't salt the roads.

I would gladly incur a greater risk of harm or death if they didn't salt the roads.

I would voluntarily pay more fuel taxes if they didn't salt the roads.

I would put up with all sorts of shit to get the state to stop chemically destroying my property. And pretty much everyone I know feels the same way.

When people complain about public policy written by people in ivory towers who are unaffected by their own policy this is the kind of crap they're talking about. To see such policy presented as though there are no tradeoffs what so ever just drives the point home.

Edit: Since apparently I didn't leave enough space between the lines for people to read, let me make this clear. I'm doing ok. I my fleet is N=6. I can play musical panel vans and station wagons as needed in order to keep costs down and put the wear and tear where I want it. That insulates me pretty well from vehicle maintenance issues. I can phase a vehicle out by neglecting it and then buy a replacement. Someone driving one old car to their job does not have this luxury. You're caught between several rocks and hard places with regard to transportation options. The state is raising the cost of you dragging your butt to your job and telling you its for your benefit. What's an annoyance for me is a serious financial problem for others.

As a Canadian who lives with salted roads all the time ... what are you talking about? There is nobody I know that wants this. Studded tires and chains chew up asphalt. No one wants to die on icy roads. No one wants to spend 6 hours stuck in cold weather hoping you don't run of of gas because of an accident caused by icy roads.

My last car, a Toyota Camry lasted 12 years without noticeable rust and, for all I know, is still running in the used market. My 2015 Prius is pristine. What "chemically destroying" is going on?

Salt doesn't make sense if you get a LOT of snow and have steady cold weather but for vast parts of Canada and the US it makes sense.

As a small fleet owner, you are effectively the landed elite. Ivory tower nothing, this is money-before lives of others.

As a previously poor owner of a previously junky car that was previously leased by someone who appreciated salt on the roads ... I also appreciated salt on the roads.

In fact, I was recently back in MN, and my outright-owned, otherwise nice vehicle which did stand to take some damage from salt, but I appreciated when they salted the roads.

Salting the roads aren't doing junky car owners any favors. I've had to replace suspension components, fuel lines, entire frames for rust. These things need to be replaced to keep the vehicle going and are not cheap. Suddenly that $3k honda civic is looking at $3k worth of repairs unless you want to risk your life when you approach highway speeds. I'm always shocked how in California there are absolutely beat up cars from the 70s all over the roads still.

You're not wrong.

It's just the alternative proposed in above is not better. In fact, I assert it's worse.

I believe that a road made safer with salt and sand is better than requiring individuals to take the steps of adding chains, tire studs, etc.

I do not trust anyone to be so careful and intelligent and responsive to varying conditions.

I expect enforcement of a "chain proclamation" to be haphazard at best esp. because it would occur precisely when enforcing traffic laws is the most difficult due to adverse weather.

I assert that car maintenance is an acceptable price to pay to hedge against accidents and save lives through the widespread use of salt.

I'm just clarifying, I do agree with you about how expensive it can be and how nice it is to own a car in Cali or other dry, warm areas.

You would prefer more dangerous roads for _everyone_ if it made maintaining your fleet cheaper? Am I reading this right is that the reason?

My fleet is fine. I'm rolling in the dough (relatively to the average person who has to deal with these problems). My maintenance is done in house (mostly by me) at very low cost. I have a slow season to spend on preventive repairs.

The janitor driving a 1997 pile who gets to choose between $1k for a new exhaust or $2k to roll the dice on a replacement vehicle is the person who really gets screwed here.

> As a small fleet owner I would gladly deal with increased car accidents if it meant they didn't salt the roads.

> I would gladly incur a greater risk of harm or death if they didn't salt the roads.

Let's hope that people around you are smart enough to keep you as far away as possible from local government.

We moved to the next town over four winters ago. We still do all our shopping in the original place because that's where all the stores are and where I work.

Our ten year old car went from having no rust to having completely rusted out rocker panels in two winters.

Granted, they seemed to rust from the inside out, but over the course of the winter you can watch in real time as the rust spreads and dissolves more of the car.

I appreciate that the road is always clear and passable. That's great.

I wouldn't mind the rust so much except body shops won't touch the stuff. They only want to deal with fender benders and whatnot on new vehicles with fat insurance payouts.

Not much appetite for patching cars up and keeping them on the road.

A lot of people have taken a rather negative interpretation of this post. I certainly see how it could be read that way, but let's for a second assume that maybe the author is just a little tone-def, perhaps didn't score top of the class in social awareness (a trait perhaps others here might share).

Perhaps what the author meant by saying that they are a small fleet owner is that they for professional reasons are highly aware of side=effects and negatives consequences of salting roads, things which also hit people who don't have a fleet of cars they are managing.

When you have a fleet, you have more data points than when you only have a single car.

And yes, I've been poor and homeless myself, so I am speaking from an understanding of what it means to be on the edge (and sometimes on the wrong side of the edge).

Chains and studded tires lead to increased road wear. When I lived there the joke was MN has 142K miles of paved roads, but only enough asphalt for 100k.

property > lives

You probably didn't read the memo that was presented to us repeatedly in 2020.

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