Why not just tax tires based on tread depth, tread wear, load rating, and expected life? Offer rebates for tires that are replaced before their end of life. It would be mileage dependent and vehicle tech agnostic.
I certainly hope this doesn't happen. Tires are a huge part of cars being so much safer than they used to be, and we could take a major step back if tires started being optimized for taxes instead.
How so? The tax would be based on the tread wear rating, so it shouldn't affect compound selection nor tread design.
I'll see you a 4-wheeled passenger vehicle and raise you a 2-wheeled motorcycle. It's bad enough that tolls are based on the number of axles. Makes me wish I could ride a wheelie through the tollbooth.
There'll be a lot more people driving on the equivalent of racing slicks to avoid replacing their tyres and, I imagine, a black market for retreading
The first wouldn’t pass safety inspection.
Most cities do not have safety inspections. That's particularly an urban thing to do.
The state of Virginia does it.
There are many states that require safety inspections. The effectiveness of the instections is still up for debate (supposedly little to no statistical difference in crashes causes by mechanical issues).
Yeah, I’m not sure it’s super good to do state inspections. Ends up being kind of a tax on the poor. Was just pointing out that tire inspections are part of routine state inspections.
People driving on bald tires are supposed to get ticketed.