Hacker News Reader

Comment by nullc | Hacker News Reader

I wish we'd do something like a revenue neutral noise pollution registration fee, where the top 25% loudest things on the road pay a higher fee which is used to give a discount to the bottom 49%... creating an incentive to drive noise pollution levels continually down.

View on HN

It's hard to measure loudness that way. Many cars seem to be capable of being quiet or loud. Which way do you think they'll be during certification?

That wouldn't be fatal: if you bring down the typical levels it becomes easier to lower the bannable levels.

The noise pollution we experience doesn't just come from the loudest cars at their loudest times-- though that has an outsized effect-- it comes from all but the absolute quietest.

It's simply a matter of the testing specification. Eg testing on a dynometer at full throttle.

Ideally vehicles would monitor their own loudness and reject driver commands that would be too loud.

That only really makes sense where there's a tradeoff: with carbon taxes, you can at least understand why carbon-based energy sources are being used. With loud cars, there's no benefit to tradeoff against! IMO, bans make more sense. That said, your proposal is better than nothing, and I would be in favor of anything that reduces the amount of noise pollution.

The benefits are whatever is causing the noise.

Not following.

Revenue-neutral taxes are great! But it's better to simply give back the revenue as uniform credits to all taxpayers.

My thought on taxes that compensate the best of is that you get an incentive on two sides: Both to not be the nosiest and an incentive to be among the quietest-- so for a given amount of money moved you get twice the incentive.

... or give it back to residents in the areas that have the most noise pollution? If the motivation of the tax is that this behavior is harmful, shouldn't the people that are most harmed be first in line to receive any benefit?

I don't want rich people to be able to buy their way into making an infernal racket.

We shouldn't let a fear of someone enjoying a benefit we feel they don't deserve get in the way of improving noise levels for others.

The high/low tax I propose isn't about preventing the worst offenders: it's about pulling the overall fleet noise levels down. The noise pollution we suffer from isn't exclusively from a few infernal racket makers -- other measures (like the articles cameras) are needed for nuisance cars.

Even if you're only concerned about the worst of the worst, lowering the average levels should make it easier to act against the worst of the worse through lower limits and harsher penalties because they'll be more separated from ordinary vehicles.

Yes, "both" is a good idea. A tax + a progressive penalty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com