Paris mayor plans to triple SUV parking tariffs to cut air pollution
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It is interesting that discrimination is OK when based on "things" but not when applied to humans. After all "heavier" humans also use more resources just as "heavier" cars do.
Or do heavier people not use more resources then skinnier humans? What's wrong with drawing a parallel to cars?
You’re arguing as if charging heavy people more to fly isn’t a thing. It is. And I don’t think that’s abhorrent nor even unfair.
And yes, it's very murky as you say. There is a difference between genetic and chosen unfortunately the difference isn't obvious from just the optics.
Okay, so let's get back to the actual topic. Help me understand how buying an SUV is fundamentally—beyond optics—similar to being genetically predisposed to obesity.
The genetics, in this case, is money: is the owner wanting to protect their family, has taken on debt to purchase this SUV just because they wish to have a "safer" car for their family. Or is the owner on their fourth SUV and it's just-another-car purchase. One owner is struggling, the other was born with a silver spoon.
Not everyone is born to be able purchase an SUV, being born with or without money can influence peoples life, just as their genetics.
Both are random attributes that are assigned upon birth.
If I want to eat two pizzas, I have to pay for two pizzas, regardless of medical condition… If I want two gallons of gas instead of one… If I want two months of Netflix instead of one…
It’s unclear why people expect that some should consume two seats and pay for only one…
I was ok with that accommodation, it seemed reasonable and with a little research into the flights and how often they were truly full it was rare that i didn’t get a refund.
Maybe some airlines will come eventually with new fare where total weight with all clothes and luggage would be billed with different tiers, let's say 5: <20, 20-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150+ kg.
I wish we could ban SUVs.
I hate the fact that cars have bloated out so much, but there’s a reason people end up with SUVs (they’re smaller than minivans, at least)
But that said, it's not even really a commercial requirement. We have safety guidelines for humans inside cars, but no safety guidelines to protect people who are struck by cars. Both commercial and emotional companion vehicles like those with 5 foot grill heights should be forced to be designed for safety in collisions. Otherwise the vehicle doesn't belong among normal traffic.
Regulations (at least in the US) around car seats have made it more difficult to have three children without buying a larger car.
I dislike huge cars (I actually love tiny cars like the Nissan Figaro) but I may have to get one.
Instead of just requiring latch anchors, they should mandate that using all the latch anchors doesn’t reduce the max number of passengers.
Also, I wonder if they could eliminate booster seat requirements by mandating seatbelts that can be adjusted for short people.
As it is, we can’t take public transit, since the last few miles of most trips involves an illegal ride for the kiddos in an uber (so we have the kids walk those miles instead, which gets old fast).
Uber is a problem with really little kids, but you can get portable and even inflatable car seats and boosters that aren’t too bad to carry around.
To add insult to injury, the crew cab weighs more, reducing usable towing and bed capacity, so now, about a quarter of the time I need a truck, I end up borrowing or renting a smaller, but higher capacity one.
The main competitor would be a car with a nice cab and car seat, and then a second beater truck with a single row of seating.
Alternatively, if someone made such a thing, but of course they don't, I'd like a little brick of an EV sedan that could tow as much as a large pickup (> 12,000 lbs), with no bed but a nice cab. The Rivian truck gets close to the towing requirement at 11,000 lbs, but for some reason their SUV only hits 7700. The BMW X5 hybrid is also close to what I'd be looking for, but still only hits 7700 lbs.
https://assets.super.so/6b4b5d92-904a-4e7b-95bd-914dd1d1528f...
Wow!
Almost all of the difference since 2009 in likely attributable to smartphones [1]. (Almost all of the increase in deaths occur around sunset.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nightt...
Sure. Big cars are a safety problem. I'm just challenging the claim that "it’s largely thought that the reason...pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S....is bigger cars."
So no, I don’t understand the mindset of why someone would focus on and propose radical solutions that apply to a very narrow window of opportunity as opposed to proposing not so radical solutions that apply to a wide area of opportunity.
Yet in America "total pedestrian deaths from ["smaller vehicles (like sedans, coupes and station wagons)"] are up more than 70 percent, suggesting the bulk of the problem cannot be attributed to increased car size alone."
I did notice that in parts of the US nighttime lighting of even some major urban and suburban roads can be nonexistent. I wonder if it’s more common in Canada and the US.
As this HN user put it[0](eloquently, I thought):
> Yield to gross tonnage.
I think it's a great slogan. I was thinking of getting a bumper sticker like that but forgot about it. Everyone driving small cars must understand: cemeteries are full of people with the right of way, yield to gross tonnage.
Specifically, my gross tonnage.
The problem with this statistic is it might have teeth viewed in isolation, but loses its impact if you broaden the statistics to account for who and how many are dying in vehicle related fatalities. If larger modern vehicles provide greater safety to the passengers within, and if passengers are more likely to die by vehicle accidents than pedestrians, a small move of the needle in vehicle passenger safety due to larger vehicles might cause significant improvement number of total vehicle related fatalities despite pedestrian deaths increasing.
Even if it was an overall reduction, as the IIHS puts it, "The models that rank among the best and worst performers on both lists point to the unfortunate fact that vehicle cost remains a factor in road safety".[1]
Optimizing public safety in this way may--even if it were true--leads to deeply inequitable safety. Large cars are safer for richer people while disproportionately affecting poorer people and children.
[1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/latest-driver-death-rates-h...
Overall vehicle related fatalities are decreasing even if pedestrian fatalities are increasing. Perhaps the solution to the pedestrian fatality increase isn’t due to the vehicle, it’s due to the opportunity for the two to come together.
The evidence is clear. Increased pedestrian deaths are largely due to vehicle size.
Perhaps the underlying thought is there must be a way to make cars safer for passengers and pedestrians. One demonstrable way to achieve this is better infrastructure [1][2] rather than just building bigger cars.
[1] https://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safet... [2] https://www.strongtowns.org/
What a strange response. You are critical of my comment yet you post links discussing ways to improve infrastructure speaking directly to my point about the best way to avoid fatalities is to mitigate the opportunities for vehicles and pedestrians to come together?
The evidence is clear, overall vehicle fatalities are decreasing. If you want to avoid pedestrian fatalities caused by vehicles literally the best way to accomplish this is to minimize the opportunities for pedestrians and vehicles to come together at speeds in which fatalities are likely to occur.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2023-Q2-traffic-fatalit...
My Mini Clubman S All4 barely makes it under at 1.56 tonnes. Once I fill the tank with gas, It’s only 7lbs under.
My wife’s 2023 V4 Camry XSE AWD is 1.62 metric tons and would by penalized by this weight class distinction simply because of the AWD feature. Note the V6 Camry TRD is 1.62 metric tonnes as well (5lbs lighter than the XSE) but with its V6 sport tuning will have much worse emissions - while not being penalized because it isn’t AWD.
(Note non-AWD cars aren’t penalized by this law…)
Unless there are other distinctions in this law, this seems like a weird way to define the penalized class.
Meanwhile, a BMW 840 Grand Coupe rear wheel drive is unaffected and weighs 1.93 metric tons.
- Central Paris will have ZERO diesel cars after 2024.
- 1, 2, 3, 4 and north parts of 5, 6, 7 arr. will have limited non-diesel traffic.
- Neuilly is also adopting the same limitation, because everyone there already have Teslas. (Electric is not the solution, the bike is the solution)
Respiratory diseases are not only caused by viruses they are also increased by diluting gasoline and diesel with other oils (historically mostly palm-derived, but now any cooking oil is used) to increase supply.
I'm betting fracking also puts a lot of bad things into these fuels that then end up in the air you breathe.
Of course she is very sensitive now, she can’t be even close to a person smoking or a bbq. But it’s also a good indicator of how bad is for your lungs to live in Paris ir any polluted city.
Besides, trucks carrying goods are already taxed based on weight, they're measured at the truck weighing stations on the highway.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/hvut/mod1/whatish....
Cars in NL are way more expensive then in the neighbouring countries.
Huh, you can't even buy in US a decent new European car if someone decided not to sell the model through the dealership. Wait 25 years and only then you can import and register it.
The tax does decay for second hand cars, so there's a big market for foreign newtimers.
They'd still be taxed, unless they lived in the foreign EU country for 12 months and bought the car and owned it for 6 months.
I suppose the EU is a customs union, but "some restrictions apply".
Under a fair weight tax scheme, a passenger of a fully loaded bus would pay more than a solo driver of a Hummer EV (one of the heaviest SUVs on the market).
Some data on bus weights [1]:
Transit Bus Type Passengers Curb Weight (lb) Fully‐Loaded Weight (lb)
Max Seated Max Total
2‐axle 35‐foot 27 – 40 46 – 72 15,450 – 28,510 23,360 – 39,020
2‐axle 40‐foot 35 – 44 61 – 92 20,520 – 32,520 30,600 – 44,100
2‐axle 45‐foot 44 – 46 80 – 86 30,130 – 30,450 41,480 – 42,530
3‐axle 45‐foot Double‐deck 79 – 82 116 – 122 36,560 – 37,930 54,670 – 55,850
3‐axle 60‐foot Articulated 41 – 61 89 – 123 37,920 – 49,520 55,975 – 64,690
A three axle articulated bus with 123 passengers has a loaded axle weight of 21,563 lbs using the data from the table above.
This means that the bus has ~4.7 times the load per axle as the SUV, so per the fourth power law, it does 488 times as much damage to the road as the SUV. Since it carries 123 people, that means that each bus passenger is doing ~4 times as much damage to the road as the SUV driver.
[1] https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/docs/TCRPJ-11Task... (Table 7/Page 25)
I generally agree, personal vehicles should be taxed based on weight and power. Small taxes for small cars(fiat 500) and extra high taxes for ridiculously heavy and/or powerful vehicles like 911 or cybertuck.
To be fair, rule should have different multipliers. Small rate for small car and buses, huge rate for trucks. Easy.
No, but it's more elegant and less gameable that way. Otherwise, we wind up with the Section 179 problem [1].
[1] https://over6000pounds.com/electric-vehicles-that-unlock-the...
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. If a solution isn’t as elegant as possible, but significantly reduces the amount of SUVs on the roads, it’s a good thing - period.
I would assume that road damage is proportional to surface pressure at the contact patch, so greater contact patch means less damage. As a result you can have a heavier vehicle do less damage than a lighter vehicle with the same number of axels, if the number and size of tires on the larger vehicle is greater than the smaller vehicle.
Most busses I see around run large truck tires, and normally have 4 tires on the rear axel vs the normal 2 you’ll find on a Hummer. So a bus spreads it weight over 6 tires rather than 4, and if we generously assume the Hummer tires and bus tires have the same contact patch, that means a bus can be 50% heavier than the Hummer, but not cause any additional damage.
I know loading regulations are normally done based on axel number, rather than tire number. But I assume that’s mostly down to ease of regulation, rather than axel count being the most accurate way to calculate road damage. Indeed the document you link too even breaks down loading limits based on number of axels, but also single tire limits, which maybe different depending on pressure of the tire.
Edit: I also note that U.S. buses seem to be much heavier than necessary. As a point of comparison a two axel double decker, New Routemaster in London[1], which carries up to 87 people, has a curb weight of only 28,000lbs, which would give it a fully laden weight of only 29,000lbs. That’s substantially less than equivalent buses in that document.
For example, it highlights how the damage also depends on the road construction, with highways and major arterials built to a higher standard.
As a general rule, a fully-loaded 123 passenger bus is running on an arterial, not a residential street like someone driving their Hummer EV home does, so you can't compare the road damage simply by axle weight.
Your source even highlights how "it is possible for fewer, heavier buses to damage pavement less than more, lighter buses."
That's all part of larger cost/benefit analysis, like how building for a longer service life for the bus means using heavier parts, which increases the weight, or how running fewer, larger buses reduces emissions per passenger-mile.
The owner of the Hummer EV does a different cost/benefit analysis, with some of the costs born by the government and thus shared across the taxpayers. Without extra fees for heavier vehicle owners, they end up paying the same as light vehicle owners despite the higher negative impacts of their heavy vehicles.
FYI, a Zoe weights 1.5t
Btw buses bring 50 ppl.
There’s a difference of what they can do and what they actually do most of the time in practice.
If I were paying the actual price, including externalities, I would not have bought this car nor feel at risk because every other vehicle on the road is made on top of a truck platform.
In France, that average is 1.3. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/05/03/the-env...
If SUVs were actually regularly fully utilized, then things like HOV lanes would not work.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/09/21/what-are-the-econom...
Just checking Google for clearance heights - looks like Siennas are about 6 inches shorter than a Suburban.
SUVs carry, for the most part, their own weight. And the fragile ego of the owner, of course.
So much for the air pollution part.
Tesla Model Y is a huge vehicle.
Because a 1.5t Zoe pollutes even less :P We can argue about the cut-off line, but it'll be arbitrary - the only thing for certain is that the mayor seems to agree with the sentiment.
Because they care bad for the environment. Because they take up a lot of space. Because they are unsafe, especially for others.
Tire and road particles are quite serious. You are correct that an ICE car is worse, and yes in a perfect world we'd ban them entirely. But there are many reasons for why that is difficult. Paying a small tax for extravagant vehicles for the greater good of a community is not a problem.
If anything 2 tons is way too much. We need more incentives to make light vehicles. Not just deterrents for way too big cars.
Like GP mentioned, tires also pollute via abrasion.
> 2 tons is just slightly heavier than a Tesla Model Y, a compact SUV barely large enough for a family of 4
A Model Y by Parisian scale is a incredibly huge car. French (and honestly most European) families get by with VW Golf sized car.
> and more than 2 tonnes for electric vehicles.
- SUVs are bad,
- small vehicles are good,
- ${this} is the solution for any outliers (e.g. Toyota Sienna).
I’m not sold. Tax per mile-pound, not flat and not because you didn’t feed the meter. Small vehicles are less ergonomic for tall people to put children in car seats. Electric vehicles are still fine and yes, let’s protect those not in the vehicle. But, critical thinking leads to many diverse solutions to the stated problems you all are trying to solve.
In the face of all this, your reason to drive an SUV, a vehicle that is needlessly heavy and has lots of emissions, is that it’s… more convenient for tall people?