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Comment by _djo_ | Hacker News Reader

That may be true, but heavy goods vehicles are already taxed in the UK according to a sliding scale of their mass and number of axles in order to account for their damage to roads. [0]

[0] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ca1f035c2e6...

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Yes, but I think OPs point is if you're taxing vehicles according to their contribution to road damage, then cars should efficiently be taxed at 0 (I don't know I'd that is true, but it seems to be the point their making). If heavy goods are 100% of the damage, they should cover 100% of the tax.

Now that said, I'm not convinced they are actually 100% of the damage. I've seen many residential streets in need of repair that essentially never see heavy vehicle traffic. And I'm also not certain that taxes should be based on cost added vs value provided - but it's a reasonable discussion to have.

But again this seems short sighted. Electric vehicles (vs ICE) remove a ton of negative externalities from society. And while they do bring others (in how many of their materials are sourced) they are a big net positive. Don't disincentivise them because of a change in fuel tax revenue.

> I've seen many residential streets in need of repair that essentially never see heavy vehicle traffic

Maybe just the freeze-thaw cycle?

Yeah, weather/time do a lot, it's definitely not all trucks. And a lot of them are maintained just so they're available for everyone, whether they're being heavily used or not. So I don't actually think that trucks should bear everything. But I do think they should pay a large fraction of highway maintenance budgets, partly so that they're not unfairly advantaged versus cargo rail.

Mostly putting it out there so that people don't start thinking that EVs need to be taxed more highly than ICE cars because they're a bit heavier.

Nice. Those amounts seem kind of low, though? Not sure if I'm reading it correctly. A truck that weighs 20x the amount of a passenger car, with 2 axles, appears to pay 300 pounds per year?

Also, weirdly, a 40,000 kg truck with 2 axles seems to be taxed less than the same truck with 4 or more axles.

These are annual registration taxes, not usage taxes.

Ideally you'd want a sort of usage tax also based on this, but implementation has been difficult to achieve. [0]

[0] https://www.lafabriquedelacite.com/en/solutions/weight-tax-a...

Yeah, a fixed tax, but based on weight, which is sort of a low-resolution usage tax.

300 pounds is more, but not very significantly more, than car registration in many US states.

Perhaps more points of contact is better for the road?

Yeah, it should be, but it seems they're taxing more axles more for the same weight, so it seems like something else is going on there.

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