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Also we need incentives to convince people to choose to drive lighter and smaller cars. Carrots and/or sticks should be considered.

Alternatively, new tire technologies could maybe also solve the problem.

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forgotoldacc 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If it's not already obvious, in a lot of places, when regulations are promoted to reduce waste and benefit public/environmental health, a large number of people will get angry and vote for those who'll want to maximize damage just because. If regulations promoting smaller cars were ever suggested in these places, some smiling politician would announce a mandate that vehicles be 5 tons or greater with anything smaller being banned, and compilations of people who worried about the environment would be circulated and heavily mocked online.

	▲	AnthonyMouse 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is misunderstanding why people respond that way. There are a lot of people who can't easily change their behavior, e.g. because your theory is that they should buy smaller cars but their business requires a vehicle that can carry heavy loads once a week and they can't afford to buy a separate vehicle for that so the larger vehicle has to be their daily driver. Then a tax meant to induce a change in behavior is received by them as an unavoidable tax hike, which they naturally resent and oppose, and because of the nature of politics they'll then propose the opposite of whatever you're trying to do to them. What you really need to do is to make it more possible for them to do the thing you want. For example, right now if you want to have a modern compact car for most use and an old truck you use once a week for truck stuff, you have to register and insure two vehicles. That isn't currently economical, but it's what you want to happen so they're not just driving the truck at all times. What you want to do is to make it economical. Only charge a registration fee for someone's primary vehicle and waive the cost for a second one, and make insurance work in such a way that having two vehicles doesn't have any higher liability premiums than driving the same total number of miles in one vehicle. Then they can do what you want, and in fact have the incentive to, because the smaller car will save them gas most of the time but they still have the truck when they need it.

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LeifCarrotson 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Incentives and penalties need to also exist to encourage manufacturers to offer smaller cars. Many domestic manufacturers are finding that giant luxury SUVs and 100+ kW high-end BEVs are highly profitable, and aren't even selling small and light vehicles at all for customers to choose.

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danielheath 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tyre wear is proportional to the fourth power of wheel load; reducing weight per wheel is the key here.

Hiwever, taxing new tyres may be counterproductive, since encouraging folk to keep using their worn tyres is not a good outcome for road safety.

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potato3732842 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tyre wear is proportional to the fourth power of wheel load; reducing weight per wheel is the key here.

No, it's not.

You're taking a very loose rule of thumb for road surface wear and baselessly applying it to tires.

Tire wear follows the rubber the tire is made out of. Soft rubber wears faster. Once you control for that it's acceleration and braking loads (i.e. driving style) that dominate. After that is when weight starts mattering.

If what you said was even remotely true then heavy vehicles would get obviously less life out of tires compared to compact cars when in reality they get about the same

	▲	david-gpu 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> If what you said was even remotely true then heavy vehicles would get obviously less life out of tires compared to compact cars when in reality they get about the same Are you assuming that the tires of heavy vehicles have the same thickness as lighter vehicles? My bike has much thinner tires than any car, and they can last ten thousand kilometers.
	▲	danielheath 12 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas from. Best estimate I can see of prime mover tyre lifespan is 40,000-120,000 km. I'd be quite happy if I could get that kind of lifespan out of my cars tyres.

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qwerty_clicks 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tires these days are expensive. To make them cheaper, they have reduced quality as well. Likely wearing faster and with worse material

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Tiktaalik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We need alternatives to cars too.