Small multiplier, I think not.

Pickup trucks weigh about 1.5x as much as a sedan (comparing Camry to F150). Due to the fourth power law, they should be taxed about 5 times higher than a sedan simply for road maintainence. I don’t have the numbers, but I doubt that is so. Toll roads typically charge per axle, and as below, gas tax is probably only about 2x. Ironically, EVs should pay more tax for maintenance since they are usually quite a bit heavier—though the OP truck is still ~600 lb lighter than an F150.

Fuel economy is about half in a pickup vs. a sedan, so they pollute that much more. Gas tax obviously scales here, but do the other taxes? Does gas tax go towards remedying the pollution impact at all? I don’t know.

Then there’s the safety impact on pedestrians and other vehicles. I don’t have numbers here, sorry.

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jakelazaroff 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Also, if you consider the externalities of cars in general, there's the additional issue of designing our communities around them rather than around the people who live there.

This quote is kinda a meme by now but here's SimCity lead designer Stone Librande on how the team had to make parking lots unrealistically small for the game to be enjoyable [1]:

> When I started measuring out our local grocery store, which I don't think of as being that big, I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.

[1] https://archive.ph/z7hZG#selection-753.65-753.506

	▲	wyre 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		If you spend any time looking at parking lots on satellite maps you quickly realize parking lots are nearly always at least twice as large as the building they are for.

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monkeyelite 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Due to the fourth power law, they should be taxed about 5 times higher than a sedan simply for road maintainence.

In this model wouldn’t 18 wheelers dominate and it doesn’t matter what personal vehicles do?

	▲	amarshall 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed a max-load trailer truck is equivalent to 10,000 cars in road wear. However the benefit of them (since they transport goods for many) is somewhat outweighed. Regardless, that doesn’t obviate taxing personal vehicles at all, nor heavier vehicles more than lighter ones. Some quick searching shows there are about 60x more personal vehicles than trailer trucks in the U.S.