The annual net profit of the trucking industry in the USA is $30-$40 billion dollars. They aren’t scraping by and could certainly pay for their proportion of the damage trucks inflict on roads.

It is NOT the profits of trucking industry, the trucking industry will remain intact and fine. It is the profits of ALL the companies using trucking, they get to upgrade their businesses with the new model. And the innovative businesses which figure out how to do logistics better will survice.

This also gives a fighting chance for local production. Why are we hell bent on screwing local communities and protect the subsidies to the super rich?

The annual revenue of the trucking industry is roughly $900 billion. That puts their net profit margin at about 3-5%.

I suspect many commenters here work in companies that expect their profit margins to be 10× that.

That number is laughably low compared to value of cargo they move. Really they should get to tech company model. Take 20-30% of value what they transport. Say you got 100 billion of AI servers. 30% of that goes to trucking company when they move it point to point.

$30-$40 billion sounds like scrapping by to me. For an entire industry, one of the most important in the country.