> But be practical: The guys running the machinery that literally makes society possible deserve to be compensated fairly and I don't see many trucking magnates living large at the rest of our expense.

Properly taxing trucks will be mostly passed onto the consumer, not reducing their compensation much, and it would significantly reduce the number of trucks on the road (a good thing). Out of equilibrium, it would cause many of them to go under and compensation would crater... so of course it would be wildly unpopular.