• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    the negative externalities to health, safety,

    see: Car Insurance Costs

    road wear,

    you’re thinking a Road Tax like the UK? That’s coming; but I’ll only vote on it if it pays MoT AND MoT takes over a completely-public mass-transit

    parking,

    User-fees

    and pollution.

    E car; but I can get behind a levy on car insurance through our publicly-managed consolidated regional single-base-insurer, for Internal Combustion Engine cars.

    Drivers don’t currently pay those costs,

    It seems the only thing missing is the road tax; and that’s just because they’re in love with their volatile user fees for transit despite the near-collapse of CEO bonuses during the pandemic.

    • SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Car insurance only covers a small number of externalities. It does not cover tire particle pollution (tires are the number one source of microplastics in the world), air exhaust pollution, noise pollution, etc etc. Even if they never got into accidents, cars would remain one of the most hazardous things to our health. Cars are also the number one killer of children, by far, and insurance doesn’t bring them back to life.

      Agreed that a road tax is a good start. But a road tax wouldn’t cover the fact that bigger cars cause MUCH more of all these harms than smaller cars, so externalities remain.