h a l f b a k e r yBaker Street Irregulars
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SUVs with more than 4 seats and/or 4 cylinders, will need to go into a special lane on freeway onramps that will charge you the standard toll plus an extra toll for the number of seats you have empty in your vehicle. I suggest $1/empty seat. This means a Ford Expedition would cost the driver $7 more
than regular toll for the use of their vehicle while empty.
This means that SUVs will still be legal, but only used when really needed. This will reduce their usage and clean up the air.
Energy use isn't the only problem with these monsters
http://www.washingt.../0212.mencimer.html
[mrthingy, Oct 17 2004]
(?) Canyonero!
http://hangingon.org/canyonero.html
[mrthingy, Oct 17 2004]
Seventy-five trolls on top of a Fiat
http://www.ai.mit.e...jects/troll-car.htm
[Amos Kito, Oct 17 2004]
(?) Tealeaf Magazine
http://www.tealeafmag.com
Tealeaf Magazine has an article about the psycological reasons for SUV use and marketing. [tealeaf magazine, Oct 17 2004]
(??) Wastemonsters - fighting the SUV menace
http://www.wastemonsters.org.uk
Realistic fake parking tickets for SUVs in London, UK. Downloads etc at this site. [sianb, Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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As long as this were applied to passenger cars as well which are just as polluting and often capable of carrying 6 passengers. The MB500 series or BMW 7 series for example get 10-15 miles per gallon, about what a large SUV gets. Often they only have 1 person in them. |
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Perhaps a large "toll tariff" should be assessed against the foreign built cars and SUVs upon import into the US. Take the Range Rovers--even the smallish Discovery series only get about 10mpg. |
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Of course vans should fall under this as well. Maybe anything with more than 4 cylinders or a disproportionate amount of fuel consumption. |
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To single out SUVs is silly when all they are is a different configuration. In fact, I think this idea is really just a rant about SUVs thinly disguised as an "invention." |
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Yes, sounding quite rant-ish. Corvettes, Mustangs and Cadillacs (just to name a few) certainly use an excessive amount of fuel for one passenger, but are oddly not mentioned. |
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Perhaps if the SUV's were made of lightweight titanium...? |
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What does SUV stand for anyway? displacement initial velocity final velocity (physics-related joke, and a pretty bad one at that) |
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The reason only SUVs are mentioned and not Corvettes, Mustangs, Benzes, and so on, are because all of these are sports or luxury cars, which are usually fun because of how fast they can go and how high their limits are. Luxury cars are often the same, but not quite as fast. I mean, how fast can your average SUV go, compared to a sports car? SUVs are so heavy they can't go fast at all, or go around corners quickly either (remember all those rollover stories on the news?). |
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How come there are so many posts for this idea, yet not one of you has voted? |
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What does going fast have to do with anything [Bert6322], and how is it you purport to know what the poster of the idea meant by only mentioning SUVs? |
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The last time I checked voting wasn't compulsory in the halfbakery nation. |
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Uh-oh. UB trod upon my sacred ground. While the SUV toll is a silly, pointless concept, so too is the idea of eliminating longhaul trucks. Granted, as a driver I may be a bit biased, but there is no logic to support elimination of trucks. While trains are undoubtedly efficient at what they do, they cannot replace trucks. Trains cannot respond to last-minute requests or changes like trucks can. The biggest problem with trains is that they don't go where you need them. Unless you plan to put rail sidings at every grocery store, there will still be a need for trucks to carry freight, if only from the rail yard to the destination. The argument then becomes that smaller trucks can carry the freight the last leg, but that adds to traffic since a smaller truck cannot carry as much. Instead of one semi carrying food to a dozen stores you need at least four little trucks. This doesn't even begin to account for UPS and FedEx and other delivery services. Trains cannot possibly provide the same fast delivery as trucks can. Anti-SUV and anti-truck are flip sides of the same coin. It could be argued just as easily that we should get rid of trains since trucks can do the same job and don't tie up traffic at crossings while switching cars on a nearby siding. |
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I fear we've drifted just a wee bit off topic, oops. The point of the original post was that we have too many big vehicles (SUV'S) being driven around with only one person on board. Going from one semi to four straight trucks quadruples the number of even larger vehicles occupied by a lone driver. Add to that the fact that additional railyards would be needed to provide the service required, which means more development and more destruction of natural resources. Plus extra tracks, sidings, and crossings which add to traffic congestion and increase the risk of accidents. Factor in the additional delivery trucks mentioned before and you have drastically magnified the problem titaniumtommy sought to solve with his original post. You now have more large, inefficient vehicles on the road, more traffic jams, and more pollution. And lack of planning is not always the culprit in last-minute freight calls. Bottom line is that trains serve a vital role in tihs country, so do trucks. Neither can replace the other. |
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supercat, eloquently put. That's what I was trying to say.
DR1665, basing the toll on the weight of the vehicle still doesn't solve the basic problem with the idea of an SUV toll. Why does the little old lady riding alone in her Cadillac not have to pay a toll? The vast majority of cars made today have four seats or more, why only penalize SUV drivers for driving solo? While I heartily agree that many of these vehicles are used strictly for making a statement, that does not justify penalizing everybody who owns one. Corvettes and Vipers are much lighter, smaller, and more efficient than most SUV's, but they are strictly toys. Why not penalize somebody for driving a sports car when they have no intention of racing it? Why should a family be forced to spend money on a third vehicle, even assuming they could afford to? Seems that money could be put to much better use than making sure they aren't seen as wasteful. As was mentioned in a previous post, SUV owners already pay a toll at the fuel pump. If all the SUV's were mysteriously converted to minivans overnight, people would be fussing about all the minivans being occupied by a lone person. People just need to get over it. In this country we are free to drive whatever we feel like. Driving a flashy car is no more heinous a crime than wearing an expensive suit or getting a high-dollar hair cut when a department store suit and the local barber will serve the same purpose. |
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DR1665, interesting concept. Isn't that almost like rewarding stupidity, though? Somebody running 90 MPH down the highway in said Geo should probably be examined, I think that qualifies as suicidal tendencies (not the band). |
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Perhaps this idea should be taken in reverse. People driving a big SUV getting 10 miles per gallon are naturally going to be paying more gas taxes than someone driving a little Geo getting 50 miles per gallon. A person driving a Geo should pay 5 times the road toll as the SUV driver in order to make up for this difference and ensure that everyone is taxed equally. |
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I think a 55 mph speed limit for vehicles with GVWR over 4,000 lbs would accomplish the same thing, without massive changes to existing infrastructure. |
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It now costs £25 to bring one of these vile
climate wreckers into central London
under the congestion charge. I'd make that
charge £500. |
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