They are fair for calculating road damage. But that would also mean that large trucks should be paying hundreds of times as much as passenger vehicles.
And that’s not the only reason to tax vehicles: urban crowding, danger to pedestrians and cyclists, pollution from fossil fuels (if used), the social and political cost of dependence on fossil fuels, particulate emissions from non-combustive sources such as tires and brakes, and I’m sure there are a few more too.
They are fair for calculating road damage. But that would also mean that large trucks should be paying hundreds of times as much as passenger vehicles.
And that’s not the only reason to tax vehicles: urban crowding, danger to pedestrians and cyclists, pollution from fossil fuels (if used), the social and political cost of dependence on fossil fuels, particulate emissions from non-combustive sources such as tires and brakes, and I’m sure there are a few more too.
I absolutely agree, which is why I gave an example of a factor that is almost entirely ignored in those calculations.