While stuck in traffic west of Portland on US 26, which I sometimes think of affectionately as the Sunset Walkway, another reason to limit SUVs occurred to me that has nothing to do with their poor gas mileage.
A freeway can hold only so many cars in each lane-mile. The upper limit can be calculated based on the average car length and the distance between cars. If cars get shorter, then the freeway could hold more cars. Let’s tax cars the same way we tax boats: the longer the car, the more we pay for the license plates. And why not? If you’re using 17 feet of the road and I’m using only 12 feet, then you’re taking up more space than I am, and you should pay more for the privilege. And if the SUV drivers switch to shorter cars, then the freeway capacity goes up substantially, without capital investment. Make shorter cheaper.
Comments
7 responses
I like it! (I have a very small SUV.)
Ahhhh….I’m loving this idea! 🙂
Fine by me! I just wish people would pick their vehicles more apporopriately in general. Even if you want to drive an SUV, Kia’s reintroducing the Sportage next year (though it’s not clear whether the 2.5L gasoline or 3L diesel will be the standard engine for the US market yet). The Sportage is only three quarters of an inch longer than a Geo Tracker (and thus fits in just two-thirds the length of a compact or downtown parking space with plenty of margin to the sides) and has a larger interior than a Jeep Cherokee, and costs around $12,000, new, with some options. It gets good mileage, my ‘95.5 Sportage gets ~30MPG, and last winter I was pulling people out of snowdrifts with it during my commute. As the guy driving the Excursion said, “Man, if I knew I could get a vehicle that doesn’t get stuck, cheaper, and fits in a downtown parking space without trouble, I wouldn’t have gone with this Ford…”
Just take the bus, you’ll save yourself a lot more energy.
The crowding on the freeway isn’t because someone else has a larger car than you can afford. The crowding is due to there being too many people on the 2-lane road that is 26. Make it 4-lanes already and be done with it.
This would be fair IF the SUV owners weren’t already paying so much more in gas taxes for the road construction than the fuel efficient car owners.
But, if you wiped out the gas tax and instead licensed cars charging them by their length, you’d have a lot of pissed off Prius owners.
Great idea, and much more easily implemented than my idea about speed limits specific to your vehicle’s handling capabilities. SUVs surely would be safe at legal speeds then, but I suppose they would still be in the way.
size matters, eh ?