Just a quick one. Having pay-per-mile car insurance makes a lot of sense, though I don’t think I had ever considered it. See it discussed here in the context of the negative externalities of driving.
What are the negative externalities of driving? To name just three: congestion, carbon emissions and traffic accidents. Every time Arthur gets in a car, it becomes more likely that Zelda — and millions of others — will suffer in each of those areas.
[…]
So, with roughly three trillion miles driven each year producing more than $300 billion in externality costs, drivers should probably be taxed at least an extra 10 cents per mile if we want them to pay the full societal cost of their driving.
Feldspathic 
22 April, 2008 at 9:40 pm |
i can kinda agree with the middle one (assuming the burden is supposed to be on the consumer) even though it would kill me money-wise; well not as much as it is to move to another house more centrally located but it would definately hurt. the other two is a little too complex imho. for instances ppl who mostly drive in suburbia or rural areas drive lot longer but probably dont contribute to congestion or traffic accidents as much as urban drivers so then you would need some formula etc. etc. et.c ….. might be too much bureacuracy. like taxing net worth instead of cash flow
but the fact that he used Zelda as a a name … i will now be forced to agree
22 April, 2008 at 10:00 pm |
Part of my hope is that once these costs become more visible, people will be more willing to invest in infrastructure that will bring the costs back down. For example, busing and intra-city rail (and rail in general), better city planning, etc.
While I love these thing, it’s hard to see them catching on at large without a large amount of external pressure. Such as jacking up prices.
Of course, you wouldn’t want there to be a gap between the time the prices increase and the availability of cheap alternatives.
I’m not sure about the traffic accident thing. It seems possible that accidents are a function mostly of miles driven, possibly exacerbated by driving where there is less traffic and thus less need to pay immediate attention. But debatable.
22 April, 2008 at 10:44 pm |
well we might be in that gap already (or be a mirror of the 70’s). course its always easier to build infrastructure from scratch then trying to redo it which most cities have to do. i can say in austin most ppl supported rail but took 2-3 votes before it actually got passed cuz of the initial capital cost. basically the proposal that finally got voted in uses existing rail so it didnt cost much (but the rail line probably isnt the most efficient). coupled with poor public schools, tech sector not doing well, healthcare costs etc., i think alot of ppl had a hard time justfying putting alot of money into the rail with a tight budget (course now Austin is more congested than Dallas or Houston).
it give a more intelligent answer but im not an intelligent person nor an expert on public policy.
It could be we will be all forced to live in cities like Tokyo or NYC cuz the cost of travel will be too great in the far future. but i like having a backyard for my dogs to take a poop.
22 April, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
Well, Minneapolis-Saint Paul does a pretty good job with mass transit (comparatively). Of course, we pay taxes up here in the Mid-West.
Seriously though, I think rail (especially high-speed rail) combined with buses would allow us to keep our yards.
22 April, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
i was just thinking in terms of like manhattan and tokyo…. if it ever came to do have to do that in the far far future. no more yards. sparse green stuff, i think called grass and trees. like a movie like ummm 5th element? thats the first movie that comes to mine for some reason.
ive noticed lately that ive been visiting cities with good mass transit like NYC and SF. i sit in traffic couple hours a day so i dont want to do that when im trying to relax. its definatly a good selling pt to me. course im lazy by nature.
as for a serious soln; dont know.. ppl bitch about the price at the pump but still fill their tank; so it hasnt reach taht point of a lot of consumer acceptance so either another supply sink or just exponential cost increase. theres always exception to the rule but for the most part ppl procrastinate till last second.