Return of the SUV debate - a possible solution?

Great Debates
1

I was thinking back to a thread of yore, concerning SUVs, and how nothing much came of it. I would like to return to the subject, looking at a potential (partial) solution to some of the problems presented in that thread. (Can’t find the link, sorry.)

Here in Japan, owning a car is a little more involved, and much more expensive, than back home in the States.

Car owners in Japan must pay an annual car tax. Above and beyond that, evey two years they must pay shaken, which is essentially a car registration fee.

For both the tax and the shaken, the fees are much, much higher for larger vehicles. For example, the tax for a small, modest car would be roughly $75. The tax for an SUV could run upwards of $400.

Shaken for my little car was roughly $800, while my friend had to pay over $3000 for his SUV.

Now, when applying for shaken, you must take your car to the dealer, and get it inspected. If your car is in bad shape, the cost of your shaken goes up, as a “penalty.” You almost never see a car with rust here, even in my small little rural community.

Convieniently, the additional “penalty” costs to your shaken are exactly equal to how much you would have to pay to fix the problem. So, for example, I could either pay a 10,000 yen ($85) “penalty” for having a cracked headlight, or I could pay the dealer 10,000 yen to fix the headlight. So, needless to say, cars pretty much get all of the repairs they need, every two years.

There are pluses and minuses to this system. I feel that it’s great for the owners of SUVs to have to pay more shaken, as their vehicles are causing more road wear, emmiting more pollution, etc. Also, the “every other year” inspection cuts down on the number of dangerous vehicles on the road.

The biggest downside to the system is its cost to the car owner, especially to those in poverty. It makes it even more difficult and costly to get to work every day.

So, three questions:

1. Do you think a system like this “fair”, insofar as those with bigger vehicles have to pay more?

2. Would a system like this satisfy/pacify those who are opposed to SUVs?

3. Could a system like this possibly work in the USA?

To answer my own questions: I would say that this system is definitely “fair”, as those with bigger vehicles definitely “use” the road (and pollute the air) more than those with smaller vehicles.

Does this pacify the anti-SUV folk out there? Probably not, as it doesn’t at all address the “SUVs are dangerous to those with smaller cars” argument. But maybe it’s a start . . .

I’d like to see a similar system started in the States, but I don’t think it could or would ever happen.

Best,

TGD

2

How about we make SUVs obtain an inspection sticker that can only be issued at stations located 40 miles from the nearest road, in the middle of dense underbrush? That would discourage the ones who buy SUVs with fancy shiny paint jobs and only drive them on streets and highways.

3

And god forbid, we should make sure that everyone only uses vehicles for their ‘proper’ purposes. Otherwise, you’d have, uh… freedom.

Let’s take this a little further - anyone who owns a pickup truck must haul a load in it at least once a month, or pay a fine. Anyone who owns a sports car must race it on a track once a month, or pay a fine. And anyone on a beach who wears a speedo had better enter a swimming race or be fined by the beach patrol.

Think of all the problems with society we can solve if we just hire enough inspectors to make sure everyone behaves ‘properly’.

And considering how screwed up Japan’s economy is, I suggest we not try to learn any lessons from them.

The market is solving the SUV ‘problem’, to the extent that one exists in the first place. The gas mileage issue is starting to be addressed with Hybrid SUV’s. The largest growing category of SUV today are the ‘small’ SUVs like the Toyota RAV4 and the Ford Escape, which don’t take up any more space than a mid-size passenger car.

Here’s an example of how the market works to discourage SUVs. In my parking garage, the increase of SUVs has caused problems, because not as many can be parked in the same place. So the garage loses money. Their response is to make the lower floors ‘compact car’ only, plus all the corner stalls on the upper floors. That means the SUV people are treated like 3rd class citizens, and have to drive up 8 or 10 floors to park, while the smaller cars get to park in the bottom area. And there are plenty of times when the ‘large vehicle’ stalls are all full, while plenty of compact stalls stay open. So the SUV people have to drive back down to the street while others get to drive in and park.

I know of at least a couple of people at my office who are talking about dumping their SUVs for something smaller because it’s getting harder and harder to park them in the downtown area.

And the Hybrid SUVs are amazing. The new Ford Escape SUV gets about 40 mpg in combined city/highway driving, which is close to double the CAFE standard. Despite this, it has as much power as the non-hybrid version, and is quieter. The larger Hybrid SUVs and luxury SUV’s are using hybrid technology to actually make the vehicles MORE useful. One of the new full-size hybrid SUVs coming out has a range of greater than 500 miles on a tank of gas, gets close to 40 mpg, and the coolest thing of all, uses its battery pack to provide 110V plugs so that any appliances can be run off the vehicle, which becomes a generator. The new ‘Contractor Special’ hybrid truck has the same thing. So a construction worker can drive his truck to a remote jobsite and just plug his saws and drills and lights right into the truck. The diesel engine will run all day, turning the vehicle into a moble diesel-electric generator. Every construction worker is going to want one of these things, and the SUV version will be in huge demand for campers.

I think you’ll see a hybrid revolution in SUVs over the next five years. As a class, they may wind up being more fuel efficient than non-hybrid cars.

4

Of course, hybrid cars are likely to more widely available as well, and those in turn will most likely be more fuel-efficient than hybrid SUVs.

Re the OP:

Firstly, let’s pretend I’m naive. Explain to me why you feel that a system of punitive taxes is necessary on SUVs. I’m afraid the argument of increased wear on roads doesn’t quite work for me. Heavy trucks do far more damage to roads than even the largest personal vehicles, and sources I’ve read indicate that the road use taxes paid by truckers come nowhere near covering the cost of this damage.

Also, Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always understood the Japanese taxation and inspection system was put in place primarily as a back-door subsidy to the Japanese car industry, and more or less forces car owners to replace their vehicles after only a few years of service. I’d be interested in having that confirmed.

Inspection schemes, mostly on a yearly basis, already exist in some US states. In Pennsylvania, for example, there is a yearly mechanical inspection, and certain urban counties in that state require an emissions test on top of that. I see no reason to adopt the Japanese system based on inspections alone.

On to the OP’s questions:

  1. No. Whatever tax regime you may wish to apply on personal vehicles in the US, it will not be “fair” if there is no apparent voter will for such a punitive system to be put in place. And what, by the way, would the taxes be used for?

  2. Maybe, but I doubt it.

  3. IMO, taxes based on engine displacement, as is done in Europe, would be more to the point than one based on physical size of the vehicle, and the simple expedient of including light trucks and SUVs sold for personal use in the current CAFE scheme would probably get you most of the way there. But, as already stated, people in the US have voted with their wallets, and for better or worse, are overwhelmingly in favor of larger rather than smaller vehicles.

I don’t own an SUV, BTW.

5

How about a system that penalizes people for commiting violations with bigger heavier vechicals. Like speeding fines could be a function of your momentum:
(mass x speed x some factor) - (mass of average car x speed limit x some factor)
example:
average car @ 70 mph , speed limit - 55
(2500 lbs x 70 mph x .002) - (2500 lbs x 55 mph x .002) = $75 fine
Large SUV @ 70 mph , speed limit 55
(5000 lbs x 70 mph x .002) - (2500 lbs x 55 mph x .002) = $425 fine.

This would only penilize drivers that are already violating the law and in proportion to their potential damage that they could cause due to their law breaking.

6

I was just in Japan a few weeks ago, and asked my host what was with all the yellow licence plates on very silly looking little cars. He explained the situation to me, pretty much as in the OP, though the OP has put a negative slant on it. Larger vehicles don’t pay a penalty; there’s a bonus for owning a small vehicle, which is lower taxes and registration fees. I think it does a great job of encouraging people to buy smaller cars that are more friendly to the streets, the environment, the driving atmosphere, and other drivers. The mistake the OP made was the intent of the difference, which is positive.

I don’t see why we don’t do the same thing here. SUV owners will complain that they’re being discriminated against; I’d say they’re just not taking advantage of opportunities.

7

So the ‘shaken’ (not stirred? hahaha!) for a bus would be astronomical, if we are concerned about wear on the road, pollution, and fuel efficiency?

8

On an absolute scale, yes, but on a per passenger scale, certainly not.

9

Why not factor in milage driven on the vehicle?
A SUV driven 6000 miles in a year is less damaging to the roads than a Large car driven 22,000 miles a year.
Just wanted to add that wrinkle to the thread.

10

And while we’re being really arbitrary about this, I think the orange ones should have to pay double.

I hate the orange ones.

11

Why not just a bigger gas tax then? It would be proportional to the amount of driving you do and the pollution emitted and take care of almost all of the above points. Only problem is nobody wants to pay more and you’d have to settle the apparrant gas price gouging that goes on.

Gotta say I like k2dave’s suggestion and it’s probably (slightly) more politcally practical than mine. :slight_smile:

PC

12

Do I get money back for using a bicycle which produces no emissions (other than my own BO) and does no measurable damage to the road? It’s not orange, either.

13

How about we just leave people the hell alone? Why do some people have this continual compulsion to ‘tune’ society by forcing people conform to their vision of the ‘right’ way to live?

A gas tax is a big, indiscriminate hammer, to solve a ‘problem’ that not everyone has. The impact of an SUV on the infrastructure is a lot different in New York City than it is in Montana. The types of solutions that make sense are the ones the market is starting to provide - if a parking garage owner is losing money due to SUV’s limiting the number of stalls per square foot he can offer, he’ll respond by either charging SUVs more for parking, or changing the parking stalls to disallow SUVs entirely. As more and more business people reach the same conclusion and take the same steps, it will become a hardship to own an SUV in those areas, and people will change on their own.

As for road damage, I’d like a cite showing that an SUV causes any more wear on the road than a typical passenger car. Because I have my doubts. A typical SUV like a Jeep Cherokee only weighs a few hundred pounds more than a typical passenger car. And the larger tires may actually put less force on a road in terms of PSI than the tires of a smaller car. And I’ve never heard this argument put forth against SUVs before. Did someone just pull this argument out of the air?

And while most SUVs burn more gas than typical cars, the average SUV doesn’t burn more gas than the bigger, more powerful cars. And the newer compact SUVs like the Ford Escape are competitive in gas consumption. The Toyota RAV4 gets 25mpg in the city, and 31 on the highway. The Escape is the most powerful and gas hungry of this class of SUV, and it gets 18/24.

The worst SUV on the road gets 15mpg highway, 12 in the city. That’s the Land Rover Range Rover. But most of the worst performing SUVs in gas mileage are the really, really expensive ones and make up a small percentage of the overall market.

In comparison, the typical large sedan gets somewhere around 28 highway, 22-23 city.

The bottom line is that the smaller SUVs are now by far the most rapid selling models in the class, and they get gas mileage right within the range of passenger cars, and better than minivans. It looks to me like the ‘SUV problem’ is well on the way to solving itself. In the meantime, it’s not that much of a problem in the first place.

14

That’s all well and good. But I still want money back.

Actually, I think gas taxes are certainly defensible, as pollution can rightly be considered an externality, and gas consumption is correlated to pollution (especially for carbon dioxide). Also, the dependence of the US on foreign oil or trying to get it from ANWR has its costs. So I think it’s reasonable to suggest that these costs be evened out through gas and pollution taxes.

Mostly, though, the SUV “problem” seems to be people looking for a scapegoat. And I have to admit, SUVs are easy to hate. Hell, SUV drivers aren’t exactly sympathetic. But they aren’t the huge problem that people like making them out to be.

I’d still like to get them off the roads, for personal reasons, but as a libertarian-minded sort of guy, I object to using the power of the government to fulfill my own ends.

15

Like voting, waterj? :wink:

16

I’ve got no problem with SUVs when they don’t block my parking or visibility or cause more damage to cars they hit (and I don’t know if it’s generally true, but aggression in an SUV seems not only to be more common, but more intimidating- at least in NYC). Otherwise they’re like motorcycles to me. They’re not the smartest or safest things to drive, but it’s no skin off my nose.

It’s only indiscriminate if it’s applyied indiscriminately. Although your point does seem to say that SUVs have an impact on NYC (at least more than in Montana). I actually don’t see the problem with a gas tax. I suppose you could make it a percent of the gas price (like a sales tax) rather than the amount sold ($/gallon). It does seem like a much better type of tax than most since it’s not for the vehicle, but for it’s use which is what you want it (the vehicle) for.

PC

17

No, I don’t particularly like voting. All the candidates always suck. And once I give them the power, they use it to meet their own ends, which I don’t like in principle, plus their ends are stupid. And for some reason there are never anarchists on the ballot, which would make things more interesting.

18

A man of my own tastes, then.

19

New, small, economical, death-trap = $16,000
New, big, heavy, evil SUV = $40,000

That’s more than enough regulation for me!

20

To return (somewhat) to the OP, in many states SUV owners are taxed more for their vehicles. In South Carolina, there is a yearly property tax based on the depreciated value of the vehicle; therefore,a more expensive SUV adds more to the tax base for more years. The Ford Festiva with the “Think Green” sticker on the back bumper adds less. Additionally, the guy in the black Hummer I saw this morning pays more gas taxes by the very nature of his vehicle.

And to the point of basing gas taxes on the vehicle–don’t you think the lines at the counter of the store are long enough without some clerk having to figure out the tax rate for a 1976 Blazer?