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We compared land transport options for getting to net zero. Hands down, electric rail is the best.
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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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The average car weighs approximy 4000 lbs.
The ford f-150 is about 5000 lbs, which causes 2.4 times the road wear as the average car.
A big rig with no trailer weighs about 20,000 lbs, which causes 625 times the road wear as the average car.
An truck with an empty trailer weighs 30,000 lbs, causing 3,200 times the road wear as the average car.
A truck with a medium load weighs about 55,000 lbs, which causes 36,000 times the road wear.
A truck operating at the federal weight limit of 80,000 lbs causes 160,000 times the road wear as the average car.
But it gets worse. The average car driver drives 13,000 miles per year. Long haul trucks drive an average of 100,000 miles per year. They are commercial vehicles driving during most of a workday. Trucks drive 8 times further.
In comparison to the average car, a truck hauling medium loads causes around 288,000 times more road wear than a normal passenger car.
Trucks cost more to register than passenger cars, they pay slightly more in tax, but nowhere near the 288,000 times they should.
Trucks are economonically viable entirely due to the massive subsidies they get for being grossly undercharged for the roads they run on.
Edit: On reflection my numbers are probably too high, and extrapolating the available studies to big rigs is probably unreasonable. Trucks have per axle/tire weight limits. Bigger trucks have more axles. A truck with twice the weight distributed across twice the number of wheels will probably be closer to twice the wear than what I predicted. Not enough to negate the conclusion, but real numbers are probably not quite as high as I predicted.
Part of the other problem of trucks is they go across many borders, from cities to countries, but are not paying taxes for each specific road. This means a truck from Country A can pay the majoirty of its taxes to country A, despite spending more of its time on country B roads.
In most of Europe you need to pay a fee to drive on public roads, sometimes only motorways
There are some toll roads in north america. Mostly motorways or bridges. People pay a registration to put their car on the road and pay taxes on gas. Many assume this covers their share of the cost of the road and don't realize that driving is massively subsidized.
Throw that in there with factory farming, fossil fuels, airlines, and a bunch of other things that the government shovels money into.
Adding to your edits, you have to divide the weight by the number of tires before raising it to the 4th power then you multiply that new number by the number of tires. That will give you more accurate numbers