Re: Road Cost Recovery.

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>Would you like to provide some examples of "excessive damage" done to
>roads?  How do you define "excessive" as in the degree of damage done
>to a road?
>
Potholes and huge cracks. Not sure where you are from else I would try and
provide some local examples but in my area, most of the roads have been
recently done up, some due to damage. I would assume given the relative
weights of cars and trucks that trucks cause significantly greater wear and
tear than the much lighter cars. Reports of studies I have seen would bear
that out although I have a friend in Vicroads design group, perhaps he can
give a professional opinion. And the roads around my area see quite a few
trucks due to the lack of alternative routes around where I live.

>That's because trains run on rails, not roads!  ;-)
>
My point exactly. At least if freight trains cause damage to tracks thus
requiring track restrictions where passenger trains also run, at present the
same organisation pays and under privatisation the track authority, still
one organisation, would theoretically pay. On roads, I pay through taxes and
road charges for some truck driver to move his freight at a competitive
advantage hence passengers subsidise freight. I would just as soon see it go
by rail where the damage in general is much less and my environment and that
of motorists in general e.g. polluted air, driving stress, bumpy roads, less
need to build expensive over engineered roads using my taxes; is much
better.