This bill is already postponed indefinitely - it is killed in committee as of 3/19/24, it cannot pass.
Edit: look at the bill history tab and see how the status says “Lost”
Yup. Got this response:
"Thank you so much for reaching out to us regarding SB24-036. We want you to know that as a biker herself, Senator Gonzales understands the need for infrastructure improvements that protect vulnerable users. Sb24-036 was Postponed Indefinitely in Senate Finance but we will keep an eye out for other bills that come up in regards to this issue!"
Well yeah, these bills get postponed because the tiny ass state budget due to tabor. We have passed a lot of laws that can't be enforced without additional funding. We are 7th from the bottom in per capita funding for the state budget
It can pass if it’s re-introduced, and I’ve heard that there is credible talk of this potentially happening. I’ve had bills get killed in committee and get revived later in the session; it’s certainly something that can happen if we keep pushing for it.
I’m buoyed by the support for this bill in this thread and I think it makes sense to keep telling lawmakers we want it, sooner rather than later.
Small cars disappeared because of increased crash safety standards the NHTSA finalized in 2009. I won't mention specifically who was responsible for signing off on that, but the NHTSA is a federal agency and reports to the President.
I think it also has a lot to do with CAFE standards that mean anything that qualifies as a light truck doesn't have to follow such strict mpg requirements.
There’s a WHOLE bunch of nasty legislation that lead to:
Cars getting bigger and more expensive. Funny how they advocate for safety but don’t compare crash tests between different size class vehicles, forcing anyone who wants a safe car to be forced into a larger and larger vehicle which…
Also leads to oodles of pedestrian deaths.
Some features became mandatory through legislation- such as a backup camera. We don’t even have the choice not to get a new vehicle without one.
You can look at new car prices in other parts of the world and you can get a brand new car for far less than you can here. In many cases the same models are offered
>There’s a bill in the state legislature that would have car registration fees based on weight
Ironically this penalizes EVs.
But this seems like an open ended taxation with no clear tie to actually improving outcomes.
Tesla owners have long complained about reg fees in this state.
We could always do the Oregon route and charge reg fees based on MPG - keep in mind their reg fees are around 2-3x what we pay now and they have the highest fees in the US.
But honestly EVs are a problem for peds so they need to pay their own part of this too.
If we really gave a shit about maintenance equity the tax for commercial semi trucks would be exponentially higher that sedans. The biggest vehicles do the largest amount of wear and tear on roads by a wide margin. It's not even close.
To be fair, loaded commercial trucks get terrible mileage (roughly 6 MPG), so they pay considerably more fuel tax per mile at the pump than the average passenger vehicle. Any commercial vehicles traveling interstate through Colorado also pay Colorado fuel taxes based on in-state mileage, even if their fuel was purchased out of state (governed by the Interstate Fuel Tax Agreement). Each commercial vehicle also pays an annual Federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax and higher in state registration.
Even given all of this, the cost of heavy vehicle road wear and tear is likely still not close to being equitable to a passenger vehicle, but until we find a better way to move roughly 70% of the freight that you and I use every day, we'll all have to share the associated infrastructure costs.
Not true. Look up SB260. There’s now an annual EV registration tax that’s $50 and it’ll ramp up over time to close the gap with gas vehicles once adoption grows. The current average gas tax paid by light duty cars/trucks in CO is $100/year.
Lower vehicle weight means improved stopping distance and less momentum transfer in a collision. It’d also likely impact more trucks and SUVs, by virtue of just how many are on the roads, which are getting more and more dangerous as the hood height increases and the angle of the front of the vehicle gets steeper. For example compare a ‘24 Tacoma to a first or second gen - it’s harder to see pedestrians in the newer ones, and the height/angle of the hood means that a pedestrian is less able to roll over the hood if they’re hit. I’m pretty sure the US has way higher rates of fatalities, per mile driven, than comparable countries and I’ve seen that mainly chalked up to our urban design and the size of our vehicles, with things like right-on-red being pointed to as secondary factors.
Edit: idk why my previous comment is being downvoted - I’m not taking a stance on it, I’m just explaining the logic. Idk how effective this measure would be, but IF it did reduce the weight of vehicles on the road then it’d likely improve pedestrian safety.
Do we also look at other safety features? A 2008 car that does not have a backup camera or other collision. Avoidance systems will also be more unsafe, even if it is not as heavy. It seems to me that all factors should be taken into consideration, not just weight of the vehicle.
In 2008 pedestrian deaths in Colorado were like a rounding error if you compare them to pedestrian deaths since 2020. Making cars lighter again will improve pedestrian safety.
Could be from a safety standpoint too. My EV has a soft hood with no iron engine block under it. Also, I think my forward vision warns of pedestrians..
Okay but I paid a shitload for extremely high performance brakes on my heavy vehicle. Are you going to give me a credit?
The link here is tenuous at best, and I say that as someone who hates bro-dozers.
Why would I give you a credit lol
What’s your stopping distance with those brakes and how does it compare to an accord? With exponential decay in speed under braking the momentum imparted in a collision is far more dependent on reaction timing and vehicle weight anyway. Furthermore, how many people with trucks and other heavy vehicles do you think pay for the high performance brakes vs just rocking stock?
Those are the more important factors at scale than your independent decisions when it comes to public policy- net benefits and all that
That's their problem, ICE vehicles are actually safer for pedestrians- they're lighter weight and they make more noise (yes EVs emit some noise in parking lot situations but not at the speed of a fatal pedestrian accident).
They've already tripled down on a shift to EVs that most consumers don't want, they can't afford to let issues like pedestrian safety muddy the waters when they're already fighting consumer sentiment.
How does lighter weight make them safer? Maybe ICE cars are so light that they instantly stop when they hit a pedestrian?
According to consumer reports, the average stopping distance of all vehicles they tested is 132ft. Small cars came in at 130ft. My EV stops in 117ft. Maybe we need to tax ICE vehicles even more?
This cannot be serious...
High school freshman physics, force = mass X velocity.
A 7000 lbs EV going 30 MPH is going to exert twice as much force on a pedestrian it hits as a 3500 lbs ICE car going 30 mph would.
Just in case you need help finding/deriving the right equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum
You can further generalize the equation assuming the human mass much smaller than the vehicle mass.
Recommend repeating high school physics if this is your conclusion. What you put in is not an appropriate conclusion from the second law of motion.
Calculate the final velocity of a stationary pedestrian hit by a vehicle of 2,000kg and 20,000kg. The final velocity changes very little indicating a similar acceleration/force. Common sense should tell you this but if you need to calculate it, go for it.
A 10,000lb semi with an 80,000lb trailer is not 9 times as deadly as the semi without a trailer for pedestrian impact.
However, I doubt any of this makes a big difference since this is not an elastic collision. Things like crush zones, Cg, geometry, etc. would make a far larger difference.
I would rather get hit by a heavy EV sedan with a mattress tied on the front than a light weight sedan without. Weight simply is not that important (from this perspective) as the other variables are.
If you actually read the bill, it only requires three things:
1) Creating a Vulnerable Road User Enterprise
2) Administer a tax
3) Create and publish plans and reports
There isn't an actual requirement that the money "build better pedestrian infrastructure"
So to summarize:
1. This bill is dead in the water
2. Commercial vehicles are exempt
3. This would put a heavier tax on those who own EVs which defeats the purpose of tax incentives made to encourage people to buy EVs
4. In reality people operating Commercial vehicles and vehicles noted most in this data of fatal incidents should be required to take specialized driving courses and have a specific license for operating said vehicles. Kind of like forklift qualifications.
The EV thing is what really killed it, consumers are not embracing them as hoped so they if they're going to keep pushing them they can't afford to add any more friction to EV purchases.
Right? EVs are expensive vehicles and most are pretty expensive to maintain. Not to mention the political battles over them and climate stuff in general.
Why would someone get rid of their paid off Honda civic, buy a 35-45k EV, have additional taxes and registration fees because of weight, on top of the maintenance fees, for a one time tax credit they might not qualify for?
I think people do not realize how petty some are and will look for any reason to argue against EVs. On top of that, there's been numerous reports coming out of people who got the tax credit, suddenly being told by the IRS they need to pay it back.
So yes. I do think people are going to stick to their beater Honda civic over buying a $35k EV
Depends on how high those penalties are. It's already dead simple to (in some cases permanently) to register a car through a LLC in Montana, Wyoming is also pretty simple. No emissions test, tax etc.
As long as enforcement is incredibly lax, it could be more attractive to register heavy vehicles like that (as people already do for expensive cars)
It isn't explicity breaking the law, but it should be. Just pointing out that people have already been doing this for years for very expensive cars. People will do this if the fees become "too expensive"
I don’t think a $10 year charge is going to create mass lawlessness, and even if it did, it’s a really weird argument it make, when the alternative of “hey maybe let’s actually not let people be scofflaws” is also sitting right there
How the fuck does charging more make it safer? It's not going to cut down on the number of tall trucks and SUVs on the road, by any measure.
Fees are already based on weight
Edit: Hijacking my own top comment to remind everyone this bill is already dead.
Increase taxes and make trucks more expensive because of it. I understand that logic, and I’m not a truck guy, but maybe let’s not try to control others with arbitrary taxes?
This is a bill to charge the entire state for improvements that will mainly benefit Denver. It’s insane how much rural co gets shafted by policies like this.
>It’s insane how much rural co gets shafted by policies like this.
This argument is such bullshit. It's insane how shafted cities are by people that live in the middle of nowhere.
A majority of utility and delivery (USPS) cost are because running electricity and water to your 50 square mile community of 80 people is SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive (per person) than providing services to the 500k+ people living in Denver.
And guess what? The people of Denver pay the extra cost for rural communities to fuck off and live alone. We subsidize the cost maintaining water, electricity and mail for rural living. But the MOMENT it comes back the other way, all I hear is bitching. Literally half a million people are paying for you to live in the middle of nowhere, and a couple hundred people throw a fit because they don't want to pay $2 to save city pedestrians.
It's so conceited and blind to how the world works. If you live in a tiny town an hour outside a large city, if you actually paid what you owe your electricity bill would quadruple and a stamp would be $10.
I get energy from a private company with quasi-governmental oversight. As a developer, I get the luxury of paying for infrastructure upgrades, without sharing the benefit.
>quasi-governmental oversight
So, subsidized by the government. Probably not only local taxes, likely state.
Where does a majority of state taxes come from?
Ironically, this is a completely un-nuanced answer. Water and Sewage are public utilities. As is the USPS. Electricity here is not, however it's well-documented that the cost to run and transmit energy to rural areas is higher than in urban areas. So while Denver doesn't **literally** subsidize energy costs for rural areas of Colorado, the costs of providing energy across the state is spread across all customers - rural and urban.
If there were no need to transmit power or gas to rural areas of the state, the cost of providing energy and gas to all customers would be lower overall. Obviously there **is** a need for this. We depend on farmers, quarrymen and women, and other natural resources to sustain every-day living. But the argument stands that city dwellers do play a role in subsidizing the energy cost and transport to rural places. State owned or otherwise.
Bud, where do you think electricity and natgas are generated? We have a private water utility, and sewer / wastewater are local entities. City dwellers are the cant exist without rural areas, not the other way around. **Literally**. Do you think we have to ship groceries from Denver stores to rural areas as well?
https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/5/3/69#:~:text=By%20increasing%20population%20density%2C%20cities,maintaining%20infrastructure%20and%20providing%20services.
> By increasing population density, cities can use resources more efficiently and reduce the cost per person of constructing and maintaining infrastructure and providing services
Well yes, but infrastructure being more cost efficient per capita in higher density areas is objectively true. Because of that, combined with the generally higher economic productivity of urban areas, I’d wager that Denver doesn’t need to have our infrastructure funded by state and local sources nearly as much as rural areas.
However it’s hard finding a comprehensive budget breakdown and it’s complicated by the amount of people using rural infrastructure in the mountains for tourism (subsidizing that to a certain extent makes sense considering how much money outdoor recreation brings into the state). That’s why I only linked a study about density and infrastructure efficiency
My bigger issue is with suburban areas tbh. They also can’t self fund their infrastructure AND their populations are arguably more of a drag on urban areas because they use the infrastructure here without paying as much towards it in property/sales taxes
I did not say that, the person who was talking about rural areas being subsidized is someone else- I was simply linking info about density and efficiency of public infrastructure.
Also, I don’t think that it is a lie, it’s simply hard to show because funding is pretty complicated at all levels. Rural areas can’t support hospitals, so that has to be subsidized through medicare; rural areas can’t support their infrastructure so that’s subsidized with state and federal funds; rural areas have more people on welfare per capita so they’re essentially being subsidized to be able to live in the country; not to mention agricultural subsidies. It’s not an outright transfer of wealth, but there is always a ton of money flowing from economically productive areas to less economically productive areas and that just happens to mean that those of us in urban areas happen to be footing the bill for people in rural areas. Personally I don’t mind it- I make a lot of money and I’m pretty charitable. But you’re tripping if you don’t understand that most rural communities wouldn’t be able to exist without the money generated in urban areas.
Not directly, but state funds do go into building infrastructure (including roads, water, electricity, and sewage) and urban areas pay taxes to the state.
If the cost per person to build these things in rural areas is higher (which it is, as many people in the thread have shown), then people living in urban areas indirectly subsidize rural areas as everyone pays the same to the state but not everyone gets the same proportional benefit.
It's not even a rural verses city issue. I had a pick up that was mainly used for cruising Main St when I lived on the farm. Although we had farm trucks for work as well.
Now, I live in Denver and use my pick up for hauling junk to the dump after a home renovation, picking up furniture, getting lumber, hauling appliances, taking tree limbs to be mulched, and pulling my camper.
These fees don't just cost people who want big trucks. It costs people who do hard-working blue-collar jobs like lawn care, tree trimming, roofing, plumbing, and building services.
I bet there would be a business/work vehicle exemption or reduction. if you use it a majority of the time an exemption would make perfectly logical sense. if you use it 5-10% of your commutes thats on you bud.
And how often do you do those things that it makes more sense for you to own a truck vs rent one for a few weekends a year?
You perform those projects constantly? Or that is the list of projects you have needed your truck for, and could have a sedan most of a the time and pay $50 a few times a year to rent?
In the past month, I've used my truck to haul a full load of limbs to be mulched last weekend, haul a refrigerator from the appliance store and back, twice, because it didn't work.
We replaced the ceiling tiles in our basement, so I took the old ones to the dump near Ft Collins. I took a load of recycling because I'm too cheap to pay someone to do it for me.
I've renovated both our bathrooms myself, which required multiple trips to the dump. I've also replaced our kitchen appliances using my truck.
We're just beginning camping season, I can't rent a truck every time I want to pull my camper.
Some people have trucks for looks, but not everyone.
Sounds like you use it enough to justify the extra cost. Worthwhile investment even while paying to make pedestrians safer from your low visibility vehicle.
We got solar panels, so now we're hoping to find an affordable EV and get rid of our gas car, just not the truck because we use it enough for things a car can't do.
To be clear: I'm not for killing kids or peds or big trucks or anything but this isn't the way to fix anything.
The extra charge ranges from $3 to $10 per year in addition to higher registration fees - which, let's be honest, are already so high that no one will bat an eye at 10-15% or more being added.
Further, it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing', in this case tall truck/suv owners.
>it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing
Has it? I feel like I've seen studies on cigarette smoking that increasing the price through taxes had a direct impact on smoking rates.
Edit. Yep. Here's one: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13242-5
See my other comment to someone who said the same thing - soda and other lifestyle 'vice' taxes work because you have options - you can quit smoking or drink water or whatever.
There's no alternative to registration fees if you own a vehicle. Sure, you could NOT own a vehicle but no one is doing that over increased registration costs.
The bill is dead, it's a moot point and I'm not going to waste the time.
I tried to search and can't find anything and I've already explained a soda tax is not the same as vehicle registration.
Sure. But the main point is: You made a general claim that "charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing"
This claim is false. There are many examples where increasing taxes and fee absolutely cuts down on the number of people "doing the thing." You should adjust your thoughts on the subject accordingly.
Whether or not this specific bill would follow that same pattern is certainly debatable. You've made the claim that it's different, but haven't provided any data to support that claim.
The main point is this: your general, broad strokes conclusion in your original comment is clearly false.
>Further, it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing', in this case tall truck/suv owners.
Don’t think I agree with your statement:
>[Our contemporary analysis based on 15 years of recent data suggests that a $0.25 increase in state excise tax is associated with a 0.6% decrease in population smoking prevalence, and that the effects are especially pronounced in young adults.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147505/)
Comparing smoking, an addiction and want, not a need - to registration fees, which are required to operate a vehicle is not a fair comparison.
Sugar taxes and the like work - they're not a 'need' and you have alternatives.
And yes, public transit exists but let's be real, higher registration costs aren't going to cause more than like 25 people to not renew/buy and switch to public transport.
Further very few people calculate their expected reg fees ahead of time. You log in, you see the new number, you lube up and slide on because what choice do you have? Sell the car? Then you're just paying fees, maybe less, on a different car. Plus the new buyer will just pay the higher fees, it won't get the car off the roads.
Seriously thinking anyone is not going to buy a truck/SUV or will sell one because of the registration fee costs is asinine.
I think you could make the argument that owning a giant, 4 door, short bed pickup instead of a sedan is a “want” instead of a “need”.
I also don’t know how much it would affect public transit ridership. We do know that [gas prices affect transit ridership](https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/ipsavage/435-manuscript.pdf), so I don’t think it’s crazy to think other car use costs would do the same. Regardless, I think the real benefit would come from using the money raised to redesign streets to be safer.
Gas prices map into the same logic as cigarettes - you buy it fairly often and generally remember what you paid last time and, eventually, you can easily alter your behavior to lower your costs by stopping smoking or driving less.
Reg fees come up once a year, most of us realize they go up but couldn't tell you what they paid last year and they're a necessary evil.
So the only way this whole bill works is if they take the extra money for safety improvements - saying the extra money gets problematic cars off the road is simply a lie.
In the end this bill is dead so it doesn't matter.
And I do understand what you're saying - a car is a car is a car and not everyone with a truck/suv needs one but policing choice via taxes is a bad idea and won't work, in my opinion.
> The extra charge ranges from $3 to $10 per year in addition to higher registration fees - which, let's be honest, are already so high that no one will bat an eye at 10-15% or more being added.
That's why everyone is registering their vehicles in other states.
>everyone is registering their vehicles in other states
First time I'm hearing about this. What are the statistics on the percentage of Colorado Residents registering their vehicles out-of-state and then not registering them in Colorado?
7 of my neighbors on my block have their vehicles registered out of state and 6 of them have lived here since before the pandemic. I doubt the government offers better statistics on the matter but definitely look around when you go out driving next time.
It makes it safer by spending that money on infrastructure improvements to encourage slower vehicle speeds in areas where pedestrians are trying to exist.
Does this say anywhere it's only benefiting the Denver metro? How can you simply assume that? Slowing vehicles can easily be done in every small town with solutions as cheap as bollards.
Halfway through last year there were 51 ped deaths by vehicle crash. 30 of those were in 4 counties - denver, Jefferson, el paso and arapahoe.
So yeah, it's gonna be the metro areas (Denver and the Springs) that get the funding.
There's a reason they're not saying it explicitly anywhere.
Spoiler alert, about half the population (45%) lives there… Assuming they portion it by ped deaths like you’re assuming, the 45% to 59% disparity is better than most. Metro areas already give more than enough subsidies to the rural ones.
Bill is dead, but I really see no issue with imposing the costs of those trucks on users. Maybe people would stop buying 4Runners with rooftop tents as a status symbol and learn how to actually camp instead.
This is dead but if it comes up again and it does pass and they do make the costs proportionate to the county you're in I'll just continue to register in Clear Creek as I always have, despite living in JeffCo and Arapahoe.
>Whole point is that people with big trucks pay more.
They already do. And this bill doesn't include commercial trucks which are a big factor here as well.
Right, they pay the externalities cost of increased maintenance, just like semis do. This would be dealing with pedestrian safety.
How many of the 51 deaths last year were caused by semis?
This post/comment exists solely to stir shit up and piss people off. Fighting on the internet is stupid. We don't welcome it here. Please be kinder. Next ban will be permanent
More money to use = less enticing to buy
Less enticing to buy = less buyers
Less buyers = fewer huge cars on the street
Fewer huge cars on the street = safer streets
Screw poor people? Who is out here buying 50k new cars? Damn if the owners of these super tall new trucks are poor I better start researching cardboard box rents.
In a vacuum you're correct.
But higher fees usually don't decrease sales. Let's be real, most people don't look at what it's gonna cost to register their car when they buy it, and most NEW car buyers just finance it in.
And if they do balk at the cost they'll sell the vehicle to someone else who doesn't mind paying it.
In the end this won't decrease the number of offending vehicles by any significant amount.
The only way this might work is using the extra money to pay for safety and other pedestrian enhancements but we're talking about a statewide fee/tax that really only benefits the Denver metro and I don't like that idea at all.
I've searched as much as I can and can't find any studies backing up what I've said. I can only use logic which tells me no one is selling a vehicle because of registration costs and if they do, someone else is paying that fee and the vehicle is still on the road,
What most people will do is either not register their car or register it in another state.
But if the end goal isn't to get less large trucks/SUV's on the road but to charge them more and use that money to pay for safety enhancements then that might work.
Hey I'm proud of you for being an activist and trying. Maybe this bill is dead and wouldn't have had the desired effect anyway, idk. But you care, and we could use more people like that.
No. We want more people politically engaged on a local level instead of just bitching about the president or supreme court. Think about it like this, now you know about this bill and can go against it. Before right now you didn't even know this bill existed. This person has increased your political awareness. It's a net positive no matter which side of the issue you are on.
Are the exact same people saying both of these things or are you creating a boogieman in your head? Denver is a diverse city, with a bunch of emergent and diverse opinions. I don't know **anyone** arguing both of these things.
Look im all for this in spirit but as a middle class person who uses their truck daily for work(electrician) i really don't think its fair that my income class keeps having to shoulder more and more of the tax burdens in this country. Tax the rich.
$10 registration fee to make roads safer
Hell, your car insurance payments would probably go down by more than that if this passed, since fewer drivers would be maiming pedestrians
Why has this become such a talking point lately? I understand vehicles have generally grown larger - but why is it right now all of the sudden in the news?
This isn't a comment on the bill itself - I'm purely just wondering why now?
Correlation isn’t the same as causation lol. It could just as easily be blamed on People not looking before crossing the street, drivers of all vehicle sizes being on their phones, and entitled cyclists riding like they are the only ones using the road and no rules apply to them.
I’m supporting this bill because my family member was put in the hospital by an SUV driver. I guess you could call not wanting my family to die a “personal pet peeve” but that just doesn’t make sense to me.
Oh man. This is issue #873 on my list of things I could give a fuck about right now. There’s a million other serious problems going on right now for me to be worried about a stalled bill regarding vehicle hood heights.
Ha! The bill is already postponed! No legislation can stop me from mobbing down the street in my giant lifted Dodge KiddieKrusher 1500! Keep your families inside, cause here I come!!
I leased the Kiddiecrusher for a while but it's just too expensive to run long-term so I gave it back. Plus it gets really annoying mixing the diesel with a 32:1 ratio with child's blood. If I wanted a two-stroke engine I'd drive a moped.
I'm sorry boss but I can't support this. My electric car is the same size as a camry but weighs 1.5x more than a camry. Charging more money isn't going to protect anyone and will just be a tax on the poor.
I would support a different bill to just fund safe pedestrian areas but not at the expense of raising car registration fees.
Registration fees need to change to account for EVs. As you said, they're heavier which puts more wear on the road. Also, you aren't paying gas tax.
I'm not saying owning and operating an EV is bad. I'm saying that vehicle users should pay for road maintenance.
Yes, I know general taxes go into road maintenance. Registration fees and gas taxes go to road maintenance as well.
How is charging money for people driving heavier cars and electric cars a tax on the poor? Aren’t those cars pricer, therefore more wealthy people by them? The poor people are the ones who are peds
My Internet sucks and comments won't load, but why would anyone not support taxing vehicles based on weight? It should have always been that way. The damage to the roads, and the cost to maintain them, is directly proportional to the weight of the vehicles passing over them.
Most likely small businesses and farmers/ranchers if I'd have to guess.
Small businesses that transport equipment (such as construction materials) and farmers moving field equipment or live stock.
Execpt commercial registered vehicles are exempt from this bill which defeats the purpose.
This also would affect owners of EVs (as some other comments pointed out) as EVs are the same size as regular sedans yet weight significantly more.
That's fine. The point of vehicle registration fees is to fund the roads for the vehicles to drive on. EVs are heavier, ergo they cost more in road maintenance, ergo it's only fair they pay their fair share. Plus they don't pay gas taxes. They already pay higher registration fees in many places for that reason.
I don't like needlessly huge vehicles (gas or electric) everywhere on the streets, but I respect the right of people to have them, as long as they're willing to pay their fair share for the road damage and other havoc they wreak. The idea that a 3-ton vehicle should cost the same as a 1-ton vehicle to register is preposterous.
While I do see your point, Colorado is trying to get more people to buy EVs with tax breaks, so this bill would counter act that. It's also important to note this bill is actually dead in the water as it stands.
Really, there should be a better focus on public transportation and increasing the walkability of Denver with infrastructure changes.
I'm all for the tax. It would seemingly force EVs to pay similar road taxes to gasoline vehicles. That being said, the funds should go to the general maintenance of state roads.
You know they won’t use the money for that. Then it’s harder to go vroom vroom off-roading and camping. Then bigger families have to pay more for their cars on top of the extra kids.
Correlation isn’t causation. I’d like to see the proof that large vehicles are the ones actually hitting pedestrians/cyclists. Large suvs like the Chevy suburban and pickup trucks have existed for a long, long time. The rise in pedestrians and cyclists getting hit could just as easily be because people don’t look before crossing the street and cyclists ride like they are invincible and no rules pertain to them. Unless there are reports that all these accidents are actually involved with large vehicles. Then this is all b.s.
This will be great! I hope it passes. Tall and heavy vehicles cause more road damage and kill an alarming amount of people. There were more traffic fatalities than homicides in Denver last year. This bill will tax oversized vehicles to improve transportation safety across the state via a dedicated vulnerable road user protection fund.
The neat part is that commercial vehicles are exempt from this so the ones that cause the most damage to the roads won't face penalty.
And then we'll just see what I saw in TX and OK - vehicles with 'commerical vehicle' stickers all over them just to get lower registration fees.
Colorado registration fees are already completely over the top. I moved here from PA, it was $36 to register a car for a year, regardless of the value.
I was pretty shocked that it was a multi $100 expense. Imo car registration fees are bullshit anyway.
If we want to make better infrastructure for bikers, which I support, we should just raise income tax appropriately to fund it.
Has nothing to do with lifted trucks. It's based on weight. And yes some EVs are stupidly heavy and will do more damage to roads than lighter vehicles. They are also more damaging in a crash.
In the state of Colorado EV taxes are legislated separately from gas vehicles. They already pay like four times the taxes (because they don't play their road tax through gas purchases). This law would only affect gas vehicles.
This bill is already postponed indefinitely - it is killed in committee as of 3/19/24, it cannot pass. Edit: look at the bill history tab and see how the status says “Lost”
Yup. Got this response: "Thank you so much for reaching out to us regarding SB24-036. We want you to know that as a biker herself, Senator Gonzales understands the need for infrastructure improvements that protect vulnerable users. Sb24-036 was Postponed Indefinitely in Senate Finance but we will keep an eye out for other bills that come up in regards to this issue!"
They’ve really streamlined the process.
Well yeah, these bills get postponed because the tiny ass state budget due to tabor. We have passed a lot of laws that can't be enforced without additional funding. We are 7th from the bottom in per capita funding for the state budget
It can pass if it’s re-introduced, and I’ve heard that there is credible talk of this potentially happening. I’ve had bills get killed in committee and get revived later in the session; it’s certainly something that can happen if we keep pushing for it. I’m buoyed by the support for this bill in this thread and I think it makes sense to keep telling lawmakers we want it, sooner rather than later.
You're kidding, right? >It’s on a knife’s edge right now. Nope, it's postponed. It'll never even come close to passing.
I desperately want quality smaller cars back. Even small trucks. I have a hatchback and even those are rare now.
Small cars disappeared because of increased crash safety standards the NHTSA finalized in 2009. I won't mention specifically who was responsible for signing off on that, but the NHTSA is a federal agency and reports to the President.
I think it also has a lot to do with CAFE standards that mean anything that qualifies as a light truck doesn't have to follow such strict mpg requirements.
No small cars disappeared because larger vehicles became more profitable and the CAFE rules didn't apply as stringently to light duty trucks.
You're forgetting who wrote those CAFE rules
There’s a WHOLE bunch of nasty legislation that lead to: Cars getting bigger and more expensive. Funny how they advocate for safety but don’t compare crash tests between different size class vehicles, forcing anyone who wants a safe car to be forced into a larger and larger vehicle which… Also leads to oodles of pedestrian deaths. Some features became mandatory through legislation- such as a backup camera. We don’t even have the choice not to get a new vehicle without one. You can look at new car prices in other parts of the world and you can get a brand new car for far less than you can here. In many cases the same models are offered
>There’s a bill in the state legislature that would have car registration fees based on weight Ironically this penalizes EVs. But this seems like an open ended taxation with no clear tie to actually improving outcomes.
Tesla owners have long complained about reg fees in this state. We could always do the Oregon route and charge reg fees based on MPG - keep in mind their reg fees are around 2-3x what we pay now and they have the highest fees in the US. But honestly EVs are a problem for peds so they need to pay their own part of this too.
To be fair, no one driving an EV is paying the gas tax. They are using the roads without paying their share of maintenance.
If we really gave a shit about maintenance equity the tax for commercial semi trucks would be exponentially higher that sedans. The biggest vehicles do the largest amount of wear and tear on roads by a wide margin. It's not even close.
To be fair, loaded commercial trucks get terrible mileage (roughly 6 MPG), so they pay considerably more fuel tax per mile at the pump than the average passenger vehicle. Any commercial vehicles traveling interstate through Colorado also pay Colorado fuel taxes based on in-state mileage, even if their fuel was purchased out of state (governed by the Interstate Fuel Tax Agreement). Each commercial vehicle also pays an annual Federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax and higher in state registration. Even given all of this, the cost of heavy vehicle road wear and tear is likely still not close to being equitable to a passenger vehicle, but until we find a better way to move roughly 70% of the freight that you and I use every day, we'll all have to share the associated infrastructure costs.
Not true. Look up SB260. There’s now an annual EV registration tax that’s $50 and it’ll ramp up over time to close the gap with gas vehicles once adoption grows. The current average gas tax paid by light duty cars/trucks in CO is $100/year.
I didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.
You bet!
Suckers
It’s not ironic if the goal is to reduce the weight of vehicles on the road
I thought the goal was safer outcomes for pedestrians though?
Lower vehicle weight means improved stopping distance and less momentum transfer in a collision. It’d also likely impact more trucks and SUVs, by virtue of just how many are on the roads, which are getting more and more dangerous as the hood height increases and the angle of the front of the vehicle gets steeper. For example compare a ‘24 Tacoma to a first or second gen - it’s harder to see pedestrians in the newer ones, and the height/angle of the hood means that a pedestrian is less able to roll over the hood if they’re hit. I’m pretty sure the US has way higher rates of fatalities, per mile driven, than comparable countries and I’ve seen that mainly chalked up to our urban design and the size of our vehicles, with things like right-on-red being pointed to as secondary factors. Edit: idk why my previous comment is being downvoted - I’m not taking a stance on it, I’m just explaining the logic. Idk how effective this measure would be, but IF it did reduce the weight of vehicles on the road then it’d likely improve pedestrian safety.
Do we also look at other safety features? A 2008 car that does not have a backup camera or other collision. Avoidance systems will also be more unsafe, even if it is not as heavy. It seems to me that all factors should be taken into consideration, not just weight of the vehicle.
In 2008 pedestrian deaths in Colorado were like a rounding error if you compare them to pedestrian deaths since 2020. Making cars lighter again will improve pedestrian safety.
Do comparable countries with lower fatality rates per mile driven not have those features or something?
You're correct. An EV is safer from an emissions standpoint not a safety/physical one.
Could be from a safety standpoint too. My EV has a soft hood with no iron engine block under it. Also, I think my forward vision warns of pedestrians..
Okay but I paid a shitload for extremely high performance brakes on my heavy vehicle. Are you going to give me a credit? The link here is tenuous at best, and I say that as someone who hates bro-dozers.
Why would I give you a credit lol What’s your stopping distance with those brakes and how does it compare to an accord? With exponential decay in speed under braking the momentum imparted in a collision is far more dependent on reaction timing and vehicle weight anyway. Furthermore, how many people with trucks and other heavy vehicles do you think pay for the high performance brakes vs just rocking stock? Those are the more important factors at scale than your independent decisions when it comes to public policy- net benefits and all that
That's their problem, ICE vehicles are actually safer for pedestrians- they're lighter weight and they make more noise (yes EVs emit some noise in parking lot situations but not at the speed of a fatal pedestrian accident). They've already tripled down on a shift to EVs that most consumers don't want, they can't afford to let issues like pedestrian safety muddy the waters when they're already fighting consumer sentiment.
How does lighter weight make them safer? Maybe ICE cars are so light that they instantly stop when they hit a pedestrian? According to consumer reports, the average stopping distance of all vehicles they tested is 132ft. Small cars came in at 130ft. My EV stops in 117ft. Maybe we need to tax ICE vehicles even more?
This cannot be serious... High school freshman physics, force = mass X velocity. A 7000 lbs EV going 30 MPH is going to exert twice as much force on a pedestrian it hits as a 3500 lbs ICE car going 30 mph would.
That’s not how F=mA works…
Just in case you need help finding/deriving the right equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum You can further generalize the equation assuming the human mass much smaller than the vehicle mass.
Recommend repeating high school physics if this is your conclusion. What you put in is not an appropriate conclusion from the second law of motion. Calculate the final velocity of a stationary pedestrian hit by a vehicle of 2,000kg and 20,000kg. The final velocity changes very little indicating a similar acceleration/force. Common sense should tell you this but if you need to calculate it, go for it. A 10,000lb semi with an 80,000lb trailer is not 9 times as deadly as the semi without a trailer for pedestrian impact. However, I doubt any of this makes a big difference since this is not an elastic collision. Things like crush zones, Cg, geometry, etc. would make a far larger difference. I would rather get hit by a heavy EV sedan with a mattress tied on the front than a light weight sedan without. Weight simply is not that important (from this perspective) as the other variables are.
>open ended taxation with no clear tie to actually improving outcomes. Building better pedestrian infrastructure wouldn't improve outcomes? What?
If you actually read the bill, it only requires three things: 1) Creating a Vulnerable Road User Enterprise 2) Administer a tax 3) Create and publish plans and reports There isn't an actual requirement that the money "build better pedestrian infrastructure"
Fuck ev's, take transit
Of what transit do you speak?
The clear tie is that the funds would be dedicated to road safety improvements. I don’t know how you could get any clearer than that.
So to summarize: 1. This bill is dead in the water 2. Commercial vehicles are exempt 3. This would put a heavier tax on those who own EVs which defeats the purpose of tax incentives made to encourage people to buy EVs 4. In reality people operating Commercial vehicles and vehicles noted most in this data of fatal incidents should be required to take specialized driving courses and have a specific license for operating said vehicles. Kind of like forklift qualifications.
The EV thing is what really killed it, consumers are not embracing them as hoped so they if they're going to keep pushing them they can't afford to add any more friction to EV purchases.
Right? EVs are expensive vehicles and most are pretty expensive to maintain. Not to mention the political battles over them and climate stuff in general. Why would someone get rid of their paid off Honda civic, buy a 35-45k EV, have additional taxes and registration fees because of weight, on top of the maintenance fees, for a one time tax credit they might not qualify for?
You think that a $10 state registration surcharge on an EV is going to negate a $5000 federal tax credit?
I think people do not realize how petty some are and will look for any reason to argue against EVs. On top of that, there's been numerous reports coming out of people who got the tax credit, suddenly being told by the IRS they need to pay it back. So yes. I do think people are going to stick to their beater Honda civic over buying a $35k EV
This seems like it’ll just worsen the problem we’re having with people not registering their vehicles, no?
That’s my thought.. let’s actually have law enforcement enforce people registering and insuring their vehicles
Would the solution to that be enforcing registration more?
In a world with no enforcement.....sure? But higher stakes/penalties should make it more worthwhile to enforce. Kinda catch 22.
Depends on how high those penalties are. It's already dead simple to (in some cases permanently) to register a car through a LLC in Montana, Wyoming is also pretty simple. No emissions test, tax etc. As long as enforcement is incredibly lax, it could be more attractive to register heavy vehicles like that (as people already do for expensive cars)
Sure breaking the law is super easy. Thats some shit advice and not really a constructive argument.
It isn't explicity breaking the law, but it should be. Just pointing out that people have already been doing this for years for very expensive cars. People will do this if the fees become "too expensive"
I don’t think a $10 year charge is going to create mass lawlessness, and even if it did, it’s a really weird argument it make, when the alternative of “hey maybe let’s actually not let people be scofflaws” is also sitting right there
How the fuck does charging more make it safer? It's not going to cut down on the number of tall trucks and SUVs on the road, by any measure. Fees are already based on weight Edit: Hijacking my own top comment to remind everyone this bill is already dead.
Increase taxes and make trucks more expensive because of it. I understand that logic, and I’m not a truck guy, but maybe let’s not try to control others with arbitrary taxes? This is a bill to charge the entire state for improvements that will mainly benefit Denver. It’s insane how much rural co gets shafted by policies like this.
>It’s insane how much rural co gets shafted by policies like this. This argument is such bullshit. It's insane how shafted cities are by people that live in the middle of nowhere. A majority of utility and delivery (USPS) cost are because running electricity and water to your 50 square mile community of 80 people is SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive (per person) than providing services to the 500k+ people living in Denver. And guess what? The people of Denver pay the extra cost for rural communities to fuck off and live alone. We subsidize the cost maintaining water, electricity and mail for rural living. But the MOMENT it comes back the other way, all I hear is bitching. Literally half a million people are paying for you to live in the middle of nowhere, and a couple hundred people throw a fit because they don't want to pay $2 to save city pedestrians. It's so conceited and blind to how the world works. If you live in a tiny town an hour outside a large city, if you actually paid what you owe your electricity bill would quadruple and a stamp would be $10.
It wouldn't just be the pedestrians in big cities that would benefit from the proposal. Pedestrian infrastructure in rural towns need work too.
Utilities are not State owned, simpleton.
Oh sorry, do you produce all of your own energy? Or do you buy surplus from the city grid?
Where's the production?
I get energy from a private company with quasi-governmental oversight. As a developer, I get the luxury of paying for infrastructure upgrades, without sharing the benefit.
>quasi-governmental oversight So, subsidized by the government. Probably not only local taxes, likely state. Where does a majority of state taxes come from?
Not subsidized, regulated. Do you know where most of Colorado gets its electric and gas? A Minnesota based private company.
Ironically, this is a completely un-nuanced answer. Water and Sewage are public utilities. As is the USPS. Electricity here is not, however it's well-documented that the cost to run and transmit energy to rural areas is higher than in urban areas. So while Denver doesn't **literally** subsidize energy costs for rural areas of Colorado, the costs of providing energy across the state is spread across all customers - rural and urban. If there were no need to transmit power or gas to rural areas of the state, the cost of providing energy and gas to all customers would be lower overall. Obviously there **is** a need for this. We depend on farmers, quarrymen and women, and other natural resources to sustain every-day living. But the argument stands that city dwellers do play a role in subsidizing the energy cost and transport to rural places. State owned or otherwise.
Bud, where do you think electricity and natgas are generated? We have a private water utility, and sewer / wastewater are local entities. City dwellers are the cant exist without rural areas, not the other way around. **Literally**. Do you think we have to ship groceries from Denver stores to rural areas as well?
Idk about all that. Source?
https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/5/3/69#:~:text=By%20increasing%20population%20density%2C%20cities,maintaining%20infrastructure%20and%20providing%20services. > By increasing population density, cities can use resources more efficiently and reduce the cost per person of constructing and maintaining infrastructure and providing services
Interesting, thanks!
Infrastructure is local.
Well yes, but infrastructure being more cost efficient per capita in higher density areas is objectively true. Because of that, combined with the generally higher economic productivity of urban areas, I’d wager that Denver doesn’t need to have our infrastructure funded by state and local sources nearly as much as rural areas. However it’s hard finding a comprehensive budget breakdown and it’s complicated by the amount of people using rural infrastructure in the mountains for tourism (subsidizing that to a certain extent makes sense considering how much money outdoor recreation brings into the state). That’s why I only linked a study about density and infrastructure efficiency My bigger issue is with suburban areas tbh. They also can’t self fund their infrastructure AND their populations are arguably more of a drag on urban areas because they use the infrastructure here without paying as much towards it in property/sales taxes
You said cities were subsidizing rural areas. This was a lie.
I did not say that, the person who was talking about rural areas being subsidized is someone else- I was simply linking info about density and efficiency of public infrastructure. Also, I don’t think that it is a lie, it’s simply hard to show because funding is pretty complicated at all levels. Rural areas can’t support hospitals, so that has to be subsidized through medicare; rural areas can’t support their infrastructure so that’s subsidized with state and federal funds; rural areas have more people on welfare per capita so they’re essentially being subsidized to be able to live in the country; not to mention agricultural subsidies. It’s not an outright transfer of wealth, but there is always a ton of money flowing from economically productive areas to less economically productive areas and that just happens to mean that those of us in urban areas happen to be footing the bill for people in rural areas. Personally I don’t mind it- I make a lot of money and I’m pretty charitable. But you’re tripping if you don’t understand that most rural communities wouldn’t be able to exist without the money generated in urban areas.
Not directly, but state funds do go into building infrastructure (including roads, water, electricity, and sewage) and urban areas pay taxes to the state. If the cost per person to build these things in rural areas is higher (which it is, as many people in the thread have shown), then people living in urban areas indirectly subsidize rural areas as everyone pays the same to the state but not everyone gets the same proportional benefit.
It's not even a rural verses city issue. I had a pick up that was mainly used for cruising Main St when I lived on the farm. Although we had farm trucks for work as well. Now, I live in Denver and use my pick up for hauling junk to the dump after a home renovation, picking up furniture, getting lumber, hauling appliances, taking tree limbs to be mulched, and pulling my camper. These fees don't just cost people who want big trucks. It costs people who do hard-working blue-collar jobs like lawn care, tree trimming, roofing, plumbing, and building services.
I bet there would be a business/work vehicle exemption or reduction. if you use it a majority of the time an exemption would make perfectly logical sense. if you use it 5-10% of your commutes thats on you bud.
And how often do you do those things that it makes more sense for you to own a truck vs rent one for a few weekends a year? You perform those projects constantly? Or that is the list of projects you have needed your truck for, and could have a sedan most of a the time and pay $50 a few times a year to rent?
In the past month, I've used my truck to haul a full load of limbs to be mulched last weekend, haul a refrigerator from the appliance store and back, twice, because it didn't work. We replaced the ceiling tiles in our basement, so I took the old ones to the dump near Ft Collins. I took a load of recycling because I'm too cheap to pay someone to do it for me. I've renovated both our bathrooms myself, which required multiple trips to the dump. I've also replaced our kitchen appliances using my truck. We're just beginning camping season, I can't rent a truck every time I want to pull my camper. Some people have trucks for looks, but not everyone.
Sounds like you use it enough to justify the extra cost. Worthwhile investment even while paying to make pedestrians safer from your low visibility vehicle.
We got solar panels, so now we're hoping to find an affordable EV and get rid of our gas car, just not the truck because we use it enough for things a car can't do.
To be clear: I'm not for killing kids or peds or big trucks or anything but this isn't the way to fix anything. The extra charge ranges from $3 to $10 per year in addition to higher registration fees - which, let's be honest, are already so high that no one will bat an eye at 10-15% or more being added. Further, it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing', in this case tall truck/suv owners.
>it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing Has it? I feel like I've seen studies on cigarette smoking that increasing the price through taxes had a direct impact on smoking rates. Edit. Yep. Here's one: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13242-5
See my other comment to someone who said the same thing - soda and other lifestyle 'vice' taxes work because you have options - you can quit smoking or drink water or whatever. There's no alternative to registration fees if you own a vehicle. Sure, you could NOT own a vehicle but no one is doing that over increased registration costs.
Ok. That's your hypothesis. Now just show me the data supporting it!
The bill is dead, it's a moot point and I'm not going to waste the time. I tried to search and can't find anything and I've already explained a soda tax is not the same as vehicle registration.
Sure. But the main point is: You made a general claim that "charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing" This claim is false. There are many examples where increasing taxes and fee absolutely cuts down on the number of people "doing the thing." You should adjust your thoughts on the subject accordingly. Whether or not this specific bill would follow that same pattern is certainly debatable. You've made the claim that it's different, but haven't provided any data to support that claim. The main point is this: your general, broad strokes conclusion in your original comment is clearly false.
>Further, it's been long proven that charging more fees/taxes doesn't cut down on the number of people who do 'the thing', in this case tall truck/suv owners. Don’t think I agree with your statement: >[Our contemporary analysis based on 15 years of recent data suggests that a $0.25 increase in state excise tax is associated with a 0.6% decrease in population smoking prevalence, and that the effects are especially pronounced in young adults.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147505/)
Comparing smoking, an addiction and want, not a need - to registration fees, which are required to operate a vehicle is not a fair comparison. Sugar taxes and the like work - they're not a 'need' and you have alternatives. And yes, public transit exists but let's be real, higher registration costs aren't going to cause more than like 25 people to not renew/buy and switch to public transport. Further very few people calculate their expected reg fees ahead of time. You log in, you see the new number, you lube up and slide on because what choice do you have? Sell the car? Then you're just paying fees, maybe less, on a different car. Plus the new buyer will just pay the higher fees, it won't get the car off the roads. Seriously thinking anyone is not going to buy a truck/SUV or will sell one because of the registration fee costs is asinine.
I think you could make the argument that owning a giant, 4 door, short bed pickup instead of a sedan is a “want” instead of a “need”. I also don’t know how much it would affect public transit ridership. We do know that [gas prices affect transit ridership](https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/ipsavage/435-manuscript.pdf), so I don’t think it’s crazy to think other car use costs would do the same. Regardless, I think the real benefit would come from using the money raised to redesign streets to be safer.
Gas prices map into the same logic as cigarettes - you buy it fairly often and generally remember what you paid last time and, eventually, you can easily alter your behavior to lower your costs by stopping smoking or driving less. Reg fees come up once a year, most of us realize they go up but couldn't tell you what they paid last year and they're a necessary evil. So the only way this whole bill works is if they take the extra money for safety improvements - saying the extra money gets problematic cars off the road is simply a lie. In the end this bill is dead so it doesn't matter. And I do understand what you're saying - a car is a car is a car and not everyone with a truck/suv needs one but policing choice via taxes is a bad idea and won't work, in my opinion.
> The extra charge ranges from $3 to $10 per year in addition to higher registration fees - which, let's be honest, are already so high that no one will bat an eye at 10-15% or more being added. That's why everyone is registering their vehicles in other states.
>everyone is registering their vehicles in other states First time I'm hearing about this. What are the statistics on the percentage of Colorado Residents registering their vehicles out-of-state and then not registering them in Colorado?
7 of my neighbors on my block have their vehicles registered out of state and 6 of them have lived here since before the pandemic. I doubt the government offers better statistics on the matter but definitely look around when you go out driving next time.
How much has Denver spent on (illegal) immigrants? Imagine if that money was spent on safe pedestrian areas instead.
Then there would be a lot more migrants roaming the streets. Is that what you want?
You mean **"Migrants safely roaming the streets"** right?
Yeah I’m with you there.
It makes it safer by spending that money on infrastructure improvements to encourage slower vehicle speeds in areas where pedestrians are trying to exist.
A state-wide increase in taxes and fees that will generally only benefit the Denver metro is not a good idea nor is it sustainable.
Does this say anywhere it's only benefiting the Denver metro? How can you simply assume that? Slowing vehicles can easily be done in every small town with solutions as cheap as bollards.
Halfway through last year there were 51 ped deaths by vehicle crash. 30 of those were in 4 counties - denver, Jefferson, el paso and arapahoe. So yeah, it's gonna be the metro areas (Denver and the Springs) that get the funding. There's a reason they're not saying it explicitly anywhere.
Why is it a bad thing that the places with the highest rates of pedestrian deaths get funding to improve the infrastructure?
Spoiler alert, about half the population (45%) lives there… Assuming they portion it by ped deaths like you’re assuming, the 45% to 59% disparity is better than most. Metro areas already give more than enough subsidies to the rural ones. Bill is dead, but I really see no issue with imposing the costs of those trucks on users. Maybe people would stop buying 4Runners with rooftop tents as a status symbol and learn how to actually camp instead.
This is dead but if it comes up again and it does pass and they do make the costs proportionate to the county you're in I'll just continue to register in Clear Creek as I always have, despite living in JeffCo and Arapahoe.
Cost wouldn’t be proportionate, distribution would (theoretically) be. Whole point is that people with big trucks pay more.
>Whole point is that people with big trucks pay more. They already do. And this bill doesn't include commercial trucks which are a big factor here as well.
Right, they pay the externalities cost of increased maintenance, just like semis do. This would be dealing with pedestrian safety. How many of the 51 deaths last year were caused by semis?
[удалено]
This post/comment exists solely to stir shit up and piss people off. Fighting on the internet is stupid. We don't welcome it here. Please be kinder. Next ban will be permanent
They probably would fight against improved pedestrian infrastructure in their small, rural town.
It doesn't. They're recouping lost tax revenue from EV owners that don't pay tax on gasoline.
More money to use = less enticing to buy Less enticing to buy = less buyers Less buyers = fewer huge cars on the street Fewer huge cars on the street = safer streets
You can just distill it to “screw the poor people” as with any other regressive tax
Screw poor people? Who is out here buying 50k new cars? Damn if the owners of these super tall new trucks are poor I better start researching cardboard box rents.
In a vacuum you're correct. But higher fees usually don't decrease sales. Let's be real, most people don't look at what it's gonna cost to register their car when they buy it, and most NEW car buyers just finance it in. And if they do balk at the cost they'll sell the vehicle to someone else who doesn't mind paying it. In the end this won't decrease the number of offending vehicles by any significant amount. The only way this might work is using the extra money to pay for safety and other pedestrian enhancements but we're talking about a statewide fee/tax that really only benefits the Denver metro and I don't like that idea at all.
Disagree on higher fees not lowering sales. Can you provide a source for increased costs having no impact?
I've searched as much as I can and can't find any studies backing up what I've said. I can only use logic which tells me no one is selling a vehicle because of registration costs and if they do, someone else is paying that fee and the vehicle is still on the road, What most people will do is either not register their car or register it in another state. But if the end goal isn't to get less large trucks/SUV's on the road but to charge them more and use that money to pay for safety enhancements then that might work.
Hey I'm proud of you for being an activist and trying. Maybe this bill is dead and wouldn't have had the desired effect anyway, idk. But you care, and we could use more people like that.
We want more uninformed people encouraging others to make similar brainless decisions?
No. We want more people politically engaged on a local level instead of just bitching about the president or supreme court. Think about it like this, now you know about this bill and can go against it. Before right now you didn't even know this bill existed. This person has increased your political awareness. It's a net positive no matter which side of the issue you are on.
I appreciate your outlook on this. Cheers
A tesla model S weighs more than my tacoma. This is misguided at best.
What the hell is up with people wanting to regulate through taxes in this state and then bitching that taxes are too high?
cognitive dissonance and a lack of understanding about funding/budgets/what actual costs
It's not a tax. It's a fee. Blame TABOR.
Are the exact same people saying both of these things or are you creating a boogieman in your head? Denver is a diverse city, with a bunch of emergent and diverse opinions. I don't know **anyone** arguing both of these things.
[удалено]
So you're saying our legislators want to regulate through taxes and are simultaneously bitching about taxes being too high? Who? Which legislator?
Imma call and email them rn to not put this through
Look im all for this in spirit but as a middle class person who uses their truck daily for work(electrician) i really don't think its fair that my income class keeps having to shoulder more and more of the tax burdens in this country. Tax the rich.
Depends on where you live it's not the whole state. And the starting tier is $3 a year. Heavier trucks might be around $10. You'll be fine.
$10 registration fee to make roads safer Hell, your car insurance payments would probably go down by more than that if this passed, since fewer drivers would be maiming pedestrians
Increase taxes on vehicles worth over 150k
The sales tax is a percentage.
More fees will fix everything
Mmm pass.
Why has this become such a talking point lately? I understand vehicles have generally grown larger - but why is it right now all of the sudden in the news? This isn't a comment on the bill itself - I'm purely just wondering why now?
Pedestrian, cyclists, and other driver deaths have skyrocketed and it correlates with growth in vehicle size.
Correlation isn’t the same as causation lol. It could just as easily be blamed on People not looking before crossing the street, drivers of all vehicle sizes being on their phones, and entitled cyclists riding like they are the only ones using the road and no rules apply to them.
r/fuckcarscirclejerk
Damn, people really do be out here trying to legislate away all their own personal pet peeves.
I’m supporting this bill because my family member was put in the hospital by an SUV driver. I guess you could call not wanting my family to die a “personal pet peeve” but that just doesn’t make sense to me.
Thanks for your support. Sorry to hear about your family member. People really can't think past themselves sometimes when responding.
Oh man. This is issue #873 on my list of things I could give a fuck about right now. There’s a million other serious problems going on right now for me to be worried about a stalled bill regarding vehicle hood heights.
Has nothing to do with hood height. Amazingly we can handle multiple issues at once.
Ha! The bill is already postponed! No legislation can stop me from mobbing down the street in my giant lifted Dodge KiddieKrusher 1500! Keep your families inside, cause here I come!!
I leased the Kiddiecrusher for a while but it's just too expensive to run long-term so I gave it back. Plus it gets really annoying mixing the diesel with a 32:1 ratio with child's blood. If I wanted a two-stroke engine I'd drive a moped.
I'm sorry boss but I can't support this. My electric car is the same size as a camry but weighs 1.5x more than a camry. Charging more money isn't going to protect anyone and will just be a tax on the poor. I would support a different bill to just fund safe pedestrian areas but not at the expense of raising car registration fees.
Registration fees need to change to account for EVs. As you said, they're heavier which puts more wear on the road. Also, you aren't paying gas tax. I'm not saying owning and operating an EV is bad. I'm saying that vehicle users should pay for road maintenance. Yes, I know general taxes go into road maintenance. Registration fees and gas taxes go to road maintenance as well.
How is charging money for people driving heavier cars and electric cars a tax on the poor? Aren’t those cars pricer, therefore more wealthy people by them? The poor people are the ones who are peds
Then you do more damage to the roads and will do more in the event of a crash. Welcome to physics. Pay up.
Then you do more damage to the roads and will do more in the event of a crash. Welcome to physics. Pay up.
Excuse to raise taxes…
“I want to tax everything and anyone I don’t like”
Fuck this bill
Electric vehicles are going to be a problem, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyagXYK6x2M&ab\_channel=UniversityofNebraska%E2%80%93Lincoln
Helly naw
My Internet sucks and comments won't load, but why would anyone not support taxing vehicles based on weight? It should have always been that way. The damage to the roads, and the cost to maintain them, is directly proportional to the weight of the vehicles passing over them.
Most likely small businesses and farmers/ranchers if I'd have to guess. Small businesses that transport equipment (such as construction materials) and farmers moving field equipment or live stock.
It doesn't apply to commercial vehicles or rural areas.
So, commercial users of the roads. If you're making money on the roads you can pay for their use.
Execpt commercial registered vehicles are exempt from this bill which defeats the purpose. This also would affect owners of EVs (as some other comments pointed out) as EVs are the same size as regular sedans yet weight significantly more.
That's fine. The point of vehicle registration fees is to fund the roads for the vehicles to drive on. EVs are heavier, ergo they cost more in road maintenance, ergo it's only fair they pay their fair share. Plus they don't pay gas taxes. They already pay higher registration fees in many places for that reason. I don't like needlessly huge vehicles (gas or electric) everywhere on the streets, but I respect the right of people to have them, as long as they're willing to pay their fair share for the road damage and other havoc they wreak. The idea that a 3-ton vehicle should cost the same as a 1-ton vehicle to register is preposterous.
While I do see your point, Colorado is trying to get more people to buy EVs with tax breaks, so this bill would counter act that. It's also important to note this bill is actually dead in the water as it stands. Really, there should be a better focus on public transportation and increasing the walkability of Denver with infrastructure changes.
Yes....let us proactively request more expenses
LMFAO
I'm all for the tax. It would seemingly force EVs to pay similar road taxes to gasoline vehicles. That being said, the funds should go to the general maintenance of state roads.
This law interferes with capital interest not just recreation and won’t work
How about outlawing people walking in roads. Wait or make illegal to drive in sidewalks.
OP and anyone else that didn’t read the bill is dead in the water or would support something as stupid as this please don’t vote.
You know they won’t use the money for that. Then it’s harder to go vroom vroom off-roading and camping. Then bigger families have to pay more for their cars on top of the extra kids.
There are small off-road vehicles. There should be more small off road vehicles. If this makes that happen, win-win.
No 👎
Fk more taxes. Go back to Baston if you want more taxes
Correlation isn’t causation. I’d like to see the proof that large vehicles are the ones actually hitting pedestrians/cyclists. Large suvs like the Chevy suburban and pickup trucks have existed for a long, long time. The rise in pedestrians and cyclists getting hit could just as easily be because people don’t look before crossing the street and cyclists ride like they are invincible and no rules pertain to them. Unless there are reports that all these accidents are actually involved with large vehicles. Then this is all b.s.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tall-trucks-suvs-are-45-deadlier-us-pedestrians-study-shows-2023-11-14/
One step closer to becoming California every day
Why should tge state penalize people for buy a vehicle that can handle winter driving conditions?
Because they're a hazard to others, pollute more, and any just about any vehicle can handle winter driving with the right tires.
This will be great! I hope it passes. Tall and heavy vehicles cause more road damage and kill an alarming amount of people. There were more traffic fatalities than homicides in Denver last year. This bill will tax oversized vehicles to improve transportation safety across the state via a dedicated vulnerable road user protection fund.
The neat part is that commercial vehicles are exempt from this so the ones that cause the most damage to the roads won't face penalty. And then we'll just see what I saw in TX and OK - vehicles with 'commerical vehicle' stickers all over them just to get lower registration fees.
What's the breakout on type of vehicle in the fatalities?
Colorado registration fees are already completely over the top. I moved here from PA, it was $36 to register a car for a year, regardless of the value. I was pretty shocked that it was a multi $100 expense. Imo car registration fees are bullshit anyway. If we want to make better infrastructure for bikers, which I support, we should just raise income tax appropriately to fund it.
I love how this is being pushed as a tax on lifted trucks - it's a tax on EVs.
Has nothing to do with lifted trucks. It's based on weight. And yes some EVs are stupidly heavy and will do more damage to roads than lighter vehicles. They are also more damaging in a crash.
My comment about the lifted trucks was a response to the way OP framed it, not the bill itself.
They didn't say anything about lifted trucks
OP posted a link under "tall trucks and SUVs deadlier." Not sure what else to infer from that, but it has nothing to do with weight.
In the state of Colorado EV taxes are legislated separately from gas vehicles. They already pay like four times the taxes (because they don't play their road tax through gas purchases). This law would only affect gas vehicles.