alt Hacker News> Road damage is proportional to the 4th power. Roads are entirely subsidized by people. Commercial trucks should bear the fair costs to make it equitable.
Why not use trains for heavy transport?
I lived in a country where the roads between major cities were constantly swarming with hundred trucks coming and going. Even as a kid I thought that can't be efficient! It's certainly not comfortable for everyone else. Sometimes they'd be tipped over on their side. Sometimes there would be a tiny car crushed under them.
The barons certainly don't care about pollution, but don't they see the increased cost of paying each individual driver and risk of accidents per vehicle?
The government added more lanes and diverted routes just for trucks, but still no rail...
That would be great, but the railroads have torn up most of their own lines and refuse to move anything that might be needed inside of a month from ship date because PSR means they only run one mega train periodically. They also routinely refuse profitable runs because they're not as profitable as their other runs and they calculate success only in terms of profitability rate.
US railroads think the ideal railroad is one that owns no track and carries no freight.