[drekk]

It's not arbitrary. The weight and speed have external impacts on road durability as well as air quality. Compare the amount of carbon dioxide released by a truck of that size and most other residential polluting machines and it doesn't come close.

If you want to push the cost of your hobby onto society by commiting tax fraud I don't think it's the democratically elected legislature that's at issue here.

[vba616]

Do CO2 emissions noticeably affect air quality?

I thought they were of concern for the effect on the global climate, in contrast to NOx, CO or HC emissions.

I would think it's academic anyway, because a vehicle that costs as much as a Ferrari isn't going to be used to commute in. Ten times the CO2 emissions from a vehicle driven 1/10th as much is a wash.

As far as weight goes, it may be huge but the article says it's just barely large enough to be classed with commercial vehicles. Wouldn't you think the biggest commercial trucks do most road damage? There's a widespread factoid that the damage is a very nonlinear function of weight, and so road taxes are allegedly misapportioned.

[aserdf]

> The weight and speed have external impacts on road durability as well as air quality. Compare the amount of carbon dioxide released by a truck of that size and most other residential polluting machines and it doesn't come close.

Correlation, causation regarding weight/size of vehicle and external impact. Its actually quite simple to objectively determine that sort of impact on a vehicle by vehicle basis, all of this is known. No reason to anchor it to the weight of a vehicle.

Again, the tax aspect ("fraud") is NOT being pushed by a potential purchaser. the laws FORCE it to be a vehicle that is tax exempt (according to the article).

[8note]

The laws allow for it to be tax exempt, they aren't forcing it to be. You can just pay proper taxes and avoid the fraud