[asdff]

Another easy way is to tax wear items accordingly and have inspections maintaining their condition for safety. E.g. EVs are heavier and wear down tires more than lighter cars. The state could implement a tax on tires and mandatory inspections for tread depth like they do with smog checks for emissions in gas cars. They could use the same testing infrastructure and just stock every location with a penny to measure tread. Heavy users of the roads will see a lot of wear on their tires and will be paying more into this tax accordingly in order to have a legally safe vehicle to drive, just like how owners of ancient cars that are more likely to be polluting need to take special care that the emissions controls are in good maintenance so that they pass smog.

It would also be beneficial to incentivize better vehicle choices at the point of sale. Ebikes should be subsidized to the point of being free or nearly so. Other evehicles should be taxed extremely high per pound of mass. A family of four should therefore naturally gravitate toward a compact hatchback over a massive SUV that weighs twice as much like they do today when there is no incentive for getting a smaller vehicle.

[mwint]

Tire tread is kind of a dangerous measure; you don’t necessarily want everyone switching to a super hard tire. Basically you can trade tread wear for stopping distance.

[asdff]

Tire tread is already something that is measured on the books legally speaking but is never enforced really as such. You do need to legally maintain tread. As far as compounds go once again that's something that regulation can enforce. I don't think today that people are buying hard tires that are apparently too hard for the purpose of getting less wear out of them.