Hugely, massively ignorant. For one, much of the funding for roads comes from taxing gas, which truckers pay proportionately for.
Beyond that, have you ever bothered to notice those little areas on the side of highways called weigh stations? You know, the ones where you don't have to stop? Yeah.
If anything, the subsidy runs from truckers to casual drivers, not the other way around.
If you are going to engage in name-calling, at least cite a source. There are multiple studies that show that heavy trucks destroy roads and bridges (one truck causes 9,600 times more wear than a car) and also that heavy trucks are disproportionately dangerous, killing about 5,000 people a year.
The point is that heavy trucks don't pay enough taxes to cover their actual impact on the road-system.
Good luck getting your goods without them. What would happen if we split all the heavy trucks into several smaller trucks? That would make the problem worse. Besides the primary importance of the highway system is to transport goods and necessary resources to areas not accessible (or not economically practical) by rail/sea.
Actually, splitting the heavy trucks into smaller trucks would be better, paradoxically. Wear and tear on the road increases exponentially with vehicle weight. Weigh stations account for this by increasing the cost per pound for larger weight classes of truck.
The reason it doesn't happen is because then you've got to pay additional drivers, which outweighs the cost savings from avoiding the additional road use taxes.
For one, much of the funding for roads comes from taxing gas
I feel the need to add the qualifier that this is true of federal roads, but less so as we talk about local roads. I realize the story pertains to the interstate system, but as a cyclist the widespread misconception that gas tax funds all roads and other users are somehow freeloaders is quite detrimental.
