This is BS to the max. But then, no one ever accused libs of being smart.
Their claim is that miles driven causes wear and tear on the roads, but that the smaller cars are driven more miles per gallon and therefore are tearing up the roads more without paying higher taxes at the pump. Well this is purely stupid-lib-think.
Smaller vehicles cause far less damage per mile that a heavy truck. In fact, if a road is well designed and well installed, even a medium sized car will do virutally no damage to the road. Poor road design, poor materials, poor installation, extreme weather, salt, plows, and heavy trucks with poor suspension do FAR, FAR more damage to roads than most passenger vehicles.
Look at well designed and built airport runways and tarmacs. They don't crumble under the weight of an 910,000 lb fueled 747. When was the last time you saw potholes being filled on a commercial runway?
If they want to tax miles driven on the poor suckers of Oregon, then just include a declaration of miles driven on their annual state income tax. They will still be idiots, though.
It's mostly the braking forces on large heavies that damage the pavement on highways. Large bulk milk tankers here on rural Wisconsin roads can just chissel the pavement right off of they apply hard braking during certain conditions like spring and fall. It's a well accepted fact that those bulk milk tankers cannot and will not stop for you, your pooch, deer, kitties, or skunks.
Here in NC, you have to get an annual inspection and get all hooked up to a DMV machine that reports directly to their database. They'll bust you if the property taxes aren't paid on the vehicle and for a myriad of other infractions (you must make criminals of them!) If Oregon has a similar procedure, why not just report the "official" taxable mileage then?
Better yet, why not just leave us the hell alone?
I do not think the public could fund roads built to runway specs. Although I do think we have way too many roads in this country. Maybe if we built far less of them we could do a much better job on the quality/longevity?
After that incident, I realized it is easier and does less damage to the plane to land gear-up in the nice soft grass right next to the runway. Some dirt and seed is a lot cheaper. Very little need to reskin the belly either. The prop strikes on dirt will do minimal damage to the engines as well. They hit hard surface and both engines are trashed.
Wear and damned tear on the roads here in Oregon is nearly 100% due to studded tires which literaly carve trenches into the raodway. We have approximately 2 days of freezing weather a year but these tires are on cars 3 to 5 months out of the year.
I seem to recall from somewhere that the damage is proportional to the fourth power of the weight.