Colorado Law Would Charge Owners For Driving Giant, Pedestrian-Crushing Trucks And SUVs

It’s already well-established that heavier vehicles do more damage to roads than lighter ones, so it only makes sense for them to pay extra for the privilege of driving, say, a GMC Hummer EV. We also know that those same giant trucks and SUVs are more dangerous to others on the road and are more likely to kill pedestrians. A new bill in Colorado would push back against the bloating of the American fleet.

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The proposed law would introduce a “vulnerable road user protection fee” for heavy vehicles, Streetsblog reports. The revenue generated from those fees would then be used to fund pedestrian and bike safety projects that should make it safer to get around without a car. If passed into law, Colorado wouldn’t be the first state to base its registration fees on vehicle weight — currently, about a quarter of states do that — but it would be the first to specifically create a “vulnerable road user protection enterprise cash fund” with the revenue.

The new fee is expected to generate as much as $20 million per year, which really isn’t a lot when you consider how much infrastructure projects can cost. And that’s largely because the proposed fees aren’t exactly punitive. Even if you own a 9,000-lb Hummer EV, you’ll reportedly only pay an extra $29.90 per year. Additionally, the fee would only be charged in the 12 most populous counties because it’s supposed to target the places where pedestrian and bicycle accidents happen the most.

“We’re addressing this from a data-based perspective,” lead sponsor state Senator Lisa Cutter said in a statement. “Data shows us that higher vehicle weights directly correlate with vulnerable road user deaths. It just makes sense to tie funding to that. It’s not about disincentivizing the purchase of [these] vehicles; it’s about recognizing that these are the cars that are disproportionately involved in these fatalities.”

So while it won’t exactly discourage people from buying massive vehicles, it would at least create a creative way for Colorado to raise funding for important projects. And it doesn’t exempt electric vehicles, either. From Streetsblog:

“I actually felt really strongly that I didn’t want to be inconsistent in how we apply [this law],” she said. “[These fees] are not punitive towards people who buy EVs. I mean, 90 percent of the work I do is tied to environmental issues; of course I want people to buy EVs. But it’s also absolutely true that the weight of EVs fits into the equation in terms of vulnerable road user deaths. We didn’t want to say, ‘Well, we like EVs better, so we’re carving them out.’”

For vulnerable road users, that’s definitely a good thing. After all, if you get killed by the driver of a Hummer EV, it’s not going to be much consolation to your friends and loved ones to hear that at least the driver wasn’t polluting as much when they hit you.