Do politicians lack the scientific knowledge required for policy making in the modern age?
In a world due to be turned upside down by robotics, genetic engineering and quantum computing, we’re going to need more than lawyers and accountants making the big decisions.
In fact, it would be great to have some scientifically-literate decision-making on some not-so-futuristic policy areas too.
Take the example of highway maintenance. Politicians probably get more angry letters about potholes than any other issue – but somehow there’s never enough money for adequate repairs. One reason why is that the taxation of heavier vehicles doesn’t properly reflect the damage that they do to road surfaces.
It might be assumed that the heavier a vehicle the more damage it does – and indeed that’s the case. What isn’t as widely understood is just how disproportionate an impact that each unit of extra weight has – meaning a heavy goods vehicle does massively more damage than a car:
It’s a point explained by Philippa Edmunds in a piece for CityMetric:
“The standard 44 tonne HGV, which is the industry workhorse, causes 136,000 times more damage to road infrastructure than a Ford Focus because the damaging power rises exponentially as weight increases – a phenomenon known as the ‘Generalised Fourth Power Law’.
“Local and urban roads, unlike motorways, are not built to sustain the large volume of heavy goods now traffic using them.”
The Generalised Fourth Power Law, or Fourth Power Rule, means that with every doubling of weight, a vehicle does sixteen times (i.e. 2×2×2×2) as much damage.
There are a few complications to take into account, but that’s the basic physics.
Ms Edmunds represents the UK Campaign for Better Transport, which argues that road freight is significantly undertaxed – and not solely because the damage caused to roads:
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