Trigger Warning: Community contains mostly bad environmental news (not by choice!). Community may also feature stories about animal agriculture and/or meat. Until tagging is available, please be aware and click accordingly.

Aussie Zone Rules.

Golden rule - be nice. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your ~~grandmother~~ favourite tree, don’t post it.
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. You are allowed to denigrate invasive plants or animals.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here. Except invasive plants or animals.
No porn. Except photos of plants. Definitely not animals.
No Ads / Spamming. Except for photos or stories about plants and animals.
Nothing illegal in Australia. Like invasive plants or animals. Exotic microbes and invasive fungi also not welcome.
Make post titles descriptive with no swear words. Comments are a free for all using the above rules as a guide. Fuck invasive plants and animals.

Community and Server Info.

Banner Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/14871864504/

Hosted in the Sydney Basin Bioregion on Gadigal land.
User community creation disabled - visit [email protected]
Downvotes enabled
User signup enabled
Server Admin: @[email protected]

/c/Aussie Environment acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Councils from Paris to the Yarra want to use parking fees to clamp down on big SUVs. What are they doing and will they succeed? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 11 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Good. Now slap a 300% luxury tax on them too. Exclude the utes with the steel trays.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They should just be banned period. I haven't seen any reasonable arguments for why a ute needs to be 50% larger today than it was in the 90's.

Otherwise there should be taxes based on size, weight, and fuel efficiency. It only makes sense as the larger the vehicle, the greater its impact on traffic and parking space, the more damage it does to the road, and the more damage it does to the environment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Because now the ute is a holiday/recreation vehicle whose expenses can be written off for work as opposed to a pure work vehicle.

If we did ban them, I think the economy would be better off overall. For the majority of trades, vans are a way more efficient work vehicle. Using a big ute for the daily school runaround is simply inane. The only winners of big ute are the automakers and campground operators.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Height barriers at car park entrances might be an idea. Suv owners would not be able to park. Deterrent enabled!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

They kept mentioning safety issues being a factor; I wish they had at least mentioned some of them. It could've helped spread that information and taught people something.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

To be fair the first time they mention "safety impacts" the words "safety impacts" is actually a link to a study on the subject. It would be better to include a brief summation since no one is going to pause reading an article in the first paragraph to read a study.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Some bullet points from the linked study:

Children are eight times more likely to die when struck by a SUV compared to children struck by a passenger car.
Passenger cars are underrepresented in fatal pedestrian and pedal-cyclist fatalities.
SUVs struck 14.7% of the pedestrians and pedal-cyclists studied, but were involved in 25.4% of the fatalities.
Blacks are overrepresented as pedestrian and pedal-cyclist crash victims.
Hospital charges are highest among those struck by pickup trucks, and those aged 65 and older.
Regulatory interventions may help reduce the harm caused to human bodies by large motor vehicles.

But yeah, perhaps a quick summary in the main article would have been helpful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"The inner-suburban Yarra city council voted on Tuesday to investigate whether parking fees should be increased for larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks due to safety concerns"

If there are safety concerns, raising the price of parking just puts a price on them, it doesn't make these vehicles any safer.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

True, but this should at least discourage people from buying these vehicles, and collecting some revenue in the process (which in the case of cash starved local councils is a good thing). It would take a federal government effort to ban these vehicles altogether I suspect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Not sure I agree with this as any solution, tokeninstic at best, the asshats who can afford $100k+ for a ute won't give a shit about increased parking fees, well enough of a shit to complain but not enough to stop them. Just ban them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Yarra city council unanimously voted on Tuesday to investigate the potential to raise parking fees for large vehicles.

Experts have previously pointed to manufacturers doubling their spend on advertising SUVs and utes over the past decade, and various tax perks such as the instant asset write-off scheme, as factors that have been nudging Australians towards larger vehicles in recent years.

The inner-suburban Yarra city council voted on Tuesday to investigate whether parking fees should be increased for larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks due to safety concerns.

Environmental groups hailed it as a template for other cities to make streets safer and air cleaner as sales of heavy vehicles soar.

A similar initiative is already in place in the French city of Lyon, while the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said prior to the vote that he would monitor the effectiveness of Paris’s plan if it was approved.

In 2008, the City of Sydney introduced “green concessions” for residential parking permits in the council area to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The original article contains 784 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!