No — I’m not exaggerating. According to a 2004 Slate article, many SUVs are technically not allowed to go on many LA county residential streets. (via The Good Human; pic from Slate)
Why not? We have ordinances outlawing big, road-ruining vehicles from treading on our streets. That’s right — vehicles over 6,000 lbs really are prohibited.
Here’s the text of the law: “It shall be unlawful, when authorized signs are in place giving notice thereof, to drive, propel, or cause to be driven or propelled, any vehicle exceeding a maximum gross weight of 6,000 pounds on any of the streets or portions of streets set forth in Subsection (d) of this section.”
But, reports Slate, this law isn’t enforced for SUVs, cuz the law was intended for industrial trucks. And this loophole’s allowed SUV manufacturers to use this law to market gigantic SUVs as tax friendly!
This means that SUV owners get to have their cake and eat it too. They get their tax breaks — $25,000 in both federal and Cali tax breaks. AND they get to fuck up our residential streets. As you can imagine, bigger cars cause more road damage. Fixing that shit comes from our tax dollars.
This deal goes for a buncha SUVs — AND for those damn Hummers. AAHHHHH!!!
Andy, writer of the Slate article, calls for a simple solution. Sure — SUV owners can get their big-car tax breaks. But if they do, they sure as hell shouldn’t be let onto our residential streets. He sez people should choose. Get yer big car with its tax break and stay on the big roads, or get a more reasonable car without tax breaks and get access to residential streets.
Now — this article, as I said, was written back in 2004. Which is why I’m wondering — has anything happened since then?
If you know of any more recent developments, let me know. I’ll also be calling Janice Hahn (mentioned in the article), Henry Waxman, as well as my state senator (Sheila James Kuehl, 916.651.4023 or 310.441.9084) and assemblywoman (Fran Pavley, 916.319.2041 or 818.596.4141) to find out what’s going on.
It is still the law in Pasadena; my efforts as a Transportation Commissioner to get it *enforced* against over weight SUVs was met with polite resistance . . .
Roger
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — September 11, 2006 @ 7:16 pm
Really? Name names! Who resisted ya?
Comment by Siel — September 11, 2006 @ 9:53 pm
The police department representative, the transportation director and staff, all said they felt the law was aimed at commercial vehicles only. . . which is amusing, because that would be illegal. Moreover, the safety issues with a large vehicle remain regardless of the logo on its side.
The PD was even reluctant to provide information to SUV owners that they might already have pulled over, as having warned them of a dangerous condition the PD could be liable if a driver was allowed to once more proceed illegally; having exercised discretion to decline to cite the violation, no liability would attach.
The legal logic is not entirely wrong in the current legal setting, but it is wrong headed. Of course, curing the dangerous condition was the point of enforcing the law.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — September 12, 2006 @ 4:57 am
Hilarious eh? I think the law only prohibits SUVs that are registered as commercial vehicles. However, many huge-SUV owners have registered their daily drivers as commercial vehicles because that’s how you get the tax credit. I think technically, non-commercial land tanks are still legal.
Comment by Nick Aster — September 12, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
I mean, land yachts! What’s a land tank anyway?
Comment by Nick Aster — September 12, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
Wait a minute, I got that backwards - it’s the commercial vehicles that are prohibited and not the daily drivers. On residential streets large commercial vehicles are typically prohibited - moving trucks being an occasional exception.
So, one devious way to inflict irritation on these people is to prove that they are not really being used as commercial vehicles. Then the IRS gets on people’s backs about it and they lose their tax write off for the vehicle, though it becomes legal.
Or, prove to the police that they ARE commercial vehicles and then they’re not legal on the residential streets.
Comment by Nick Aster — September 12, 2006 @ 9:36 pm
The former — getting rid of the tax write off — seems easier than the latter, just from a practical standpoint — cuz since we have so many damn SUVs around, I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of resistance to making them illegal on residential streets.
So Nick — I like your devious idea — But how does one inflict irritation on a practical level? Does this mean calling the IRS on your neighbor? Or is there something more large scale we can do to get these tax breaks halted?
Comment by Siel — September 14, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
Actually, in Pasadena (as most places) the distiction between commercial and non-commericial is not allowed under state law — at least with regard to a weight limit. And in Pasadena, a HUGE truck making a delivery off of the established truck route is exempt. Otherwise, all large vehicles, including private owned and driven SUVs, are prohibited.
The real issue is that if an SUV is in an accident off of the truck route illegally, and the accident was caused or enhanced by violation of this safety rule, the driver may be guilty of negligence per se. That is, when a lawsuit goes to court there is a (sometimes rebutable) presumption that the accident was caused by negligence because they violated a safety law.
Shrug.
Write the insurance companies; remind them that the law probibits SUVs off of truck routes, and ask if you (or their other insureds) will have to pay an extra premium if they operate their vehicles in violation of the law routinely . . . (grin). Eventually they might.
R.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — September 15, 2006 @ 6:22 am