Ever look at one of those behemoth SUVs rumbling down the street and say to yourself, “There oughta be a law!”
Guess what: there may already be.
I discovered this secret ban after noticing the signs at both ends of my narrow Los Angeles-area street (a favorite cut-through route for drivers hoping to avoid tie-ups on bigger roads). The signs clearly prohibit vehicles over 6,000 pounds.
[…] It turns out every big SUV and pickup is too heavy for my street. Here’s just a sampling: The Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, the Range Rover, the GMC Yukon, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Sequoia, the Lincoln Navigator, the Mercedes M Class, the Porsche Cayenne S, and the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup (with optional Hemi). What about the Hummer, you ask? Hasta la vista, baby!
If you look at the manufacturer’s specs for these vehicles, you’ll discover that they all have a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 6,000 pounds. […] Some are way over (the Hummer H2 weighs in at 8,600 pounds, and its older sibling the H1 at an astounding 10,300 pounds—I’m talking to you, Governator). Others manage to top the 3-ton mark by just a hair (the BMW X5 boasts a GVWR of 6,008 pounds). For comparison, a Honda Accord is about 3,000 pounds.
The auto manufacturers have an incentive to make these things this heavy because (a) you can write off the cost (if it’s for “work”), and (b) as trucks they’re exempt from the federal “gas guzzler” tax, not to mention various safety regs.
Still, while benefitting from those laws, the laws they would be penalized by don’t seem to be much enforced.
By weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds, big SUVs are prohibited on thousands of miles of road in California. Cities across the state—including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Santa Monica—use the 3-ton cutoff for many or nearly all of their residential streets. State law gives them the ability to do this for very straightforward reasons: The heavier the vehicle, the more it chews up the roads, endangers pedestrians and smaller vehicles, and makes noise. […]
As it stands now, big-SUV drivers have it both ways: They use their trucklike status when it benefits them, yet they ignore the more onerous restrictions that “real” truck drivers face.
I can’t imagine any politician actually urging the police to enforce these kind of laws, but it would certainly be entertaining to see.
(via Cronaca)
I can’t see the Police enforcing the law unless the revenue stream was big enough…
Most traffic laws concerning weight are written as “curb weight” not the GVWR. Curb weight is what the vehicle would weigh when it leaves the factory with just fuel, no passengers. The GVWR is what the manufacturers believe the vehicle can be loaded down with (to include driver, fuel, and cargo) and still be safe. The GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) is combines the payload with the towing capacity.
The article actually addresses the issue of curb weight vs GVWR. Though some SUVs (though by no means all) would thus be exempted, many SUV owners who deduct their vehicles for tax purposes are (according to the article) more than happy to use the higher weight to qualify for “truck” status for the deduction, while shunning it for other possible penalties.