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More EV Woes
Electric vehicles completely replacing gasoline cars would burden our power grid to the breaking point, not to mention the added pollution to generate all that electricity. This is a huge problem we’re aware of. However, there’s another problem with EVs that I hadn’t thought about before (no big surprise, since I’ve given up thinking for Lent):
The added weight of EV batteries causes more road damage than gasoline powered cars. Of course, tractor-trailers are a big culprit too, but replacing all existing gasoline cars for electric would place a tremendous burden on our roads. We can barely keep or streets and highways pothole free now. Imagine a future where every road looks like a New Orleans street. (Those of us who went to the NOLA Meetup can attest to the state of their roads).
What if we could find a way to keep the roads repaired? Well, look at how traffic backs up with road repair today. Imagine doubling or tripling the number of work zones. You’d have streets and highways clogged more often than not.
I remember watching a video where the host discussed the additional number of fatalities that would occur, given that electric vehicles weigh more. He suggested the collision between a heavy EV and a light EV would greatly increase the likelihood of a death or serious injury because the added weight is in the battery, not structural components.
Still, small EVs would be great for cities in warm-to-moderate climates where you didn’t have far to drive, and only needed to charge the vehicle at home.
Published in Science and Technology
A lot of cops already make 100,000 bucks a year. Sure in some backwoodsy place that state politicians don’t care about, the police might be underpaid.
But in Calif, if you hold down almost any job considered to be that of a profession, you get 62K a year, with benefits including paid vacation and very sweet health plan. Work a little bit of overtime, and at the rate of 50 bucks an hour normal salary times overtime rate, you easily end up with a hundred k.
Despite all these goodies, cops now can decide to take early retirement, if some event left them slightly injured or traumatized. Stress bringing about an early retirement was first recognized by one of my private duty elder care patients. I think he didn’t attempt to do in the legal system until he was in his late fifties though.
Things have changed quite a bit. Full pension at age 42 due to stress on the job? Not a bad way to go.
Despite that fact, when a citizen reports a burglary, the cops do not care enough to take a report, even if the person can identify who it was that they witnessed breaking and entering. The exceptions of course are for reports from prominent financial people, politicians and of course those with relatives in the police departments.
I regret repeating what I heard from a very smart guy.
Police are an actual public good. Wipe out all of the non-public goods and fund and fix the police.
https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/market-failure-and-the-role-of-government/externalities-topic/a/public-goods-cnx
Once again, gotta fix everything downstream too: courts, prosecutors, judges…
And, just throwing money at something doesn’t fix it. Unless you’re a Democrat.
What I most fear are people who look for fixes at the national level.
All public goods. George Soros is evil.
He wasn’t making it that complicated. I’m sure he’s aware of it.
How about we work on fixing police misconduct and judicial misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct first, and then offer better pay to the people who behave?
And offering worse pay to those who don’t.
Centralized power. Avoid it unless there are no other options.
I am against that.
(I’m kidding.)
In Calif the police are usually the opposite of a public good.
All you have to do is follow the news in this state, and end up finding out that a homeowner who used a gun to protect his family is charged and must face a trial in court, while the perp is considered a martyr, with the police willingly enforcing this nonsense, then it begins to be obvious that the police are a big part of the problem.