Reporter Yamil Berard scoured through thousands of pages of court records, documents from the National Transportation Safety Board, and videos of that tragic day in February 2021 when 130 cars, trucks and semis piled up along a stretch of the North Tarrant Express. Early morning commuters, unaware of the black ice beneath them, crashed one after another along two lanes bound by concrete barriers on both sides. The horrific scene spanned the length of three football fields.
This is the core problem. If you want a use tax for driving, attach it to vehicle ownership (Canada does this with plate stickers, for example). If you make it specific to which roads people drive you just end up with fast roads for some and slow roads for everyone else, and a whole lot of under-utilized infrastructure capacity.