Owners of trucks, SUVs, and heavy vehicles will likely soon be paying more to keep them registered in Washington, D.C.
Currently, it costs Washington, D.C., car owners $72 per year to register a vehicle under 3,500 pounds, $115 for those between 3,500 and 5,000 pounds, and $155 for even heavier trucks and SUVs.
The new proposal would require residents to pay a much higher $500 fee to register a vehicle over 6,000 pounds.
It also increases fees for cars weighing between 3,500 and 6,000 pounds to $175 per year. If approved, the new fee structure is set to go into effect in 2024.
The first-in-the-nation effort was undertaken in order to curb pedestrian fatalities, as heavier vehicles are more likely to kill someone hit while walking or cycling around the city. Last year, a pedestrian or cyclist died in Washington every 18 days.
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There is also an environmental component to the D.C. City Council’s effort to increase the fee to own a truck, given that heavier vehicles typically emit more greenhouse gases than sedans do.
“You can’t ban sales of these things,” Mary Cheh, a D.C. councilwoman who developed the plan, told Bloomberg, “but you can make them pay their own way.”
“The size and weight of these vehicles has become ginormous,” she said. “When cars and pedestrians or cyclists come into contact, we know that the heavier the car, the worse the accident will be.”
Truck and SUV owners will undoubtedly feel sticker shock from the change in the law.
For instance, the D.C. owner of a new Ford F-250 would have paid $1,550 over 10 years to keep their vehicle registered under the current fee structure.
Under the proposed change, which the council has already approved as part of the fiscal 2023 budget, that same F-250 owner will be forced to shell out a whopping $5,000 over a decade to own their vehicle while living in Washington. That is 13% of the total starting price of a brand-new 2022 F-250.
A procedural vote on the budget is scheduled for next week, which makes changes to the plan unlikely, according to Axios.
Despite the big leap in registration fees for heavy vehicle owners, Cheh said she doesn’t think the change will be the biggest factor in determining whether residents decide to purchase smaller vehicles. The councilwoman said the soaring price of gas will likely be a bigger determinant.
While many of the heaviest vehicles on the country’s roads today produce more fossil fuels than their smaller counterparts — an F-250 gets about half the miles per gallon that a Ford Focus does — other heavy vehicles are hybrid or run on electricity.
The proposal allows owners of electric vehicles to subtract 1,000 pounds from their vehicle’s weight when registering a vehicle under the updated fee structure. Still, that wouldn’t do anything for owners of a GMC Hummer EV, which clocks in at a colossal 9,000 pounds.
Electric vehicle owners in Washington do have another perk that will partially remain under the new fee structure.
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Under current regulations, those who register an electric vehicle or hybrid car are allowed to pay just $36 per year for the first two years they register their vehicle in the district. Under the new fee structure, that two-year markdown would remain but would only be allowed for electric vehicles, not hybrids.
The change, while designed to cut down on pedestrian deaths and pollution, would also be a windfall for the district’s coffers. The change in fee structure would rake in some $40 million in revenue over the next five years, according to budget analysts.
