A specific road use tax on EVs and hybrids makes no sense.
Given the harms caused by traditional vehicles, society should welcome the decline in fuel excise revenue caused by the transition to EVs – in the same way we should welcome declining revenue from cigarette taxes.
Vehicle registration fees make only a modest contribution to road costs. That’s why all motorists should pay a road-user charge. The payment should be based on a combination of vehicle mass and distance travelled
For clarity: your idea of $10/year as a “nominal” amount is itself patently absurd. That’s an enormous cost, many hundreds of times more than the amount that would be proportional to how much damage they do to the infrastructure, compared to other vehicles.
If you wanted a truly “fair” price, it would be measured in cents, if that. And at that point, the cost to administer the system would far outweigh the revenue brought in.
Okay, make it $50/year to cover the cost of administration, you get a registration plate like every other road user, and you are bound by the rules the rest of us have to follow. Break the rules - and many cyclists break the rules - you can be traced and fined, just like the rest of us. Why should cyclists be exempt? Your other comment still doesn’t cover the cost of compensation when the cyclist is at fault. Cyclist breezes through an intersection and injures a pedestrian - who pays then?
Statistically, cyclists break the rules at roughly the same rate as drivers, in even the most unfavourable studies.
But there’s a key difference. When cyclists break the law, it is generally done in the interest of their own safety, because the law is often set up in such a way that following it, for cyclists, actually puts you at more risk. Drivers tend to break the law merely for convenience. And when a cyclist does hit someone, the impacts are much, much less bad than when a car does.
You’re proposing a solution to a problem that does not exist. And which would have far more intense negative side effects, because it would decrease the number of cyclists. That is precisely the opposite of what good policy does.
Not to mention, having plates doesn’t actually work to stop cars breaking the law and deliberately endangering people’s lives all the time. You can send clear video footage to the police and you’ve got maybe a 1 in 10 shot at best that the police actually fine the driver.