Searching map area
Fourth power law
? TBD
Rule in road engineering
Nobody has rated this yet. Be the first!
Discussions 10
A shame they didn't mention how much more impact heavier vehicles have in numerical terms. A 2 tonne 2 axle car has 16 times more impact than a 1 tonne one. Electric vehicles are significantly heavier than their ICE equivalents too.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @kathyhodgson.bsky.social
The most fun part is that road wear scales with vehicle weight to the fourth power, so doubling the weight increases wear sixteen-fold. I think vehicle tax should work that way too. A Land Rover Defender 130 should pay 64× the tax of a Smart car. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @stejormur.bsky.social
The relationship between vehicle weight and road damage has been known for a long time: it's ~proportional to the fourth power of axle weight.
Bluesky post by @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social
Some estimates of damage Vs axle weight.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @aardgoose.info
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @mzdt.bsky.social
Article: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Fourth power law: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @sudeepgkr.bsky.social
There's a paper from 1962 which has been repeatedly questioned.
It's at best a rule of thumb for heavy vehicles - none of the testing was performed with lighter ones and a whole bunch of factors were not tested.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @cominagetcha.bsky.social
Road damage is proportional to the fourth power of axle weight.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @robmurrish.bsky.social
Wear is proportional to axle-load to the fourth power, not quadratic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @ivokra.bsky.social
Si les taxes étaient liées aux dégâts faits par les véhicules, et en se basant sur ces 333 €/an, chaque conducteur de pick-up devrait payer environ 17.000 € chaque année.

Et, les cyclistes, zéro.

(0,000053 €/an, pour être plus précis)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Bluesky post by @liege.bike
Lists 0

The fourth power law (also known as the fourth power rule) is a rule of thumb which states that the stress on the road caused by a motor vehicle increases in proportion to the fourth power of its axle load. This law was discovered in the course of a series of scientific experiments in the United States in the late 1950s and was decisive for the...

Instance of
References