> The degradation of road surfaces is caused almost entirely by automobiles.
This should read: The degradation of road surfaces is caused almost entirely by heavy trucks.
Road wear is proportional to the fourth power of axle weight. A fully loaded cement truck or transport truck is doing way more damage than a fully loaded box truck, which is doing much more damage than a Hummer EV, which is doing much more damage than a Tesla Model S or F150, which is doing more damage than a Nissan Micra or Mazda Miata. Here’s[0] a page with a neat chart showing relative comparisons. Note that it tops out at 18k lb trucks, which are ~1200x as damaging as something like a Prius; it doesn’t include fully loaded trucks, which can exceed 80k lbs in North America. The amount of damage to roads they do compared to average or lightweight cars is mind boggling.
Once you get into those larger vehicles, vehicle weight doesn't matter so much (for regulations and for road wear). What matters is axle weight, which stays fairly consistent as you increase overall vehicle weight. eg for delivering bulk construction materials, dump trucks have either one, two, or three load axles (along with the steering axle, which is calculated separately), and the load it can carry scales pretty closely with that (gross around 10t per axle (22k lbs), net around 7t per load axle). Anything over the standard limit pays significant fees for a permit (at least where I am)
Think of how often dedicated walking and cycling routes need to be repaved—almost never.
Car owners only pay about half of the cost of road maintenance in the US[1].
[1] https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/