If people are driving with appropriate skill and care, the number driving into large, well-lit buildings should be approximately zero per year. It sounds like you're willing to excuse a lot of bad driving

There's a substantial body of research on how mythbusting lies can be counterproductive because as part of doing so, you repeat the lie and this helps people remember it.

Also, and this is more speculative, but surely there's probably some survivor bias here? There are probably many thousands of populists neither of us has ever heard of because they haven't had their voices amplified.

Don't give these people publicity

Plumbers don't carry massive heavy plant. But I know you were just picking a concrete example of a business there so let's not dwell on that particular case. The real point is that if a business causes damage to the roads that has to be repaired, it should contribute an appropriate amount. If that makes the cost of doing business more expensive, that just has to get passed on to the customer - who, ultimately, is the one having the heavy stuff transported

Here in the UK, I've seen bloody sushi restaurants and hairdressers drive branded pickup trucks FFS. No tax exemptions for businesses. As another poster noted, the damage is being done and needs to be paid for - it doesn't magically not matter because it was done in the course of somebody using the road for their business

2 and 3 are massive. I'm on Mastodon, but am having a much better time on Bluesky. Mastodon is full of gatekeeping and policing and people complaining - Bluesky is just fun and interesting, like Twitter 12 years ago

They mean it would cost more because the problem has become bigger and more complicated because it wasn't addressed early

That shouldn't affect GDP - after all, America is much further away and has a bigger GDP than any of these. Indeed, GDP being what it is (a rough measure of total economic activity) I suspect being far away from the hub, like Greece, would likely boost it: think of all the economic activity for your shipping and logistics businesses

Also meanwhile...

Meanwhile...

At this stage it's a trope that people imitate, perhaps without really thinking about it. Originally it was almost certainly an ironic joke about the value of the medals, playing on the old-fashioned bite tests that would be used for for items of dubious worth

If they're like the originals, let's hope nobody ever needs to control them with the slightest bit of moisture on their hands.