"Jason" <jason@nospam.com> wrote:

Yes, it does keep up just fine. Having seen these (they're *everywhere*) in
Switzerland, where the legal freeway speed is 75 mph and people often go at
80, they can keep up just fine, they're actually quite nimble. It's sort of
the same argument, can a motorbike with a 500cc engine keep up with traffic?
You bet it can. The lower weight makes the extra power unnecessary.

It primarily is, but if you look at many of the suburban types of driving,
it's around town (to the store, gym, work, yadda...) with a little freeway
driving to bridge the longer distances - where you more often than not get
stuck in traffic. For those environments it is just perfect.

While I see your point, the logic is fundamentally flawed. I have a small
car, you get a bigger car to be "safer" (thereby squashing me). Well, you
know what, your neighbor gets an SUV and squashes you. And his neighbor gets
a fat truck and squashes him, whereupon he gets squashed by the guy down the
street with a hummer. This is the wrong direction to go. Keep it real. How
much FAT TRUCK does one lone soul need? And yes, do look around, 90%+ of the
cars/trucks you see at any given moment in time are occupied by a single
person.

At the risk of being called a homo (happened before), here's my opinion:

- be real about what you need
- don't go down the route of the arms race in the 80's with your car
- switch to public transit where possible and carpool
- get off the friggin' cell and drive!

There needs to be an ideology switch from "bigger is better" to "small is
beautiful". Otherwise, your kids won't have any oil left anymore to run
their vehicles.

(/me still driving my '88 Civic that some pompous a.ses sneer upon as being
a "tiny car" and a "death trap", when I'm not bicycling)