UnknownTreeStumpFeb 24
@cars Bring back mini trucks! My 1990 ford ranger is everything a commuter should be. People do not need fast cars they need something reliable, fast enough to get you from point A to B, and a perfect sized bed to haul almost anything in your home. Driving is still a blast BECAUSE IT IS SLOW! If you have not driven a vehicle with less than 100hp then treat yourself to the joys of your nearest shitbox.
Show threadJoshuaFalkenFeb 24
It’s funny to think if most people drove smaller, less powerful, slower vehicles, they would probably get places faster by reducing traffic congestion.
Show thread🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞Feb 24

Hmm. If you look at traffic, even in stop-and-go or at least nearly-stop-and-go… there’s so much space between vehicles, even though it doesn’t feel like it when you’re driving. I’m not sure smaller vehicles would do much for traffic.

That said, I support smaller vehicles for any number of reasons. I’m just not sure that’s one of them. :shrug: Disclaimer: Totes thinking about videos one sees of traffic and how much space there is. I could be wrong.

Show threadcaptainlezbian
It’s because you’re supposed to leave a certain number of car lengths. If everyone drove smaller cars those gaps would be smaller.
Feb 24 at 3:26pmWeb
Show thread🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞Feb 24

Yeah.

The current recommendation is 3 seconds. At 35mph, that’s a car every 175 feet, give or take. Calculating all traffic as being in 20 foot trucks/SUVs.

If everyone switched to Smart cars or that length, that’s about 9 feet long. So you have a car every ~165 feet.

You can fit five percent more cars on the road. Which isn’t nothing.

But it’s pretty damn close to nothing.

Shorter vehicles is not going to solve traffic, although it’s still better for other reasons.

In the best-case scenario of stop-and-go traffic, you’re probably looking at large vehicles every 50 feet and smaller vehicles every 40 feet. That is 20% more, sure, but you could also “just add another lane” for that sort of effect.

Also, the nature of traffic is that if you can handle more people on the road, people will commute farther and re-saturate the road (hence the “just-another-lane” reference above).