Urban Microcars
Urban Microcars
Society's got priorities wrong.
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most car travels are 1 person or sometimes 2 person
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the majority of car travels are quite short, less than 40km.
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many car travels are just to get some groceries or drop of a little package or just say "hi" to someone, carrying nothing but themselves.
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cars are fucking expensive, to buy and to maintain
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accidents become way worse with heavier vehicles
Microcar is a valid answer to all of these, while still being sheltered from weather.
How are urban places (i'm in Belgium) with almost permanent super heavy road traffic congestion, bad climate statistics, high polution values, very limited available space left, no self-sustaining energy production and high traffic accident statistics still pooring in billions and billions in subsidies year after year into "regular" big heavy SUV-like vehicles instead of these? It's beyond my comprehension. The only real valid reason i somewhat get is the collective scare of being in a crash and not wanting to be in the smaller vehicle. We could save the climate, we choose not to.
- MICROLINO: 17.990 €
- OPEL ROCKS: 8.699 €
- CITROEN AMI: 7.790 €
- RENAULT TWIZY: 13.000 €
- FIAT TOPOLINO: 9.890 €
A lot of people here casually spend more on a sunday racing bike every few years for fucks sake.
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I don’t really understand the benefit if microcar over golf carts.
Is my understanding correct?
Microcar
- built to car safety standards
- silly looking
- inconvenient to anyone above average size
- Don’t appear to too useful
- expensive
- fit at most a single person
Golf cart
- different class of vehicle, limited use
- can be built cheaper
- Already a huge variety
- easier access
- Useable by people without drivers licenses
- more usefulness options in sizes, cabins, even trailers
- cheaper
- can support families
Instead of proposing we all squish into tiny toy-like cars that are unsafe in car infrastructure, wouldn’t a better proposal be to organize downtowns around cheaper, lower speed golf carts that already have a variety of models and customizations? It would save everyone money, and paperwork, while filling the same efficiency improvements
As another comment said, golf carts are not road-legal vehicles. So the law needs to be changed, and if it does, regulations would force those golf carts to be...
built to car safety standards
...So basically microcars.
You can't rebuild dense areas all at once, and the benefits aren't going to be apparent until you have a good portion of the town built to the new spec.
You can't use golf carts on roads.
But you can build developments with paths appropriate to golf carts and personal mobility, giving everyone more accessibility, safer local transportation, better use of land, better for the environment, etc. The trick is to connect them to some infrastructure, like a school, grocery store, restaurant, transit.
Why would you build additional infrastructure? And where? Instead of foot paths? Or instead of a green zone? The dumbest idea ever, mate.
How's that relevant?
You don’t have to like the idea, but how do you not see the relevance of a real life example? There’s a town built around the idea of golf carts for local mobility. Sounds like a great idea
Because the idea is silly. Small cars exist, they're better, more functional and are allowed on existing infrastructure.