Smart Brand Car

http://www.threepointmotors.com/smart/index.asp

A picture of the Smart Car is at the above site.

I visited the site and was amazed about how small it is.

My question: Would it be able to keep up with traffic if the speed limit
on the freeway or interstate highway was 70 mph?

It appears to be a car designed for city driving.

 

I can't imagine risking the safety of ANYONE in my family in one of those
death traps. Granted, maybe they are safe in Europe, but this is the land of
the Suburban, home of the Excursion. When you get hit, it won't be by
another Smart Car...it will be by a FAT TRUCK!

 

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 asses sneer upon as being
a "tiny car" and a "death trap", when I'm not bicycling)

 

And oh, I forgot -

Considering there's no space for crumpling structures, these things have
gone the other way and been designed as rigid cells. They actually hold up
really well in crash tests, you'd be surprised!

 

They appear to keep up fairly well around here.

There are quite a few of the Smart Cars in our area. They seem to be
carrying people (change that to person) that is proud of their new Dinky toy
<g>. I've never seen one in a grocery store parking lot, because there just
isn't enough room in the vehicle for the groceries and a driver.

Brian

 

you can chip em, and they'll hit about 120mph

designed, ye. suitible only for, no.

70mph is the standard speed limit on most euopean high speed roads,
including the motorways of the UK where it was designed, i believe.

Don't believe what you might think about saftey either. the Us and EU
differ in two ways, when it comes to car design. US has stricter
emissions crap (got to love a country where the laws are made by
lawyers based on who pays the most) whereas the EU has a much higher
safety standard. Thus, the safety features that, stateside, you can
only get in a saturn, it seems, have been standard in all EU cars for
years.

 

Waiving the right to remain silent, (Jason) said:

Prices seem rather high, even considering that's Canadian dollars.