“Halving” vehicles has been possible for long time, also seen it mentioned numerous times over the years. Unless large & small vehicles never use the same roads, ever, it will never happen; imagine being in a small car and being hit by a large car, odd of person in small car dying are much higher. Basically, something like this will only have a chance in an authoritarian society.
As for the RV, you still need parking and most people don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. Most cities are already strict on RV living, especially long term local RV living; if it became even more popular, they would become even more strict. RV also are impossible to insulate, as a result, frequently follow the weather; majority of people don’t want to be constantly driving around to find and adjust to a new location.
> Basically, something like this will only have a chance in an authoritarian society.
In fact, you already have no right to drive whatever kind of vehicle you want on public roads. There's no part of daily life that's more regulated. And there's no interesting argument about freedom to be had here. We build the roads as a society, so we have every reason to make rules about what kinds of vehicles are allowed on those roads.
Today, we allow an absurd range of plainly unsafe vehicles on our roads, but I think the status quo is untenable. As technology makes the cars safer it's going to be harder and harder to justify allowing giant vehicles piloted entirely at the discretion of flawed humans. In a world where the car knows you're asking it to speed up into a crosswalk full of children and can prevent you from doing it, it's basically absurd to insist that the car should instead respond only to the driver's whims. What I'm trying to say is that size is just one aspect of this. We need to entirely rethink what we're allowing on public roads.
Driving in general is completely unnecessary and results in all sorts of less than desirable outcomes. If it was up to me, whole industry would disappear unless the vehicles were for industrial or military use only, no were near humans, autonomously driven, zero emissions, etc.
Largest issue is not even death and pollution, it’s that they literally enable culture division and isolation - which is toxic to real progress.
> Unless large & small vehicles never use the same roads, ever, it will never happen
It has already happened. I drive an ebike in Paris almost every day. It's even smaller than a "half vehicle" and has absolutely zero protection, save for the helmet. I wouldn't trade an ebike for a "thin car" though, because an ebike can go anywhere. It's an incredible level of freedom.
> Unless large & small vehicles never use the same roads, ever, it will never happen; imagine being in a small car and being hit by a large car, odd of person in small car dying are much higher. Basically, something like this will only have a chance in an authoritarian society.
Some people are already driving smaller cars than I imagined we'd be comfortable with, but I can see ways to ease more people into the idea of trading their safety for a smaller car. High gas prices help, but things like reducing lane sizes just enough to make driving smaller cars feel more comfortable, but not enough to be too dangerous for larger vehicles, increasing the amount of small car only parking spaces, and lots of advertising money would probably convince a lot of people small cars are what they want. If car manufactures start making more and more tiny cars (especially inexpensive cars) many people aren't going to have much of a choice. I'm pretty sure most of the American public could be sold on it eventually if someone were willing to spend the money.
Too true. It not possible to reach any sensible climate goals by replacing all gasoline cars with EVs. We need to rethink mobility. And we need smaller vehicles in order to optimize battery-weight/transported persons/goods. And we need new solutions to safety instead of adding bulkier safety devices, which drag down transportation efficiency. Limit top speed?
commented further up with a similar sentiment but i'll comment here too. "rethinking mobility" will not fix how idiotically layed out most of our existing infrastructure exists today - especially large sprawling haphazardly built cities like LA and Austin
> Unless large & small vehicles never use the same roads, ever, it will never happen; imagine being in a small car and being hit by a large car
There's no need to imagine what that that would be like, because the situation has existed for years already: what you describe is just everyday reality for motorcyclists.
Will there ever be more than a fringe of the population willing to be exposed to the mortality risks motorcyclists are exposed to? Last time i looked your chance of being killed is an order of magnitude higher on a motorcycle.
That's as it may be, and it varies by culture, but it is clear that there can be no requirement for an "authoritarian society" before there could be smaller/narrower vehicles sharing the roads with larger ones, as this is already commonplace in many different kinds of societies around the world. In some places motorcycles/mopeds/tuktuks are more common than full size cars.
Some cities like Austin, TX allow RVs within the city if you have enough setbacks.
Personally, it's quite easy to buy a small amount of land in unincorporated county land that's very close to a city. I did, and I can hit downtown in under 20 min. I wasn't even trying to optimize for distance, if I was I'd have bought 5 acres at 10 min out.
As for the RV, you still need parking and most people don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. Most cities are already strict on RV living, especially long term local RV living; if it became even more popular, they would become even more strict. RV also are impossible to insulate, as a result, frequently follow the weather; majority of people don’t want to be constantly driving around to find and adjust to a new location.