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.
It's an urban car. Most city streets have a 30 km/h limit anyway. Some are 20 km/h ('living street'). A lot of the more main roady streets in urban environment are 50 km/h, still fine with this. Then the bigger connecting roads might be 70km/h, that would depend on every case for me. Highways are obviously not allowed.
In many streets where the limit is 30-50 km/h, the actual traffic flow is only 10-15 km/h anyway because of congestion. I always feel a cringe seeing people in 600 horsepower vehicles inching by towards the next crossroads, or even worse seeing them wait it out for a minute so they can blast full engine for the solid 200meter and make sure everyone heard them; while I cycle past them at a steady 23 km/h with my 1/4 horsepower legs.