Smart Car

[Shatmandu]

Yeah, traffic accidents are hilarious. Haha, that douchbag's car got hit in he back so hard he was forced into the incoming traffic. Without any fault of his own - hahaha. What a douchebag.

Yes.

The initial impact wasn't his fault, sure.

But if you are sitting, waiting to turn left, and you have your steering wheel turned left, if someone hits you in the ass, your car will go left. Basic driver's ed. And physics.

Perhaps he was distracted by stroking his thin soul patch during that part of the class.

Douche should have been aware of this, especially while driving a teeny-weeny car. Defensive driving is a good thing. You should assume the other vehicles will do bad things, and drive accordingly.

Smart people know this, especially when they're driving vehicles that are larger or smaller than the norm; douches do not.

If Douche had his wheel turned straight, he wouldn't have had the second impact or the tipping over. His covered go-cart would have been pushed forward into nothing.

The kid who hit him looked like he wouldn't even be able to spell insurance, so I'm sure Douche's rates will go up.

Joe, with pedals on his side

 

[Rincewiend]

It bounces:

Crash Test: 2008 Smart Car ForTwo

 

[nevermore]

I imagine neither of you do much street parking.

Not true. I frequently parallel park my 4Runner on city streets. I have no trouble with it. I know how to drive, unlike some. But as I said, it's NOT a full size SUV.

Well, no matter how wide the streets (which is irrelevant when parallel parking anyway) or how good one is at parking, a 4Runner or my Protege POS or a Civic will not fit into the half a space some assholes leave instead of pulling up to the car in front. Smarts will. There are several in my neighborhood and they certainly have more options than a standard sized car, and far more than a full-sized SUV.

Or, the standard American parking space is considerably larger than elsewhere, and the streets are much wider.

We're not talking about parking spaces, we're talking about parallel parking. The size of the spaces are determined solely by how much room someone left between his car and the next.

And not all of America was built to accommodate the SUV, you know...

 

[Alpha Romeo]

Btw. as far as I know, the Smart is quite safe. Size isn't everything in crash safety - not a very accurate comparison, but Formula1 cars are extremely safe too although they have practically no crush zone at all.

Oh they are until a high speed impact. Try cutting one apart to get some damned yuppie outta the thing.

 

[cultcross]

Well, no matter how wide the streets (which is irrelevant when parallel parking anyway)

All of America might not be built for the SUV, but this sentence says a lot about the difference between America and Europe when it comes to parking your car

My road has cars parallel parked both sides. The remaining room allows one way traffic to pass, at great peril to wing mirrors. You can just barely swing out far enough to parallel park 'properly' - if someone parks anything much larger than a standard British-sized town car along there, it becomes impossible and you have to do an intricate little 6 point manoeuvre to park. That's why no-one (well no-one sensible) drives anything with any size to it in most British cities.

 

[nevermore]

^Eh, we have streets that are that narrow. They just disallow parking on one side.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I think there would be violent riots if they took away the parking places on one side of the street I live in.

 

[nevermore]

We're pretty beat down with the parking restrictions thing. Most streets have time-restricted parking, resident restricted parking, rush hour restricted parking. Its just sorta a fact of life and stuff.

I will say that the current proposal to take away parking on one side of all streets to make room for bikes is not going to ever, ever happen. They would have to tear down half the city for parking garages.

 

[JonathonWally]

Btw. as far as I know, the Smart is quite safe. Size isn't everything in crash safety - not a very accurate comparison, but Formula1 cars are extremely safe too although they have practically no crush zone at all.

Oh they are until a high speed impact. Try cutting one apart to get some damned yuppie outta the thing.

Done it at least 3 times. The POD design of the thing remained mostly intact, the doors didn't crush too bad and they're able to take a halogen and pop the pins and pry the door open 2 times.

Gotta chop the roof off though because there's no other way to collar, KED, and board the driver.

 

[Davros]

Driving a Smart is less embarrassing than "driving" a Porsche in a traffic jam or trying to get into a small parking space with an SUV.

Cmon, you would drive one? Really?

I would drive one of those before I ever drove one of those truely butt ugly Hummers.

 

[Samurai8472]

Everyday I drove past a black one being sold in Iowa. I kept wanting to call the number to test drive it but never did. Then the owner decided not to sell it.

Here's one I took a picture of in Montreal

 

[Alpha Romeo]

Btw. as far as I know, the Smart is quite safe. Size isn't everything in crash safety - not a very accurate comparison, but Formula1 cars are extremely safe too although they have practically no crush zone at all.

Oh they are until a high speed impact. Try cutting one apart to get some damned yuppie outta the thing.

Done it at least 3 times. The POD design of the thing remained mostly intact, the doors didn't crush too bad and they're able to take a halogen and pop the pins and pry the door open 2 times.

Gotta chop the roof off though because there's no other way to collar, KED, and board the driver.

The last time we had one of those it crumpled so bad we couldn't get to the door pins. Was a bitch to pop the doors.

 

[Captain Ice]

Thats interesting. Parking spaces in the states have never offered me an issue. Then again, I do not drive a large SUV I have a 4Runner. It's very easy to manuver.

I feel the same way. The company truck I currently have is a 19 foot long Chevy Express. Parking, even parrallel parking is easy 90% of the time.

Well, no matter how wide the streets (which is irrelevant when parallel parking anyway) or how good one is at parking, a 4Runner or my Protege POS or a Civic will not fit into the half a space some assholes leave instead of pulling up to the car in front. Smarts will. There are several in my neighborhood and they certainly have more options than a standard sized car, and far more than a full-sized SUV.

Or, the standard American parking space is considerably larger than elsewhere, and the streets are much wider.

We're not talking about parking spaces, we're talking about parallel parking. The size of the spaces are determined solely by how much room someone left between his car and the next.

And not all of America was built to accommodate the SUV, you know...

Both excellent points.

And, as someone said upthread, the Smart makes an excellent, ecofriendly second vehicle for driving to work or into the city. Personally, I would love to have and drive one, but only if I had a second, larger vehicle that I could use in situations where I felt the Smart was too small or not safe enough (such as driving down the 405).

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Take a look at THIS ice cream truck! Ay least they have the decency to actually call it the Cube! Man..that's just awful!

http://www.nissanusa.com/cube/

 

[Shatmandu]

They should call that vehicle "Rolling Birth Control."

Joe, walker

 

[Captain Shaw]

Take a look at THIS ice cream truck! Ay least they have the decency to actually call it the Cube! Man..that's just awful!

http://www.nissanusa.com/cube/

There was a picture of a prototype on top gear it had a string wheal that change colour depending on your mood.

 

[FordSVT]

I'd love to see one of those things on the Turnpike! Have you ever?

I've seen 'em on the 401 through Toronto. If they can handle that, they can go pretty much anywhere.

I've driven through the great city of Toronto many times. I must disagree with you however. IMO, the Jersey Turnpike is really on a different level.

Oh, whatever... I can't let this one go. When did you drive through Toronto, two in the morning?

If you mean "weird, unintuitive interchanges" then maybe, but traffic?

I've driven on both more than once and while the Turnpike deserves it's reputation, the widest and busiest stretch of the NJ turnpike is on the 14 lane section between Exit 11 and 14, and it carries approximately 200,000 vehicles per day. The average on the turnpike is about 125,000 vehicles a day per section.

The 401 is widely considered to be North America's busiest highway, with an estimated Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) of over 425,000 in 2004, west of the interchange with Highway 400 through downtown Toronto. It's up to 18 lanes wide. This surpasses the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles, and the freeways that run through Houston, Texas. And yes, the NJ turnpike too.

And yes, that info is all from government sources I couldn't be bothered to hot link. In any case, for the purposes of the discussion about how well a Smart car fares on a public highway I'd say either one will do.

 

[Canadave]

^ Indeed. Though I could swear that there is a busier highway somewhere in LA? I thought I'd read that somewhere.

The fact of the matter is the 401 is a damned intimidating highway. It's giagatic, busy, and often very, very confusing. I'm still convinced that if a Smart Car can make it through this monstrosity, it can make it through anywhere.

 

[FordSVT]

Well, no matter how wide the streets (which is irrelevant when parallel parking anyway)

All of America might not be built for the SUV, but this sentence says a lot about the difference between America and Europe when it comes to parking your car

My road has cars parallel parked both sides. The remaining room allows one way traffic to pass, at great peril to wing mirrors. You can just barely swing out far enough to parallel park 'properly' - if someone parks anything much larger than a standard British-sized town car along there, it becomes impossible and you have to do an intricate little 6 point manoeuvre to park. That's why no-one (well no-one sensible) drives anything with any size to it in most British cities.

There was an episode of Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson tried to park an older, boat of a Jaguar in London in the middle of the day. He almost ran out of gasoline.

 

[B.J.]

I don't really care who has the "busiest" highway, but I wouldn't want to drive a Smart car anywhere near Atlanta. High density traffic that runs around 80 mph. My uncle, who lives in Houston, says he gets nervous anytime he comes to visit my parents because of that.