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Friday morning random thought
Why are cars made of such unforgiving materials? Maybe it was the light of the morning as I was sleepily making my way to work in a daze, I couldn't help but notice that all vehicles have hard bodies, the trucks and cleaning machines and what-not roll by much too noisily, beeping, screeching, growling ... It seems ridiculous that in the narrow streets of the city (where there are at least as many pedestrians as cars) that we have tough-bodied boxes on wheels that have the potential to fly past 100km/h, which should realistically move at 50km/h given the layout of inner city streets and the concentration of people; the potential for hurting people could be high, if drivers are careless. Do we need cars with hard bodies? If we have city cars of softer material which can be durable and withstand weather conditions to a degree ... Walking down the street I had visions of cars with chassis made of inflatable balloons. No need for crumple "zones", we could crumple everywhere. Wear your airbags on the outside, you might just bounce a little bit if you collide — if your bags burst when you hit something, you're driving much too fast. It wouldn't hurt anyone quite as much if you are a bit too slow to brake. Okay ... so surrealist logic doesn't quite wash. Forgive me, it's nearly the weekend. Posted by sniffles at July 04, 2003 09:22 AM