Are you saying that they should have to get handicap plates to drive them on the sidewalks?

And I'm confused, I thought Las Vegas was made for the obese and lazy.

In any event with the the aging of the Boomers -- like Viagra commercials -- these scooters are coming so get use to it.



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It was probably someone driving a UHaul for the first time or a FreshDirect truck.

To drive drunk is dumb enough, but to drive drunk, hit a parked car and wait around to get caught or leave a note is the height of stupidity. billtimslee is right.

My first reaction was that they look like strollers and my second was that rather than replace cars they would replace walking. Those electric "scooters" often used by the obese and lazy on sidewalks in NYC and all over Las Vegas hopefully have this niche covered.

I also suspect that my motorcycle would be safer given that it can accelerate out of trouble and I'd have a chance of avoiding or at least being thrown clear of an urban SUV rather than crushed underneath it.

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In your case I can understand the need to flee in such circumstances. In addition to being drunk you might have your unconscious, oblivious "date" on the seat next to you along with the ma?tre d' of Skinners chasing you for skipping out on your bill plus various bartenders you shafted along the way.

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I'm afraid this bad boy is just gonna fill a niche between two SUV's.

Ok, I'm dreaming but...

What the NYC area needs is to ban all but things like MIT's electric city cars.







?MIT's CityCar doesn't aim to replace the automobile or the subway, so much as to fill a niche somewhere between private vehicles and public transportation.?

The system works a little like a luggage cart at the airport. ?Stacks? of CityCars would be stationed at subway and train stops, as well as at shopping and cultural destinations around a city. While parked, the two-seaters top up their batteries to give them plenty of juice to handle round-trips of 50 miles or more. To check out a CityCar, a traveler would swipe a preauthorized smart card and roll away. When finished, cars could be returned to any stack anywhere in the city, and users would be billed based on some combination of the duration and distance of the trip. Pricing is still hypothetical, but, based on surveys, would aim for a price-point sweet spot somewhere above the cost of mass transit but less than a taxi journey of similar distance.

Green City Cars
Battery-powered CityCars could cut traffic and smog by getting more commuters to leave their autos at home

Cities are hot again. Young people and empty-nest boomers are piling into urban centers large and small. That means traffic, already bad, is getting worse. It's a conundrum with no cheap or easy solutions. New roads and subways come at sky-high prices and can take decades. Think of Boston's troubled $14.6 billion, 20-year Big Dig project or New York's quixotic 78-year quest to build a new Manhattan subway line.

A team of designers, engineers, and transportation geeks at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have come up with another solution. Born of a collaboration of General Motors (GM ) and architect Frank Gehry, the group's CityCar project mates a very advanced electric car with a broader vision of vehicle sharing.

The system works like airport luggage carts. "Stacks" of CityCars would be stationed at subway and train stops as well as shopping and cultural centers. When parked, the two-seaters charge up their batteries with enough juice for trips of 10 miles or more.

To check one out, a person would swipe a preauthorized smart card, undock the first car in the stack, hop in, and roll away. Parking the agile units is easier than a conventional car?all four wheels can steer, so the cars can even rotate in place. To combat theft, the 1,500-pound minis would have remotely accessible digital locks and GPS tracking units. They could be returned to any stack.

`WHEEL ROBOTS'
With CityCars, suburbanites could opt for the train, avoiding traffic and parking troubles. And locals might choose a CityCar over a taxi. One could be used by many different drivers each day, effectively replacing many private cars and reducing traffic and emissions. Even when recharged from coal-fired electricity, battery-powered cars are more energy-efficient and cleaner than gas-burning ones.

Rather than a mechanical drive train, with engine, gears, and an axle, the CityCar relies on what its designers call "wheel robots." Each includes a high-efficiency electric motor, suspension, steering, and brake apparatus. The wheel robots click into the body on a standard socket, making them easy to change and fix. By eliminating the drive train, the CityCar's chassis, which also holds the battery pack, can fold up. When nestled in a stack, six can fit in the area of a normal parking space.

The MIT team has already built prototypes, and the technologies needed to scale up production exist. Cities best suited for a CityCar system are those where traffic is bad, parking is costly, workers commute to a central business area, and public transportation is good. That means Chicago, New York, Portland, Ore., and San Francisco?as well as most major metropolises in Europe and Asia.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/05/0530_incars/source/3.htm

Please don't feed the troll.

(Skywarp, if you look at some of billtimslee's other messages you'll see what I mean.)

^ It's understandable why he kept going, but that doesn't excuse the behavior. If you're drunk, take the bus home. Also, we don't know if this was drunk-driving related in the first place--it's just a speculative guess--and if not there is no excuse not to leave your info under the wiper. It all boils down to common decency. It will cost me a hefty chunk of change because of someone else's carelessness and lack of conscience.

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Actually, if you're drunk, and you are fairly certain, no one has seen you, i would say keep going. who wants to spend a night in jail

Most residents on Essex between Warren & Van Vorst have had their driver's side mirrors peeled off by a-holes like the guy that hit you. This stretch of road is very narrow due to the light rail but there's no excuse for hitting someone's car and driving on

I parked my car last Monday night, 11/19, on Warren between Essex and Morris. On Wednesday night, I went to retrieve the car, only to find the side of the bumper facing the road smashed in. No note; no anything. This wasn't a ding from parallel parking at 4 mph. Someone driving down the road did this (and no, I wasn't sticking out).

Anyway, I just wanted to warn everyone that parks around my area that there's a hit-and-run-happy driver out there. It's just amazing that he could do that kind of damage and keep going. My guess is that he was probably drunk and didn't want to get in even more trouble.