Some people pondering five foot wide roads (or, at best, roads a little wider than 60 inches) populated with Maxi Taxis may think it would spell the end of driver excitement. Personally, having owned a Triumph Spitfire (57 inches wide) and always having coveted the original Mini Coopers (55 inches wide), I doubt that is actually the case. At the very least, the Maxi Taxi lanes provide sufficient width for motorcycles, and, remarkably, automated driving will make motor cycle riding safer since automated driving will be more effective at dealing with motor cycle traffic than human drivers (motor cycle accidents are often caused by car drivers who are not aware of the motorcycle presence).
But for more Maxi Taxi system compatible cars, which, at the same time, are more exciting than just about any car available today, an excellent example is the “Carver” car, developed by my Dutch boyhood friends, Peter and Chris van den Brink.
Carver cars are a true driving innovation that is hard to describe until you see the Top Gear video, but the bottom line is that these cars, which are truly high performance, are only 4.3 feet wide.
Undoubtedly, once Maxi Taxi and its five foot standard starts to take hold, roads with sufficient width to drive old time Ferraris, Bugattis and Corvettes will become more limited, especially in urban environments with inherently busier roads. (However, for many years to come, they can still be driven on country roads and probably on enthusiast tracks forever). Meanwhile, cars of the Carver type could become the new enthusiasts approach. These cars, in automated driving mode, will blend without problem with Maxi Taxis (although they will not be as efficient in the convoy mode), and when you find yourself on a less crowded and more curvy road, they provide more fun than any old Corvette ZR-1.
The Maxi Taxi world also would still have use for fast police cars. The combination of Carver police cars and integrated automated driving (the ability of police cars to create lanes by shunting Maxi Taxis to the side), would make a very potent system to deliver police quickly in urban settings.
And if you have the need to really push the crazy extreme envelope there could be the PAL-V, a really interesting approach to the flying car, and also with a width of less than five feet.
Bottom line: Small size and excitement are not mutually exclusive; excitement is actually related to human ingenuity within tight constraints, not boundless extravagance.
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