Not very Smart at all if you need two

Euro-nomics strikes again in the form of the money-losing Smart Car. For 5 years there’s been a push to export them to the United States, but the punters aren’t buying it:

"It's really ugly," said Liz Viccora, 20, of Long Island, New York. "I like environmentally friendly cars, but this looks like a go-cart or one of those things security guards drive at the mall."
[ . . . ]
And while some drivers say a Smart would be easier to maneuver in cities where traffic is heavy and street parking scarce, parking would not necessarily cost any less.

"There's no incentive for those cars. Everyone pays the same rate," said Craig Chin, a spokesman for New York City's Department of Transportation.

I’m reminded of the time I saw two East German Trabants hit one another in a head on collision. It looked more or less like paper flying. It made me realize that people were getting trapped in a flaming twisted wreckage of combustibles for want of a small amount or relative mass and fuel efficiency. Especially when virtually all cars consume the same amount of the same commodity when they’re idling, and that unlike public transportation, isn’t running when you aren’t using it.