Too Small For America?

From our vantage point in the truck, we see the inside of other vehicles a lot more than the average person in a car does. And sometimes what we see is well...interesting. Recently we saw a fairly large person wedged behind their steering wheel, pudgy arms barely reaching the necessary controls. I'm not one to make fun of the corpulent, as they are my people, but it was almost comical, and that sighting led to our conversation about big people in small cars.

In the past few months, we have been trying to find a way to have a smaller vehicle on the truck with us. Comments like, "Wouldn't it be cool to just have the car, right there, whenever we needed it?" were bounced around with questions like, "How much does it weigh?" and "Can we fit it on the trailer and still haul our normal freight?"

That conversation led to us researching the Smart Cars that are now out on the market. These compact little gems are 8.8 feet long and 5.1 feet wide. The company claims two, six-foot-two people can sit comfortably side by side with plenty of shoulder room to spare.

That's all fine and dandy if you are a six-foot-two, one hundred and eighty pound beanpole, but what if you are packing a small spare tire; one that doesn't come with the car? Can two chubby people sit comfortably side by side??

If you're too large for the car, do you spill out of the open window like a busty woman in a shirt that's too small to hold her endowments? Do you have to suck in your gut to close the door like you do when you lie down to zip up those jeans that are a bit too snug? And how secure can you feel in a car that skims over your body like a pair of Isotoner gloves?

I don't have these answers, as I've never seen one let alone driven one. It's a great idea and I'm sure it will go over big in areas with limited parking or for those who just need to zip around town.

But I'll tell you something right now; in a country that harbors more obese people than any other on earth, I don't think they're going to have much luck with the female demographic if you have to ask your partner, "Honey, does this car make me look fat?" before you pull out of the driveway.