3167: Car Size

2025-11-13T02:36:09Z

2600:1700:94A0:6BE0:68DC:3421:30C3:E097: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3167
| date = November 12, 2025
| title = Car Size
| image = car_size_2x.png
| imagesize = 348x754px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'They really shouldn't let those small cars drive in traffic. I worry I'm going to kill someone if I hit one! They should have to drive on the sidewalk, safely out of the way.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY A CAR WITH AN ICBM. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic demonstrates one reason why vehicles have gotten progressively larger and more powerful, due to a type of {{w|arms race}} between drivers. When vehicles of different sizes share the road, passengers in the smaller ones will usually be more at risk in collisions due to the larger amount of force exerted. They have less momentum, and the body construction material generally provides less protection. So, for safety reasons, people have incentive to buy larger cars. This, according to the comic causes a cycle of increasingly larger cars, although this is absurd due to the cost and speed of giant cars.

In the "Soon" panel, Randall has extrapolated this to adding spiked armor and weaponry to large cars, and other drivers will need to do the same to compete on the road. This scenario is reminiscent of the vehicles from the {{w|Mad Max}} franchise. This would almost certainly never happen in real life,{{cn}} as there would be no reason at all to introduce weaponry to cars in the first place. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJtXiK7bPk/ unless you're driving a Renault Twingo]). Rather it is meant to make the reader realize that buying larger vehicles purely for the perceived safety is a never-ending vicious cycle.

The title text views this from the opposite perspective. The owner of a large car is worried that they'll kill people in small cars, so they shouldn't drive on the road at all. This may result in the opposite process in the comic, where small cars become forced to be smaller and more specialized to drive on sidewalks...until they just become bicycles again. Of course, the suggestion that small cars should drive on sidewalks is even worse than being on the road, as it would put many pedestrians in danger; this is already a legitimate complaint regarding the riding of cycles on footways, where this is not supposed to be done (and even where it is), due to thoughtless behaviour of some bike riders.

Driving the smallest cars in pedestrian spaces is obviously absurd, but people suggest that bikes should do the same for their own safety (more often motorists might suggest this, pedestrians significantly less so). Forcing bicycles to be ridden on the sidewalk is the cheapest way to keep cyclists safe if we are not allowed to inconvenience drivers, but is a car-centric view that (like the comic shows) abandons common sense and consideration for others and replaces it with a "might makes right" attitude and making it "somebody else's problem", at a cost of increased risk of collisions with pedestrians, putting both in danger. Biking on sidewalks is currently illegal in many jurisdictions because of these risks.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[The comic is made up of four panels, each featuring Cueball talking to Megan or vice versa, both of them surrounded by progressively larger vehicles.]
:[Panel one is labeled "100 years ago." Cueball and Megan are standing with a bicycle to the left of them and an old-fashioned car to their right.]
:Cueball: It's too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too.

:[Panel two is labeled "50 years ago." Cueball and Megan are standing between a small hatchback (right) and a slightly larger sedan (left).]
:Megan: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one.

:[Panel three is labeled "Today." Cueball and Megan are standing between a large SUV (left) and an even larger SUV (right).]
:Cueball: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don't get the biggest one, I'm putting my family at risk.

:[Panel four is labeled "Soon." Cueball and Megan are standing to the left of a massive SUV with metal plates bolted to its side, spiked panels attached to the front and back, and two giant spiked clubs hanging from a rotor on top of the car. Another massive spiked club is visible coming from the left of the panel, presumably attached to a similar car. Megan has both arms on her side.]
:Megan: If I don't install more whirling spike clubs, I'll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

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3167: Car Size