I am smart, S, M, R, T!

I have not done a lot of couponing lately, since work has been, what's the word? Oh yes. INSANE.

So I'm at work by the port, and right next door is the mercedes lot where they keep the cars between when they're offloaded from the boat and when they take them to the dealership. I could seriously count the number of true mercedes on my fingers. However, the lot had hundreds upon hundreds of those tiny little smart cars.

And I think to myself, "Self, who would by those?". Usually I don't look at other passengers, but sure as the grass is green, I passed a smart car yesterday that I just could not NOT look at. The guy driving must have been well over 6' tall, you couldn't even see the top of his head! Clearly these things were not built for big guys.

Now certainly, they'd be great for retirement communities as one serious golf-cart upgrade, and for going to the grocery store and such if you don't drive often. And they are a very frugal car choice (they start under 10K if I'm not mistaken). But at what hidden cost?

The mileage is good, but not great- my non-hybrid civic actually gets significantly better. You can only have one passenger, and the trunk is teeny. And then there is the safety aspect. I know they scored well in crash tests, but most crash tests only go up to 45 mph, and most are static (where they crash the car into a wall, not another moving car)- so most crash tests aren't very good representations of real-life safety- particularly on the highway. They provide a good baseline comparison to be sure, but I'd be interested to see what consumer reports or a company that really puts cars through the ringer came up with.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. But I'm still going to laugh when I pass a 6'6" guy squished into one of those cars.