People all over the Multiverse, under red and green suns, those with five opposable thumbs,and those with none all drive on the right hand side of the road with internal combustion engines.
Or not.
1. The most obvious, so obvious that its painful, tailgates this sentence. Drive on the left side of the road.
2. Speed limits. We don't need no steenking speed limits! Ja's gut! Interestingly the German Autobahn has about the same accident rate as American interstates. There is something to be said for driving fast enough to force yourself to pay attention (I did this once...falling asleep, and had to get somewhere so I was driving a Honda Civic at a hundred mph down night roads. Sheer terror is good for wakefulness.)
3. Bridges, good roads, and some chokepoints are tolled. Sure, you can go around, if you can find a by-road, but that road will be potholed and inconvenient.
Some universes have gates, others call them 'paybars', and 'tollstops', and 'taxman's touch'. Other universes use cameras and mail you the bill.
4. Another use of cameras is Stop-light Cameras. They are touted in the prime universe as a means to increase safety, but studies clearly show that reducing the length of yellow lights reduces safety. However, reducing the lengths of yellow lights increases revenue. The lengths of yellow lights is getting reduced. Whatever could be happening here?
The idea of a government that sneaks and peeks on you, but with the primary goal of finding occasions to fine its citizens instead of making them safe has a certain cynic's pleasure to it. Already a lot of us suspect that the primary purpose of police in small towns is to generate traffic tickets for the city council.
5. Or you could do away with stop lights altogether, and have uniformed men in towers directing traffic. Yes, its not as 'efficient', but its probably safer as these traffic wardens would serve as 'the cop on every street corner' which would reduce crime and encourage general politeness, and also, in a world where data analyis powers of a high degree given only to a few of us are useful, it might be a good idea to invent jobs where those with less than genius IQ's and the ability to program in Binary can be of benefit to society and themselves.
6. Asphalt, concrete, or some form of resin composite? What about greenways for hovercraft? Or what if someone invented grass tough enough to stand up to vehicular traffic?
7. There is a legend that says the car makers found out to their dismay that people were buying cars, and not buying another one. The market was filling up. So they invented Planned Obsolescence.
Whether this is true or not, it is certainly true that for major parts of the Cold War, air force crew flew B-52 bombers that were older than they were. Its also true that fashion, and fashion shows were invented to convince fashionistas that their perfectly servicable and attractive clothing was outdated. And its true that some Volvo owners have had their vehicles for over 500,000 miles.
Imagine a world where cars are sold with seven digits on the mile gauge. Sure, the car is a bit more expensive, but not as expensive as buying new cars every few years. You buy a car, and then keep driving it for twenty or thirty years.
8. Autopilot. Once a common place in SF stories, but not so much nowadays. You type in the destination, or speak it, and the car does the rest.
9. The Green Sled is what my brother and I called our first car. It was an enormous 70's era car which could fit four in the front seat, and five in the back easily enough. It hit eighty miles per hour and hummed. It also maneuvered like a sled on ice, but you can't have everything.
Such a vehicle presupposes cheap fuel, however. Energy getting cheaper is the natural state of affairs. Some of you reading this may disagree. You may start hauling out Malthusian prophecies of doom, or simply point out the high cost of gas which as I write this nears $4 a gallon.
Aaaaaaarrgggggghhhhhhh.
Where was I? Before my wallet's scream of agony? Ah yes. Well, consider this my doubting friends. OPEC, a government led cartel, led by a dictatorial government that we should have invaded already (Saudi Arabia), and that hates our Barbie making guts supplies most of the oil. Consider how we've banned off-shore drilling as much as we can, and how we made it hard to put up nuke plants and oil refineries. Robert Heinlein did have his problems but he had a point when he said the scariest words in the world were "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."
Consider a world with cheap energy, perhaps electricity from nuke plants, and cars that require parking lots that other dimensions would use for RV's. Consider how much fun it would be to send Michael Di Vars' Humvee into rush hour traffic, and have some little old lady run over his pint-size car in traffic.
10. Pimp yer' ride. Every vehicle out there is a work of art. Every vehicle is customized after-market with choices from thousands of different clever tricks. The Presiential Limo is flame red, except when it rains and then color change and hydrophilic paint changes it to blue with orange flaming words on the side 'Da Prez's Ride'. This is viewed as tastefully conservative.
