Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Ramp Cars

Everything on the road becomes a driveable surface.
  (+6, -1)
(+6, -1)
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Transportation can be profoundly altered by making every road worthy vehicle a driveable surface. Forget about the aethetics of the ramp shape. If cars could simply drive over eachother like those glorious wedge shaped battle robots of the fighting robot fad, innumerous transportation problems related to congestion and collisions would be permanently solved. These wedges would be an onramp and an offramp shaped wedge.

Of course minor collisions between vehicles would be a normal occurance when one mounts the other, but design considerations would minimize the effects. Vehicle elevation would vary based on speed of travel. A stopped wedge would be almost flat on the ground, and in fact rubber stoppers on the bottom of vehicles would become an additional braking mechanism. A faster moving wedge would easily travel over another slower wedge, and slowing and speeding up would be the main mechanism for maintaing traffic flow over and under vehicles.

In the year 3013 overpopulation and wedge shaped vehicles will form streams of traffic several vehicles wide and many vehicles deep. Navigating through this streaming, fluid mass of vehicles would still be regulated by wedge elevation adjusted by speed. With cars travelling above and below eachother the wedges are displaced at varying angles as cars are navigated between layers, ascending and decending these motile ramps.

rcarty, Sep 27 2013

Older Idea with some similarities Roly_20Poly_20Cars
Older idea with some similarities [Vernon, Sep 27 2013]

Another older idea with some similarities Level_20Rail_20Pseudo-Coaster
Another older idea with some similarities [Vernon, Sep 27 2013]

Bumperless_20Ramping_20Vehicles [FlyingToaster, Sep 27 2013]

Only tangentially related Radar_20Controlled_...20Response_20System
I see a business model to be developed - somebody is going to have to sell snacks and drinks to the people in the cars on the bottom... [normzone, Sep 27 2013]

Like this? https://www.google....xqBa6WfCE8#imgdii=_
Been watching "The Fast & The Furious 6"? [neutrinos_shadow, Oct 01 2013]

[link]






       Why, this is just crazy enough to not work!   

       [+] anyway.
ytk, Sep 27 2013
  

       well, that's a disturbing image [+] like that story about people caught in a future rush-hour for generations.
FlyingToaster, Sep 27 2013
  

       So the poor guy in the vehicle at the bottom of the heap never moves again and dies of carbon monoxide poisoning just because he stopped to avoid running over a squirrel?!? Shirley there must be some way of preventing such an occurrence?   

       And how would a tow truck remove a disabled vehicle?
Canuck, Sep 27 2013
  

       // Shirley there must be some way of preventing such an occurrence? //   

       Yes. Easy. Don't brake for squirrels …
8th of 7, Sep 27 2013
  

       Tow trucks and emergency vehicles would be specially designed to have powered drive wheels on the top and bottom, so they could wedge right into the thick of things.
rcarty, Sep 27 2013
  

       When these are introduced, some poor sod will be overtaking on a motorway, halfway up the ramp-car in front when the one in front slams the brakes on.
TomP, Oct 02 2013
  

       mmmm piles of wedge shaped cheese. mmmm
popbottle, Oct 02 2013
  

       It's obvious this would never work: People would jockey for top positions and then turn off their motors for a free ride.
Voice, Oct 05 2013
  
      
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