The " Flying " Car ?

 We already have car speeds legislated to forty kph in school zones and in some area with a high pedestrian and cyclist mix, but there is growing pressure to extend that speed limit to the entire city of Sydney council area.

It is the safety argument behind this sort of thinking.  Statistics prove that a vehicle that hits a pedestrian at 50 kph is highly likely to cause a fatality.  Should that same vehicle be travelling at 40 kph that fatality will most likely be reduced to an " injury ".

Each year the number of cars on our roads increases and we are fast reaching saturation point.  Some overseas cities have used tax measures to keep car numbers down in the inner city and drivers are encouraged to park and use public transport  to reduce traffic density.  Any sort of toll system to reduce car use in the city is being bitterly resisted by motoring groups. It seems that something that only existed in the minds of science fiction writers is about to become a reality.   Prototypes of " flying cars " are already at the testing stage and there is every indication that this type of travel is about to burst onto the transport scene.

This modern concept is based on the " drone ".  The humble drone that we send aloft to take photographs or drop rescue equipment to swimmers caught in beach rips has been enlarged to hold a human with small rotating blades to give " lift " at each of its four corners.  It is quite obvious that this is practical and the idea is drawing interest from both car manufacturers and the giant aviation industry.

At this stage, the models undergoing testing look like something between a helicopter and a light plane, but they lack any sort of " wings " and should the engine fail they would have the gliding capability of a " brick ".  Cost analysis indicates that a basic flying car could be mass produced at about the same selling price of a small car.

The aspect of this type of transport moving about in the air space above our heads is frightening.  Just imagine the congestion if the flying car ever became as numerous as the cars on our roads today, and what rules would apply to keep them apart from one another ?

This could replicate the day early in the twentieth century when the Wright brothers first proved that powered flight was possible.  That ungainly contraption of wood and canvas not only developed into the sleek jet liners of today, but they also became the primary weapon of war.  It is inevitable that this flying car concept will be vigorously  expanded by military planners as a possible battlefield weapon.

One of the lessons of science we have learned is that it is impossible to " uninvent " something that causes problems.   We learned that with the atomic bomb.  The principle of the drone proved practical in some clever minds and is now being tested as personal air transport.  The " drone principle " car is about to become reality and that will probably create many of the very same problems we are encountering with road traffic today.

Just how fast we will be permitted to drive in the inner parts of Sydney may be the least of our future transport problems !