> (Sole purpose of the folding feature? Saving your car's wing mirrors from getting hit when you park on a narrow street.)
Sure, because you folded them in after you parked.
My car has crumple zones and airbags, too, but that doesn't mean I want to use them. If you've struck something, then while some mitigation of the damage is great, well.. you struck something.
Where I currently live, in the US, if you hit something with your car, you've had a car accident. Avoiding accidents is a very high priority for most people, even if they're low-damage, survivable accidents. If I tap someone's bumper or mirror, even if there's no visible mark at all, I have to be prepared to furnish my insurance information and get theirs, and even if there are no monetary costs to my insurance company, my rates are probably going to rise.
In places where lane widths are very low, hitting things or people with your car can turn into something that's a regular occurrence, such that if a year went by without any bump or scrape you'd find it remarkable.
In any case, my original point was that an environment in which cars, trucks, and vans are passing with an average foot clearance is going to be an environment in which collisions happen frequently. A related point made elsewhere in this thread is that a follow-on problem to additional collisions will be that narrower lanes will no longer allow traffic to proceed around the scene of some minor collision where the parties are arguing over whose fault it was and waiting for the police to sort it out.
Sure, because you folded them in after you parked.
My car has crumple zones and airbags, too, but that doesn't mean I want to use them. If you've struck something, then while some mitigation of the damage is great, well.. you struck something.
Where I currently live, in the US, if you hit something with your car, you've had a car accident. Avoiding accidents is a very high priority for most people, even if they're low-damage, survivable accidents. If I tap someone's bumper or mirror, even if there's no visible mark at all, I have to be prepared to furnish my insurance information and get theirs, and even if there are no monetary costs to my insurance company, my rates are probably going to rise.
In places where lane widths are very low, hitting things or people with your car can turn into something that's a regular occurrence, such that if a year went by without any bump or scrape you'd find it remarkable.
In any case, my original point was that an environment in which cars, trucks, and vans are passing with an average foot clearance is going to be an environment in which collisions happen frequently. A related point made elsewhere in this thread is that a follow-on problem to additional collisions will be that narrower lanes will no longer allow traffic to proceed around the scene of some minor collision where the parties are arguing over whose fault it was and waiting for the police to sort it out.