What some people seem to be forgetting is that a normal road surface is deformed when a car drives over it.

If these "kinetic plates" respond to the weight of a vehicle in the same manner as the traditional road surface, then no new stress is imposed on the vehicle, and energy that would other wise be wasted in the deformation of the road would be put to work driving electrons.

Yes, I recall a graph of traffic fatalities per distance traveled; in the 1970s, France and Japan had 2-3 times the fatalities as the US and some other countries. Either everyone was enjoying drunk-driving or their cars lacked the safety features you mentioned.

If the roads are painted white with the standard white road paint, the coefficient of friction will be reduced (much more so when wet).

Also, where is all this paint coming from? What are the environmental and economic impacts of making all of this paint?

Walking has costs, too. Increased wear on shoes and socks, for those that wear them. Increased food consumption (unless your drive is very exciting). Do not forget the environmental impact as well, due to CO2 from respiration.

Something was wrong with your monitor or your settings or the software producing your image. Did you have a good 17~19" CRT? Sycraft-fu was commenting on old, low resolution displays. The kind that were put in arcade machines and TVs of that era are worlds apart from the last generation of CRTs.

Reprocess the material instead of putting it in puzzle boxes. Deep storage is like throwing a car away instead of changing the spark plugs.

BF: Vietnam, BF2, and BF2142 (did I miss any) failed to draw my interest. I did not like that Vietnam and BF2 were rip-offs of popular mods (not certain if 2142 was, as well). BF1942 and the expansion Road to Rome were very enjoyable, especially with friends. Bad Company offered an entertaining single player.

Solely relying on robots for exploration will breed a society with little to no desire to ever send humans into space. After all, if robots can do practically everything humans can do, what is the point in ever taking the risk of sending "meat puppets"?