You need the tiles, but you don't need storm sewer access. Most people around here just use a sump pump.

It gets pretty retarded. In my first job as an engineer I was walking out on the factory floor and there was a big chunk of cardboard in the walkway. Being the nieve newbie that I was, I grabbed it and stuck it in the cardboard bundler on my way by. The thanks I got for helping to maintain a clean workplace was a grievence. My manager had to go to bat to explain why I should keep my job. Another engineer at the same place was hit by a forklift in the wharehouse one day and ended up with a pretty subastantial back injury, but was afraid to report the incident and get help because he did not want a grievence filed against him.

You definately CAN plow gravel roads when they get snowed on. I am from rural Iowa, and a large number of the farms around here are only accesable by gravel roads. They typically plow the roads with the same motor graders that they maintain them with. Asside from being cleared last due to less traffic, gravel roads actualy have an advangage over paved in the winter because they are much less slippery when icy. I definately agree with your point about increased stopping distances because of the loose rock. It's not so much a flaw with the road as with the car. Slam on your breaks in a car with ABS on a gravel road (from a reasonable speed, of course) and do the same in one without ABS. In my experience a car with ABS takes at least 4X longer to stop than one without because it will not lock up it's tires to dig into the road like it needs to. ABS cars just sort of slide across the top of the rocks, but the tires spin just enough to prevent plowing into the dirt for traction.

Ahhh grasshopper. You are confusing electric motors with magic. If an electric motor generated the same torque regardless of speed, what determines the maximum speed of the motor? It would just accelerate until it tore itself apart. It is true that the torque is dependant on the flux and the armature current, but don't forget that if you spin a motor, it begins to also operate as a generator producing back EMF. The back emf works against the flux of the motor, reducing the torque as the motor spins faster. The motor reaches maximum speed when the internal friction and back EMF balance the imput armature current and flux, resulting in zero net torque output. It is true that this torque curve is pretty close to linear as a simplified case, but its not so much torque=X as it is torque=X-K*(RPM) sort of situation. Electic cars will have tons of torque off the line, but will feel less powerflul and suffer reduced acceleration as your speed increases.