My guess is because a linter and/or HLS was suggesting it. I know HLS used to suggest making your fields strict in almost all cases. In this case I have a hunch that it slightly cuts down on memory usage because we use almost all Mul
s either way. So it does not need to keep the string it is parsed from in memory as part of the thunk.
But it probably makes a small/negligible difference here.
Don't know if it's succesful, but definitely just straight up stupid.
The are many places where it's not even allowed because it does not meet the local safety and protection standards. It's a fundamentally unsafe design, especially for the people outside of it. It should not be allowed on the roads, and the EU agrees with this.
Even if it was allowed within the EU, you would need a special driver's licence for it.