Sounds like this would bring back the annoying situation we had last year before travelling speed was increased again. Lots of encounters in one square. It was annoying and tedious.
If you don't want to battle any foes, then don't go into wasteland and stay in town 
Or travel with people who can kill the foes.
I do iddle in some town from time to time but we all know that's not what you have to do in the game to level up, get caps/gear and have fun in general. When I iddle in a town it's because I just feel like having a conversation with some nice wastelander, but what if there are only trolls, or not-so-nice people, or nobody at all? This is a quite common situation with the current server population, especially in my timezone - by the way, this suggestion is about meeting people but I hardly ever meet anyone during the hours that I play at, so this suggestions would be quite a penalty for players from "other" timezones.
Also, the whole "meet people and join" does not usually work in 2238. The very Wiki tells newbies not to trust anyone and some of them follow that advice. We all know that there are high chances of being backstabbed if you join random players , and in fact, players can be even more dangerous than mobs.
If you want to avoid encounters and get to a place fast:
- buy a car
Which you can't do when you had just created your first car -> would be harsher for newbies, but no change for more experienced players.
- invest in 150% outdoors
Why? Shouldn't there be variety?
- take a train
A feature which is not reliable because it gets bugged from time to time, like right now.
- ask someone to lead you through wasteland
Same as above.
BTW, taxi alts without cars should be nerfed IMHO (outdoors summarized and divided by number of people in group, or a flat % penalty for each follower).
Why do you hate taxi alts so much? I too think alts ruin the game but I don't see taxi ones as the worst, I'd talk about Silent Dead trolls instead, or thieves that steal from NPCs, but not taxi alts which are pretty useful for non-metagaming activities. If they allow you to move players around it means it helps teamplay and interaction. Have you seen a medic-leader build? some of them have 1 Str, End and Agi, which means they need other people to survive. Yeah, minimaxed, but is that so wrong in a game where you are supposed to cooperate with others offering your skills?. They got pros and cons, and they need others to survive those cons, isn't that how this game is supposed to be played? A BG ape has a lot of cons which can be solved with alts, and he can survive on his own most of the time. Alts won't save your leader, who is made to lead other people who are online at the same time.
Sure they can be a pain to level and they are another alt after all, but the problem is IMHO not the leader in particular but the whole alting in general. I don't think leader alts have such a negative impact on the game.
