Slashdot Mirror
UK Satellites May Keep Cars From Speeding
Stiletto writes "According to this article, the British government is planning on forcing automobile manufacturers to install devices that allow satellites to monitor the vehicle's speed and control it when it is moving 'too fast.'" I suspect that any U.S. politician who tried to push through something like this would be out of office immediately. I can't speak for U.K. residents, but I bet it's the same there. Does anyone think *any* government could really get away with this?
The Australian government could probably get away with it ;) Hopefully the brits won't, though.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
What if there's an instance where a driver has to speed, such as to avoid an accident or rush to a hospital? Think about it, this is pretty terrifying to me...
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
What?
A recent poll showed that 45% of Britons would be happy to get in their car, set the destination and let the car get on with it.
Interestingly enough the people who were most in favour were the geeks.
and make them work at shutting you down, unless this dohickey attaches to your fuel line.
It sounds pretty expensive too, a GPS and a detailed map of the country's roads. In the US, 65 miles per hour is legal on most rural expressways, 55 on others, 75 or more in Montana, 30 on city streets, etc.
Yuck,
George
And i suppose that the satelite system would run on a MS server. When it finally crashed and every car in the UK was disabled, tech support would tell the motorists to close their windows and try again?
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
The issue here isn't speeding, it's monitoring. Technology must not be used to limit our freedoms, and we have to fight this everywhere we can as hard as we possibly can. If they can monitor your car to see how fast you're going, they can obviously monitor you to see where you are.
Governmental tracking systems cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Let's hope our bretheren in the UK are up to the fight.
Yes US Govt. and their beloved lobbyist can easily sneak it in.
that amount of government control is just way too much.... they shouldn't be able to control the speed of your vehicle to that degree, that is what the police are for...
There were plans in the US that in the next revision of the standards for the US auto onboard computers would give the facility to transmit pollution levels and speed to police computers in the local vicinity.
A chip on your fork telling you not to eat so fast? A chip on your TV telling you not to sit so close? WTF...bring on the Orbital Mind Control Lasers :)
Cheers...
TWW
I don't know about anyone else but when i'm driving really slow i tend to loose concentration on driving, but if i'm going fast i'm always alert. I really can't see this being a good idea.
Why is speeding such a nuisance (sp?) to society? I would think that having a breathalizer installed in cars would be a higher priority. Think about it, which is more deadly:
Me driving at 85MPH on a 4 lane highway
OR
Me after a "power hour" doing 25 through a residential community.
Hmmm... well, at least the communities will make more money off of this "tax".
--WooooHoooo--
In the Netherlands there has been an experiment where the car checked it's position (by GPS) on a map, and looked up the maximun speed of the road it was driving on. It then refused to go faster than the maximum speed. A lot of people actually liked that, and there is no one who can track your whereabouts with this system...
I already see a bunch of "speeding saved my life" arguments cropping up here.
People, these arguments play right into Big Brother's hands. They can be easily countered with an argument based on increased hospital coverage (so there's always one closer to you), override switches that 911 operators can throw, etc.
No, resistance must be founded on fundamental human rights. i.e. Is it right that the government have the power to remotely control us? NO!. End of story.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
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of the way g'ments tend to (badly) misunderstand technology.
My gut tells me that such a system, if created, would be a monument to the law of unintended consequences.
J
I heard this morning on a local radio station that the local government in the Chatham-Kent region of Ontario, Canada is writing another letter to protest the deadly 401 (major highway) accident that happened in early September, and to make sure the Ontario Government implements Photo Radar along the entire stretch of highway. I don't like this idea one bit, even though it might save lives.
I don't like it because it won't have enough of a leighway as police officers do. If I was going 112 km. in a 100km zone, most police officers would laugh at how slow I was going.. 100km is just too slow for most drivers, and if you don't plan to be ran off the road for driving too slow, you have to go over the speed limit. The police do not stop people for doing 120km sometimes, let alone 112km.
Getting back to what I was saying, the leighway is different. I'm assuming that this "photo radar" or even this satellite in the UK will have a certain setting where "if this driver is over the speed limit, ticket him". Ok, that makes no sense, it's going to be ticketing about 300 out of 310 drivers that pass through the area at an increased speed. This is not my idea of getting people to slow down.. it's the actual pull-over from the police that scares most people to not do it again. It's embarassing, that's what it is.
I'm not saying that trying to slow people down and consequentley save lives is a bad thing, I'm just saying that satellites, or photo radar, will ever take the place of a good, old-fashioned police officer with lights and sirens.
Looking up to the sky,
Matthew
_____________________________________
sortakinda.ca | canadian paraphrasing.
A recent poll showed that 45% of Britons would be happy to get in their car, set the destination and let the car get on with it.
Interestingly enough the people who were most in favour were the geeks.
I could drink my coffee and read my email on my 20 minute ride to work.
A self driving car would be enough to make me add few Linux boxes to it, and add an external data port.
Every morning, start up the car, disconnect the AC and the LAN, and ride off to work!
George
£200 to install the device?? That would double the value of *my* car - and that's with a full tank of petrol too...
Wossit do when the car can't see a satellite anyway? like in a tunnel, or under trees? Or if the antenna breaks off (by accident of course).
And anyway, the sensible way to build something like that would be to have the car sense speed limits from roadside transmitters. Sounds like someone with a mountain of GPS receivers had a hand in suggesting this...
SteveB.
IIRC, England has video camera monitoring, very
strict gun control, and now they're trying for this...
Can you say 'Big Brother'?
After they monitor the cars, the government will start with the Subdural Implants and before you know it every motion you ever make will be recorded... no longer when someone is on the stand will they ask where were you on the night of the 1st, they will know!
One cool effect, they could enforce restraining orders by shocking someone who comes to close to someone else. Kinda like the Invisible fence for dogs.
Perhaps I am just a little old fasion but I think this will flop world wide.
AF-Design, web development.
Even if this was passed, it wouldn't really last very long. People would quickly find a way to bypass or alter the system so it reads incorrectly. The only people that would be affected are those that go 5 or 10 mph over the limit and are too honest to alter the system. People that really want to fly will find a way around the system so that they can fly and not get caught.
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It shouldn't be terribly difficult to rig up some sort of bypass that will let the car go as fast as the driver wants, while broadcasting an erroneous 'legal' speed to the satellite. I'm certain select non-geek, type A personas will pay well for this sort of modification. If this does go through, I just might set up shop in the UK. ;)
I suspect that this is just the government's new attempt at reducing the number of cars on the road. While the goals of reducing accidents and whatnot seems reasonable, I suspect that the government is betting that many people will simply stop driving. In a country which has used fuel taxes extensively in attempting to effect driving patterns, this seems suspiciously like another way of simply getting people off the road.
That's the sound of my coffee spewing out of my mouth.
So for about $350(US), you're going to get a GPS receiver and map. The GPS will know when you're going too fast and shut off the gas supply. How f'ing stupid is this?
To be fair though, my Saturn has a lower-tech model of this in my car. It blocks gas if the speed gets past 124MPH. Keeps the tires from melting. Not that I'd ever go 124MPH. Certainly not in Boston. Total cost: Probably $10
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
If this passes I could see some of the headlines hitting the papers...
Man Shot to death because Satellites would not let him speed away from Car Jackers...
Here is what will happen...
CarJacker: Hey Gimme your car...
BritishGuy: No... Its my CAR!
[the BritishGuy speeds away]
CarJacker: Bloody hell...
{the CarJacker jumps into his accomplices car]
BritishGuy: CRIMENY! This bloody contraption won't let me go over 60Kilometers/hour! Oh no he's catching up!
CarJacker: Thank god we got that speed thingy removed from our car... lets shoot that guy and take is car.
[you know the rest of the story]
Seriously, it's these kinds of "progress" has led me to buy a 1957 Chevy. I guarantee that this would never make it within the US.
Two reasons: logistics and economics.
Logistically, maintaining a series of sats to monitor every vehicle in the US is insane. There's millions of vehicles in this country, and more millions of miles of roads. Also, what happens when speed limits change or there's a problem with sat?
Hmm -- I just thought of this: what if the transponder is disabled or modified?
Economically, you are asking for every vehicle to be modified. Sure, it will start as new vehicles only, but then new car sales will surely drop as people hang on to their older "unregulated" cars. Pressure from the manufacturers will eventually require a retrofit to older machines -- and there isn't any way I'm putting a GPS & gear in the hardtop!
The other "Big Brother" factors will doom it to.
This might work for a little place like England, though.
But people's attitude certainly is not the same in all countries. For instance, on Danish highways the speed limit is 110 km/h, but normal driving speed is appr. 130 km/h. It was so strange when I was in the Netherlands a couple of months ago to see how nobody (save the occasional foreigner or madman) exceeded the limits there.
So I'd say that Danes would be much more opposed to speed-regulating satelites than Dutchmen would.
Just my .02 Euro
...they did do this, there would probably be a way to remove it.
My friend is always telling me about how he can remove the California emissions controls and the governer on a car to make it go faster than they want you driving it.
So what makes you think that these things can't be that easily removed.
This measure is taking road safety a little too far. I know that it will be welcome to many who have lost their nearest and dearest on the roads - as someone whose sister was seriously injured in an accident, I speak from experience - but at the same time, it is worryingly limiting on people's independence. There are times at which it is necessary to break speed limits, and as the RAC spokesman said, it might also create a dangerous tendency for people to drive at the limit when it would be unsafe to do so. Also, who is going to fork out £200 per car? If the government made it obligatory, it might well be the taxpayer. I'd also be interested to see how they expect to justify that statistic about removing 2/3 of serious accidents. --
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
I dunno, maybe I'm getting too old, what with having kids and an MPV and all ... but, I'd be well happy to have a device that automatically set my cruise control to whatever the current stupid speed limit is. I just want to get to where I'm going and not have to pay speeding fines.
... but probably it won't and we're all heading for an Orwellian nightmare etc. Oh dear oh dear.
And I'm also of the boring opinion that people that drive at multiples of the limit are a danger to themselves and others (and more importantly me) and it would be rather a Good Idea if they could be stopped..
Now this UK satelite thing looks like it could be turned into what I want
Meanwhile, I recall an Arthur C.Clarke story where it was illegal to drive a manually controlled car - only computer controlled/coordinated vehicles were allowed. Does that make the paranoid faction amongst the Slashdot crowd any happier about accepting this development?
Regards, Ralph.
Of course a government could get away with it! Particularly if they simply didn't tell the citizenry about it. For years, the US government has conducted undisclosed tests on citizens, engaged in violations of human rights, and committed acts of terrorism, all without telling us about it. It was only years later that we found out about some of them. I could easily see a government mandate the installation of these devices without informing the public. By the time the truth was out (and remember, the first people who tell the public about these "control circuits" will be ridiculed and disbelieved), the government could simply trot out a bunch of statistics showing how much safer things are: that criminals can't escape, that speeders are curbed, etc. It's been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. This is very true, but in a time when we can't see everywhere, our ability to be vigilant is compromised, and this opens to the door to abuses.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
I think it would start going exactly the speed limit ALL the time...
I mean, if your car has a way to know how fast it is _supposed_ to be going, then there has to be a way to make it tell the sattelite that is _is_ going that fast.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Oh wait, you might need to load the government surplus tank full of miniguns, M16s and rocket launchers when the oppressive tax creating government starts to step on your right to kill with indescresion.
Any government that does this is foolish. One of the things in the US is a big FINE if you are speeding. So, on top of the taxes the goverenment collects they get to collect extra money. Makes more sense to the goverenment's pocket book to have a cop take 15 minutes to write out a $150 ticket then it does to spend money to control the speed on cars which is a complete cost and no sign of profit.
Monitoring speed and faxing me a ticket may be OK. That already happens with those cameras on stop lights that photograph speeders and light breakers.
However I can think of a dozen reasons why a satellite slowing down my car against my will is insane. Just the other day I was in a car going 130 Mph at on a busy city street. Reckless driving perhaps but the lady in the back seat was in labor.
Is a satellite going to know or care about that ?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Think of all the children it will save
End of story. It's through.
** Martin
UK finds out about Echelon... uses it to catch speeders. How ironic.
Just to be fair, if you are going to stop the speeders, we need one to be fair:
stop the people who have turn signal left on for miles,
people who drive slow in the fast lane,
and most of the other 95 percent of morons who don't speed, but just are plain fucking idiots!
Would have a difficult time trying to get this one past the Supreme Court.
Technically, our government can't directly say "You can do this, you can't do this," over anything except what they're told to do through Article 1, Sec. 8, Clauses 1-17. But they found a loophole...they CAN say "If you don't do this, we'll pull government funding!" Course, loosing all that cash isn't really a good thing, so everyone goes along with what our government dictates (usually).
Course, the nice thing about fund appropriation is that it has to have merit. If it doesn't, the Supreme Court will kill the bill. Personally, I don't see how this would have any merit.
Besides, now that I think of it, all that above blather is just worthless, because there's one major thing that would keep our government from doing this: money. Speeding tickets were invented for INCOME, not penalty. The police don't want you to think that, but a major part of transportation funding actually comes from traffic violations. It would put a serious crink in the transportation budget if something like that was implemented here. Of course, I don't know how it is in Britain or Austrailia, but I don't know how they could afford to loose that kind of funding.
- The satellite doesn't know their locations (it's just a GPS transmitter), so no privacy loss there.
- Requires less police monitoring of the roads, so they can be somewhere useful stopping real crime.
- Stop shitty drivers
and for us geeks... If the car belongs to us, then we have access to it & all its internal components. Just remember that any computer can be reprogrammed...I bet override EEPROMS are sold within 6 months of this system's introduction. Hehe.
--
How do you keep an idiot in suspense?
Tell him the next version of Windows will be faster, more reliable, and easier to use!
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
This has done the rounds before in October 1998. Then, as now, the UK govt ruled it out because:
As for me, I live out in the sticks where the roads are so quiet you can hear a car approaching from miles away. Quite rightly, we have a speed limit of 60mph through our little village- and the police won't stop you unless you're doing over 75mph or being really stupid.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Automatically ticketting speeders has been tried before in the US and didn't work at all. The problem (for the government :) is people are constitutionally guaranteed to face their accuser, and since you can't easily face a satellite, you're off scott free. This is the same thing that happened with the automated ticketting process they tried in Oregon or Washington where a camera would take a picture of a speeder. People started throwing the tickets away when they got them in the mail. Since no officer was involved, there was nothing the government could do when the cases came to court.
Maybe a better thing, in the long run, would just be to monitor but not ticket. The information could be tracked by the DMV and reported to the insurance carrier of the speeder, and they can up the rates.
As for automatic speed control, that's crap. That will create many more problems that it would solve. I couldn't imagine the number of accidents that would be caused when people suddenly lose control of their vehicle because it unexpectedly changes speed.
I think this is all slightly suspicious anyway. The first thing I would do when I got a new car would be to remove the offending device (just like the Linux kernel does with the P-III id). The government would likely use the device for tracking people, and that's a little too big-brotherish for me.
I'm in favor of developing a satellite that would shoot a powerful laser beam at bad drivers. Of course, _I_ would be in charge of determining what constitutes a "bad" driver. Let's take road rage into space!
This is not a good plan. It'll make the entire place a speed trap. Just like having a state trooper chillin' on the side of a highway during rush hour... all it does is cause backups. All the soccer mommys will flip out and drive 5 UNDER the speed limit. Then no one will get anywhere, and road rage will take over.
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
http://leftorium.net
While conceivably each car could be fitted with an intelligent box that reports car speed to the satellite, I find it unlikely. They are far more likely to use a 'dumb' box that merely reports car position, and relies on the downlink systems to deal with the computations. Add a unique interrogative ID to the unit, and the British government can track your automotive whereabouts 24/7/365. So they get a tool to monitor the populous and maintain an often incorrect 'speed limit'. They've got cameras on street corners, and this is next?
Offtopic, but.. In such a system, what would be the 'British' way of dealing with long-term interruption of upstream service? Shut the car down? Just ignore the fact it cannot be 'monitored'? Also, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could easily refit many of the older cars..
.sig: Now legally binding!
It seems pretty clear to me that it would violate our 4th, 5th, and 14th amendment rights....
But what also does seem overwhelmingly clear to me is that our friends on the other side of the Atlantic are increasingly in need of a written (rather than the gentleman's agreement they have now) constitution.
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
I wonder if People would put these on their cars voluntarely... I might ( if I ever again decide to get one ). At least here in Finland getting a penalty for speeding is one of the few ways that a decent citizen can get in touch with the law... This way it could be easily avoided. This could allso be perfect for varying speed limits according to weather or traffic conditions... even loosing them a little in good contitions. Of course there is the the very potential Big Brother thing in here too.
This scares me, not because I don't want my speed remotely controlled (I don't speed as a habit anyway), but I can just imagine a scenario where the government, having access to GPS data and vehicle registration information/addresses, sells this valuable "market research data" straight to everyone's favourite people, the spam-meisters.
Then combined with the vehicle's speed being recorded and modified, you have situations where the location of your parked car is mapped to some establishment (i.e. a fast-food resturant, Radio Shack, Italian deli, etc.), and suddenly you are receiving coupons for Big Macs, batteries and crusty bread.
Just another way for the marketing forces of the world to spam us. They'd love this.
I'd have thought by this day and age we'd all be air-commuting everywhere at well over the 20-30 mph that you feel lucky to hit on the interstate during rush hour. Will this system also address people doing less than the minimum speed limit. It'd be funny if you were FORCED to maintain 45mph on the interstate no matter what the conditions.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When Mt. St. Helens erupted there were 2 cars fleeing the area. one was going 90+ mph and was found in the middle of the road squashed by a tree covered in ash, occupents dead. How do we know it was going 90+? Well the car that passed it going 110+ that just made it out of the blast zone.
Why do I bring this up. Well at the time the highway speed in the USA was 55mph. I know on average many more lives would be saved every day if everyone had to follow the speed limit (and the laws of physics). But we need to educate people not put spies in there cars. I will let others rant....(they do it better than I)
This stuff has already been road tested. I think many of the Big 3 in Detroit have such systems in the works. Many agricultural companies like John Deere have developed similiar systems as well. Just think of the time savings for a farmer to program the combine to go combine a field. The major concern for this type of thing is the reliability and safety. What if someting malfunctions and the piece of equipment goes wandering off accros a highway or through a house. That is the only thing that is keeping this kind of technology out of cars and farm equipment.
-- I can't say enough in 120 chars!
Many trucks in Europe are already equipped with (mechanical) reocrding devices that record speed and some other details. These have been used for checking not only speed, but various working-time limits (how many hours did he drive after how little sleep?). There are also some gps-based monitoring things that allow the *owner* of the truck to monitor where the truck (and its driver) is. Some Taxis also have this sort of equipment. I don't see these coming to private cars (yet), but monitoring trucks seems to be quite well accepted. - Heikki, posting from Denmark, not UK.
In Murphy We Turst
Everyone with those 'smart tag' or 'speed pass' transponders in their cars can easily be tracked in the US today. Its a simple mathematical calculation to track you. Lets see, if the speed limit on the toll road you are on is 65 mph and each time you enter and exit the toll road a time stamp is recorded on your account... This isn't rocket science...
The major cost of a navigation system today isn't the computer or the map but the LCD display. Eliminate that and you have a box that you could sell in massive quantities for $200-$400 US. We charge about $150 for the map data CD for a country, but if we knew we were getting a bunch of sales something could probably be done there, too.
This is another intervention of the government into private lives of citizens through the use of technology. While it probably won't kill anyone if it gets done, it certainly doesn't improve anyone's freedom either.
It is much safer for everyone if we have no freedom and the government controls everthing. I think I am willing to give up a little safety (or the perception of it) for some freedom. How about you?
Ok, how about the more serious aspects of this???
Picture this: An person driving on the highway at right aroundthe speed limit. All of a sudden, some retard starts to tail him. So,he speeds up to avoid the guy, only to have his car slowed instantly back to the speed limit. What happens when he slows back to 65 and the other Guy's still going 75? A loud noise and lots of problems.
DUH U.K.
--A simple thought from a simple mind, but it makes SENSE--
gdpeters@eos.ncsu.edu
More to the point, what happens when the speed limiter kicks in when a driver mis-judges the available time to pass on a 2-lane road, and cannot get ahead in time to pull in? This leads to one of:
- A head-on with the oncoming traffic.
- A side-swipe with the traffic being passed.
- A dive for the ditch, maybe colliding with trees or stones or a rollover.
- Emergency braking by traffic on one or both sides of the road, leading to possible rear-end collisions.
This proposal is bone-headed in the extreme; perhaps it should be added to the cars of chronic lame drivers (along with reaction-time testers to stop them from driving while drunk/exhausted), but it would create at least as many problems as it solved for the masses. In this it reminds me of the flight-control system on the A320 which was directly responsible for the crash at the Paris Air Show some years back; because it was in "landing mode" it refused the pilot's command to throttle the engines up, and because it had inadequate power it refused the pilot's pitch-up force on the stick. Result: aircraft flew into a hill. Cause: Design of control software required pilot to press a "go around" button to get the aircraft to do what it was commanded to do. My analysis: It is dangerous and stupid to require persons who are operating vehicles to play games of "Simon Says" with some unthinking control system.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Vaguely on-topic rant: (please be patient)
1) The government gets a chunk of your paycheck. (Sales or Income Tax, usually both)
2) If you die, they don't get your money.
3) They don't want you to die or kill anyone else.
...Because they won't get any more money.
If you look at most insane things governments of any country undertake, they make sense from this context. Motorcycle Helmets (a good idea, IMHO, but I want to choose for myself), Speed Limits, Euthanasia (allowed in some places, not here in the US), Voluntary Suicide, and whole hosts of other stuff left out to keep this down to a reasonable size.
If it were legal for stupid people to do stupid things, there'd be fewer stupid people. (Fewer smart people, too, but that's the chance you take.)
-- Spring: Forces, coiled again!
Wouldn't it be easier to simply make auto-manufacturers build cars that do not exceed 120km/hr or have that as a cutoff speed when being sold in Britain (i.e. a configurable maximum speed)...as oppposed to this expensive sounding satellite crap that will probably be circumvented as quickly as it comes out.
PS: I am totally against the concept of an eye in the sky controlling my car, but still this is a collosal waste of taxpayer's money simply to satisfy some politicians infatuation with technology.
>I can't speak for U.K. residents, but I bet it's > the same there. Does anyone think *any* government could really get away with this
Errr... being a UK resident, yes, I think the
UK government could implement with this no problemo (technical details/problems aside).
We already have GATSO speed cameras all over the place, not only on motorways but on urban streets
too.
Remember also that the UK govt. already tracks
suspect terrorost cars via numberplate recognition
(there was a recent Slashdot article on this)
and this is due to be extended to motorway speed
measurements by timing between two fixed points.
One amusing anecdote I heard from a Swede was that the Govt. there put in speed cameras, which the law abiding Swedes accepted without a murmur...
Until, strangely, many cameras were 'accidentally' mown down by truck drivers...
Ummm, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the exact same thing that the article is talking about? A satellite monitoring your position (GPS), an onboard computer monitoring speed limit, and the system won't allow you to speed. Sounds the same to me.
Singapore.
They already tax people 100% for new cars, I mean, a Corolla will cost upwards of 100,000 Canadian dollars over there. And they charge people 10 yr licenses to "own" their cars (called certificate of entitlements, costing upwards of tens of thousands of dollars)
I mean, this is a country that when it has a problem just bans the problem, like the problem they had with chewing gum in the subways, they just banned chewing gum imports altogether.
If any country could do it, they could (since they are very small island country, with only 3 million people in population).
As the controlling system slowly runs out of resources to handle all the cars and sends the cars off crashing, resulting in people flying forward in their cars and hitting the WindShield Of Death.
-- I can't say enough in 120 chars!
How will it know the speed limit in the
area you are traveling?
I personally do not see how we can justify allowing peple to put life and limb, often the life and limb of someone else, at risk in the name of 'freedom.' I find it irresponsible not use use any device available to make driving safer and more efficient. To put things in perspective, in the U.S. in one year about as many people are killed and maimed as were killed and maimed during the entire 10 years of the Viet Nam war. Where is the outrage over this death toll?
I realize that driving is very emotional. I think it gives people the illusion of control and empowerment(sometimes mistaken for 'freedom')when so much of our lives are not in our personal control. I say illusion of control because you really have no control over other drivers' actions or the how well maintained their vehicals are. I enjoy driving on road trips for vacation, but commuting, the type of driving most people do, does nothing but irritates me as it is a waste of time and resources. I also do not see it as a right. I believe people think it is a right because the automobile industry wants them to believe it is a right, and not a privilege.
In short, I am all in favor of this technology. As long as people are irresponsible in their actions, we need to have some limits. If you have an argument which is not emotionally based on why this would be a bad idea in the long run, then please present it.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Hmm, now what if I had to accelerate on an expressway to get out of an accident? Guess I'm dead meat, if I'm driving at the speed limit. It's interesting to note that, in the U.S. at least, the recent increases in the speed limit all over the country have actually led to /less/ deaths than in previous years. By as much as 2.5%! Granted, statistics can vary from year to year, but this still indicates increasing the speed limit or driving faster than the speed limit does not mean "hundreds of motorists will be condemed to a firey death" (from the Department of Transportation).
Plus, there is the Big Brother factor. I get paranoid when I think of people tracking my cell phone, never mind my car!
Finally, the cost is an issue. 200 pounds a car? That's about 300-350 U.S., plus instalation. Who wants to pay that much to have their fredom taken away?!?!?
That's just my $0.02 on the issue, one that is close to my heart.
-Ryan
I'm not sure about the UK, but in the US, speeding tickets are a very large source of revenue. Some little towns in the US use this as their primary source of revenue, and I think it is unlikely an politician would support a measure that would cut a large amount of money out of the budget, as well as causing very many pissed of people.
Timescale is in the decades and the debate could be a good one ... whoever said that monitoring is the issue is correct ... but if that was overcome then I can't see this not happening - it is a legal requirement to drive within the speed limit in the UK - making cars that can exceed this is a strange concept of freedom. Expect the car makers to be in the vanguard of opposition ("our car will only go as fast as the speed limit" is a tad different from the current "speed is like sex" message).
... I don't know what the US road kill figures are but I would guess that not that many people are genuinely aware of them.
If the ongoing iraq sniping war was to produce 3500 british deaths a year, every year, then any politician that voted for continuation would also be out on their ear
Ho hum
J
What if it breaks and sends us hurdling to our deaths at 150+ [mk]ph?
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair... Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"
Singapore controls the speed limits of taxi cab drivers (and other small transportation vehicles), not through satelites, but through their own engines. Although the car can go a little over the speed limit, when it does, there is a loud annoying alarm that the driver and passenger can hear, and ontop of the vehicle a light goes on to alert the cops/other drivers. This is going out of favour because Singapore has speed cameras all over the island now, so it isn't very necessary. In Singapore every driver knows that if they speed, anywhere at any time, they'll get a ticket for it. In the autocratic sense it is alot like the Soviet Union, except with only about 61 sq. km. to look over (compared to 22,400,000 of the Soviet Union) it is much easier to be Big Brother. Regards, Brian Basgen
Let's get one thing straight: Speed limits have nothing to do with saving lives, and everything to do with money.
Money to the police departments and local governments, which speeders (who are law-abiding citizens) are more likely to hand over than some hardend criminal. Think of it from the police's point of view: Why go after murderers and rapists? You put em in jail, and even if you fine them you don't think they will acutally be able to pay their 500,000USD fine? On the other hand your average Jane or Joe is scared of the police dragging them away if they don't pay their fine, so they are more than happy to shell out $100 or more to the cop's coffers.
Insurance companies have a hand in this money pot too. Car wrecks cost insurance companies a lot of money, and if they can avoid paying this (doesn't matter if its done by taking away the rights of motorists) then they are all for it. Speed limits are an easy way to increase the profits of insurance companies, so they can have their way with you two ways: 1. by preventing them from having to pay up (you were over the limit, pal) and 2. by allowing them to jack up people's premiums after they recieve tickets (you're an unsave driver, buddy).
The whole system is corrupt to the core, and in the end has nothing to do with safety or saving lives. How many times (those in the US) have you seen a four lane highway with a speed limit of 45 miles per hour? Safety, my rear end! These are speed traps, designed to empty your wallet and create an atmosphere where the public fears the police.
________________________________
The fact is UK motorists are penalised at so many levels in the UK.
Insurance angencies that will not hesitate at charging exprbitant rates
Petrol costs higher in the UK than anywhere else I can think of.
Road tax...
Speed cameras.
Lousy roads, with too much traffic.
Overpriced cars.
Its a fucking wonder that anyone is able to drive at all.
Perhaps this speeding thing should be applied to certain "high risk" groups. i.e.:
If you hve been caught speeding once before, or if you have been in a speed related accident.
Or perhaps if you are under 26 (the "danger" groups in the eyes of the insurers).
I am not happy with this at all, but perhaps instead of hitting the "speed" issue, one should consider the fact that inexperience kills.
Or the fact that stupidity kills.
Better training can help save lives more than some draconian policing method.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
There are speed cameras mounted -everywhere-. Country lanes, suburban roads, motorways, etc. These automatically transmit the licence plate to a central computer, which prints & mails off the speeding ticket to the owner of the car.
There are -other- surveilance cameras, primarily around London, which monitor cars. If you enter London by car, expect to have your entire criminal record in the hands of the police, along with details of your car, plus your exact location in London. If you're the -least- bit suspicious, they'll probably check you out.
This is a far cry from some of the more interesting traffic control measures that have been tried in England, such as cardboard cut-outs of police cars, in strategically-located places, where drivers can't tell if it's real or not. It's worked very well, in the past, without infringing on anyone's rights and without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg.
"Sleeping Policemen" (speed bumps to Americans) and cobblestone roads are other popular measures. (Cobblestones are marginally less popular, as they are more expensive and tend to get stern words from disabled & pensioner groups.)
But, it doesn't surprise me that they now want to go over to a full satelite system. Not that I'm going to blame the Government for this. That's unfair. Decisions are made by the Sir Humphrey Appleby's of the world. In short, by the Civil Service, not the Government.
(The Civil Service is an unelected body of politically neutral people who enact the wishes of the elected Government. Or so they say. In reality, they really run the country and the politicians are simply targets for the media to throw the rotten eggs at.)
Will this get through? The House of Lords is all but phased out, so there is no second house which can oppose the Government. (The reason the House of Lords has been killed off is that it kept opposing measures which would destroy democracy and freedom. That it was unelected gave it the freedom -to- be "controversial", rather than tow the line.)
IMHO, that leaves the only other unelected body that has much influence, and even that's on the wane - the Masons. In England, the Masons are an ultra-secret organisation, with considerable power and influence over everything. It's rare that you ever hear about them doing anything directly, though. Probably because that would destroy their carefully-preserved secrecy. However, this is the sort of thing that I can see the Masons taking an interest in, as it would seriously affect them. (Not just with respect to speeding, but the ability to monitor every car in England. It's harder to keep secrets when the Government knows where you are, at all times.)
This isn't going to inspire the all-out rebellion that the Poll Tax did, or generate the intense questioning that followed the Falklands War and the "mysterious" sinking of the General Belgrano.
If Britain is going to remain a free country, in any meaningful sense, it's going to have to rely on the whims of some senile old men and a mysterious, half-mythical super-secret organisation, all of whom the general public have been pelting rocks at for ages. I don't expect them to have much sympathy for their persecuters, now that the Government is pelting rocks of their own, but they -are- Britain's last best hope at remaining a democracy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The bigger problem is that as technology improves, of course, it will be possible to monitor us in more and more ways -- possibly even to lock us down or punish us without proof. And as society ebbs and flows, you can bet that at one time or another the public sentiment wil favor this sort of government control, and that once put in place the controls will not be voted out or removed. It's important to be against these things every time, *in principle*, or we are inevitably doomed to a sort of pseudo-fascism whereby "the people" control most of what we do, say, or even think.
Think about it. We let the government control all sorts of things they shouldn't. For instance microsoft the gov't seems to think they should tell microsoft how to run their business, what they can sell, how much they can sell, where they can sell it. I can easily see that the people of this country would let uncle sam tell the auto manufacturers they have to install a speeding device in cars. I hope one day the people that don't care about the rights that are taken away from them every day will wake up and smell the horror before it is too late. In california you can't smoke inside bars anymore... what's next. Hell in some states you can't walk around with an ice cream cone in your pocket. check out http://www.dumblaws.com
wikki
In two towns, my own (Borlänge) and another one, Taxi cabs are equipped with this to control their speed and location.
Speed limit enforcement is essentially a cop-out for those hard-to-prove things which, in reality, play a much larger role in causing traffic problems. For instance, tailgating causes more accidents than going 10 MPH over the limit on the interstate, but you almost never hear about someone getting a ticket for tailgating. Why? Because it's hard to prove -- there's no radar, just the officer's word for it.
Here's a list of other traffic infractions which the police should *really* pay attention to:
Reckless Driving: Unfortunately, this means "pissing off the cop" in my town -- the police tack it on when someone ticks them off, not for any particular driving behavior. Still, actual erratic driving causes accidents and should be policed.
Inattentive Driving: This is another one the cops add in when they're pissed. It deserves to be enforced properly, however. I can't count how many times I've seen idiots rooting for CDs or even *reading* while driving. Again, tell me that this isn't as bad as doing 10 MPH over the posted limit. As a special highlight to this, I'd point out that cell phone morons ought to be especially watched for. I mean, studies show that using a cell phone while driving causes as many accidents as OUI, but for some bizarre reason they're not regulated.
Not Signaling: I hate it when people don't use their blinkers. Older drivers (above 40) seem to be especially prone to doing this. As much as I advocate being unpredictable and spontanious in life, I'd suggest not doing so on the interstate.
Going too far under the limit: Just yesterday I was in a 55 zone (yes, I was doing 60) and almost struck a granny who was alternating between 30-35 MPH. I came up over a hill and there she was, practically standing still in her lane. People might *think* they're being safe by going under the limit, but if they go that far under they're actually a much larger hazard.
Old People: I'm not one of those pricks who thinks that drivers licenses should be revoked on your 70th birthday, but I do believe that some older people lose the ability to drive safely as they get older due to medical conditions. There ought to be a graduated system to make the roads safer for the rest of us -- for example, if a person can't pass a night vision test every five years, they ought to be prohibited from driving at night. This doesn't seem cruel and unusual to me; it seems like common sense.
I'm not saying that speed enforcement isn't an element of safety, I'm just saying that it doesn't deserve attention at the expense of other infractions (which are routinely ignored today). If the police and legislators were really interested in protecting drivers from accidents, these are the laws which would be enforced. Simple-minded speed limit enforcement is just a cop-out. Anyone have any additions?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Actually, there are several factors that result in 124 being the cutoff. Your tires from the factory are probably not speed rated beyond 130 and are "H rated". There are speed ratings which go way beyond 124mph, such as V rated (up to 149), W rated (up to 178) and Z rated (obscenely fast). Another factor is that your gearing probably ends around there.. 5th gear probably has a top speed of at or around 124 mph. And the most probable reason, the car most likely cannot travel at such high rates of speed for very long without structural damage from wind. That is why in some of the endurance races in Nevada or Texas they tape their cars panels down to prevent them blowing off.
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
A digital road map on board the vehicle then tells the car when it is exceeding the speed limit, allowing it to choke off the fuel supply if speed restrictions are breached
As far as I can see this is just a GPS thing exactly like the ones already sold in expensive cars, which give you directions to where you're going as you go there. It just has an added gizmo which car manufacturers have to add, to calculate your speed and limit it. It is the "digital road map on the car" that does the maths, not (necessarily) the satellite. I believe big cars in the uk already have non-GPS based speed limiters at 140 mph or so. The satellite can't spy on you any more than it can with your handheld GPS-up-a-hill.
Yes, I agree that forcing people to carry GPS is an invasion of privacy, and that forcing them to limit their speed can be dangerous. But the story as presented (and some of the comments) seem to be exaggerating this aspect of the story somewhat.
Like a mobile phone. The phone central can deduct quite much from the handshaking signals alone, even if no call is active. No need for satellites.
In Murphy We Turst
Can't wait for somebody to hack the satellite, and make all the cars go 500 kph.
you wanted it, you got it.
I would hope and pray for such a device.
Why, you ask? We live in a era where the technological skill of the underground is far more agile than the blundering government. I'd have this thing on my car for less than a week before websites would begin to pop up all over the net with ways to defeat the device yet not draw attention to yourself.
Then, because the cops will rely on this transmitter system, they will stop sitting in the middle of the highway waiting for me to drive past. Tickets would be automatically mailed, so, as a result, "the other white meat" would stop issuing with them entirely.
This device would be like a gun; outlaw guns, and only criminals will have guns. Well, outlaw speeding (as opposed to regulating it, like it is now), and only the people who really want to speed will speed.
So, the way I see it, the more the government relies on technology to control the masses, the more I can get away with by being in touch with the counter-culture and underground technology.
------
The thing is this is just another incremental step in the takeover of big brother under the seemingly noble cause of saving the masses from their own stupidity. I say let the bastards crash and burn and keep the big brother out.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
or 18,503 human lives
UK Total fire arm deaths per 100,000 for 1995 0.57
or 193 human lives
The /. article had the tracking thing the other way around: according to the original article, the CAR tracks it's position by GPS (satellite) and adjusts max speed according to a max speed map. This is not necessarily good.
/. article made it sound like the satellite tracked the car's position. This is very different and definitely bad.
The
Anyway, the UK gov't seems to be fond of monitoring equipment all the same, given horror stories about cameras all over major cities and license plate tracking.
- da Lawn
't used to be LawnMOWER, really...
"That freedom can be retained only by the eternal vigilance which has always been its price" - Elmer Davis
Long Live GNU/Linux!
This is an outrageously stupid and dangerous idea. This is even worse than the ticket quotas which state and local police use to pad their operating budgets. I drive a lot and I've often witnessed the police creating a dangerous situation in order to generate funds: Traffic is moving along, above the speed limit, but there are good distances between any pair of cars. Lots of stopping distance. Usually cars don't drive side by side so there is adequate room for an emergency lane change if the need were to arise. Local cops hide out and ticket a few people. Everybody slows down to the speed limit.
They're safer, they're moving slower right? Wrong. Absolutely 100% wrong. Traffic bunches up and people end up driving bumper to bumper. People get claustorphobic, frustrated and belligerent. Thank you officer, you just created an accident waiting to happen.
Tickets for speed violations should be abolished for public safety. Use the catch all unsafe driving as a deterrent for... unsafe driving. If traffic is moving at 55 miles per hour and somebody is weaving in and out at 95 then nail them. If traffic is moving at 95 miles per hour and somebody is driving in the fast lane, white knuckled and furious that everybody is passing him as he's driving 45 miles per hour, nail him. He's an unsafe driver.
The police won't be able to nail people with unsafe driving for going over the speed limit. People's insurance would go through the roof, they'd lose their licenses and the elected officials who support handing out unsafe driving citations for speed violations would be crucified (rightfully so) in the next election.
There's no need to install any new gadgets and satellites. There's already a system that can be used to monitor car speeds, surveillance etc. About 2/3 of Finns carry it voluntarily; it's the cell phone.
The cell phone communicates constantly with the GSM network. Even if you don't speak, it tells the network where you are and tries to find a better connection. Now you only have to monitor how fast a cell phone travels from point A to point B and you can count the average speed of the car.
Cell phones are also a great way of monitoring where people are. Many criminals are already caught because they were carrying their phones at the place of the crime. "Hmm, so you were at home all asleep while your cell phone travelled 200 km?"
The big brother is watching :-)
We can assume that people won't speed because if they are being monitored, they are assured of being caught. So that means that police issuing speeding tickets will be totally unecessary. So are they out of a job?
I live in Texas, and in the smaller towns "speed traps" are very common. Suprisingly, a large portion of revenue for these towns comes from the issuing of speeding citations. How much will it cost them if there are no more speeders?
I don't think that the government (state gov.) really wants us to stop speeding, because they would no longer be able to collect revenue from fines.
You're talking about a government that can legally imprison you for mentioning a banned subject (such as the IRA) in your own home.
Granted, they don't usually do that. (The USA's Drug Enforcement Agency doesn't usually trick the FBI into murdering people without cause, either, but that isn't helping Vickie Weaver any.) Nonetheless Britons have no legal right to freedom of speech, which is a lot more oppressive than controlling your (probably excessive) vehicle speed.
--Charlie
I can't wait! All I have to do is hack the system and set the lowest speed limit to 150 kph...
I, personally , am sick of the current war against the motorist in the UK. I'm tired of the vast amounts of money being spent on speed cameras, two-plus lanes, and "traffic calming" measures. I've had enough of the increased spend on high powered cars by police forces, and the continued expansion of the police state.
All this nonsense was started by John Majors conservative government and has been gleefully continued by the woefully inept John Prescott and Jack (Michael Howard mkII) Straw. What makes it worse, is that the Road Fund (car tax) cost has increased and only a fraction of it is being spent on building new roads, or improving existing roads. This satellite thing just the latest move in a cynical effort to cover the lack of any real transport policy by clobbering drivers and taking money from us. Public transport is a joke - that's why I use my car. And I like to drive at reasonable speeds without breaking the bank on speeding fines every two minutes.
I'm seriously considering voting Monster Raving Loony next time.
I don't know about UK but in California there are at least 18 million cars, give or take a few million. If this happens in Cali then we better hope that the GPS satellite network is able to handle all these request real fast. This could be an unintentional DoS attack on the GPS satellites. I think UK would have more cars than Cali becuase it has twice the population of Cali.
Watch out for falling satellites.
Monitor speed by satellite. (This will stop all speeding)
Install breathalyzers in all cars (No more drunk driving)
Implant chips in children (Can't kidnap them now)
Implant chips with microphones (No one can plot terrorism)
etc, etc,
Anything to conveniently, mindlessly, soullessly, automatically control our citizenry.
I heard an interview with a surgeon after seat belts were made mandatory in the UK.
He was asked what the major change was since the law was implemented. His response was that he no longer had to spend hours picking pieces of glass out of peoples faces.
I am not keen on the speed governors (though they are fitted in lorries/trucks in the UK), but seat belts have proved a great boon to a number of people.
--
You are right - there is no constitutional right to free speech in the UK. Largely because we don't have a written constitution.
However, there is a common law right to free speech.
And yes, the idea is to stop people speeding rather than restricting their speed for no reason.
figured out a way to make all cars slow down to 10 kph. Change the setting remotely or spoof the sat signal or whatever. Great idea. Remember, CSS will never be broken. Harry Caul
...or so Dr. Martinez and the rest of the NHTSA would like to have us believe. You Car and Driver readers out there are no doubt familiar with Patrick Bedard and his views on the subject. And how about the interview with Dr. Martinez a couple of years ago? Martinez claimed that roughly 32% of (fatal?) accidents are speed-related. So what exactly does "speed-related" mean? Let's put it this way. If a driver with a BAC of 0.3 is driving a car with no brakes the wrong way down a one way street, and he's exceeding the speed limit, that's marked as speed-related. That accident is grouped with others similar to it to make "safe speeders" (not an oxymoron, believe me) look like homicidal maniacs. I can't remember the exact number, but I think C&D found that about 3% of all (fatal?) accidents are solely speed-related, as in too fast for the conditions. This pales in comparison to real problems such as drunk driving.
Politicians like for us to think that they're protecting us by lowering speed limits. But I have to wonder: if 55 is safe and speed kills, isn't 50 safer? And why do all of these people break the speed limit? Are they insane? Or are they just driving at a comfortable speed that they chose based on the many variables involved in driving? It's amazing how a little number can make everybody safer - it's the perfect speed for the old man in the Crown Vic with bad brakes and bald tires, and it's the perfect speed for the 35 year old weekend racer in the M3 with sticky tires and brakes that could throw you through the windshield. Amazing.
Or is it that speed limits are not set scientifically? Is it just an arbitrary number assigned for the purpose of increasing the feeling of safety as well as increasing revenue? I think so.
Folks, speeding isn't the problem. Reckless driving, SUVs, DUI - these things are the problem. It's unfortunate that the majority of people don't seem to realize this and don't seem to care. So until then I'll just have to feel "safe" with a low speed limit.
www.valentine1.com
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
The real reason for controlling car speed is that it's the only way Richard Burns or Colin McRae could beat Tommi Makinen!
... ;-)
It is the only way a British pilot could win the WRC Drivers Championship
For that matter, this sort of thing is probably inevitable in any country whose citizens have allowed their government to disarm them.
Besides, the road system is, most everywhere, basically a shared "bus" in computer lingo, designed to be cheap to plug into, compared to other systems such as rail and airways. I.e. cars are more affordable to obtain and require less expertise to drive than many other methods of automated transportation.
The big problem with cars is basically that anyone is allowed to drive them, in nearly any fashion they like, with little consistency in regulating violations that don't result in severe accidents, therefore providing insufficient feedback regarding poor, but not-yet-deadly, driving. (Kinda like operating systems that "allow" null pointer dereferences making it less likely programmers will discover such errors until they "simply" port their code to a less forgiving system.)
So, the long-term trend, especially in any country whose citizens have already allowed themselves to be disarmed (read: the citizens have accepted the notion that the current government will always do an acceptable job, and never give in to tyrranical assertions of power), will be to use technology to reduce the costs of providing safer roads.
Some of this might be well-designed, some not. I don't like the proposed system, especially in isolation, for a variety of reasons, but as part of a comprehensive system offering individually-controlled, as well as collectively-offered, information-gathering, advice-giving, and vehicle-guidance capabilities, with plenty of opt-out potential and with both criminal and civil issues carefully worked out in advance, it isn't necessarily a bad component to offer.
The huge number of variables involved in this "problem", including preserving individual safety and liberty, preserving the environment (both long-term -- e.g. reducing emissions -- and short-term -- such as reducing noise), optimizing overall road usage, reducing traffic jams, and so on, require a highly flexible, sophisticated system for proper management.
Such a system is highly unlikely to derive from a government and consist of massive central servers telling blindly obedient cars what to do. Though some people might, for various reasons, prefer to drive such cars and let "the system" take care of everything for them, a more optimal solution requires decision-making participation among far more people than the few individuals who'll be invited to set the paramaters for, and control, the various central servers.
So it'll end up being a mix of central offerings (of information, advice, and control) combined with localized determination (based on factors the local operator might wish not to share with the central system for various reasons).
The day citizens are capable of reliably (and democratically) electing a government that would consistently get this sort of thing "right" is the day citizens can eliminate all coercive elements of their own government -- i.e. implement unilateral disarmement of the government against themselves, and truly live in peace with their neighbors. For they will have proven their ability to govern themselves individually sufficient to no longer need violence, or the threat of violence, to keep each other in check. I'm not sure that will ever actually happen, which is the whole point of my post -- people shouldn't trust a government elected by people who can't govern themselves, because, in too many people, the desire to control the acts of others greatly exceeds the desire to control one's own behavior.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
If our government ever finds out about this, I'm sure they'll snap it up in a second.
... I can see it now.
:)
Richard Alston - Transport Minister
The other downside is that my WRX (Impreza Turbo) will be worth a hell of a lot less with legislation like this
- How accurate is this?
- If it is highly accurate we are now installing modular warhead guidance systems into cars for easy smuggling and delivery.
- What is the system failure condition?
- When the unit cannot contact the satellite/GPS system does it stop the car or remove restraints? (or I suppose enforce a default speed?)
Frankly, this is really no good.If it is not accurate beyond the usual GPS resolution we have envents where there are two parallel roads of different speends and I'm stuck doing 40Km on the highway... (is that dangerous????) The systems will also need to have up to the minute changes in traffic patterns so that when roads shift for construction the system behaves properly rather than adding trouble.
If the system stops the vehicle we have just added one more possible breakdown to an already overly complex breakdown prone device. Breakdowns can be dangerous as well. This is no good.
If there is no restriction when the system fails we have a totally useless, very expensive device which will allow illegal people or people who are differently moraled install "GPS interferance" devices which allow them to drive at whatever speed they want.
If the system has a default speed for a system failure event it needs to be fairly fast as not to cut someone to a crawl in the middle of the highway. This would tend to lead to the behavior of no speed limit on smaller roads with the aid of a GPS jamming device.
+------->
Law enforcement agencies could use it to locate and disable a crooks car. (and every car in the vicinity) But then again, who doesn't want an all powerful law enforcement agency?
Imagine the chaos that could result if control of the satellites/computer system fell into the wrong hands. All cars could be suddenly turned off and the nation's economy would be basically shut down. Or if you wanted to create some major carnage, simply shut off half the cars and watch the still moving cars collide into the disabled ones. Sounds like fun to me. Can't wait to get one installed in my car.
Cutting off your speed by activating a speed limiter on the car when you don't know it's gonna happen. On a malibu i rented it stops at 170km/h whitch is a little un-nerving when passing a line of tranport trucks with on coming traffic, but at least i know it's gonna happen. Just imagine if you are trying to evade police and all of a sudden your car just slows down as your weaving in and out of a school zone marked 40 whil passing a bus. You may lose control, spin out into a swiingset and kill 8 kids and their dog. Thank god my supra has no limiter
IT HAS YOU....
First the potential privacy issue:
How long until the feedback from the device to the satellite is used to track the movements of criminals -> suspects -> suspiscious persons -> anyone? Will any returned information be used in legal procedings? Will a database be kept? Sold? I'm sure that this issue will be discussed thouroughly in the following posts.
Second (and the point I really want to emphisize) the saftey issue:
This device will reduce the ammount of gas I'm using to slow me down. What if my wife is having a baby NOW! Will I have to putt along with everyone else (or wait 2 hours for an ambulance)? What is the guy in the car behind me is chasing me and is armed with a knife, gun, baseball bat, or oversized muscles! What if I have to goose it to avoid an accident? Will the power faail in the middle of my life saving manuver?? I learned to drive properly and was tested in order to get my license. I would much rather be in control of my speed that some computer that has electronic maps that might be out of synch with cars around me.
This issue is frought with concerns and I do not belive that partial control of a cars systems is a wise idea. If you're going to do an autopilot, do it right! Either leave the driving up to the driver's judgement or let him sit back and enjoy the ride. Don't frustrate someone in an already anoying position.
<This .sig left intentionally blank>
I don't understand the obsession governments have with regulating the speed of everybody's cars. If I am a good driver, why can't I go 80 miles per hour on an interstate? Of course I realize the need to keep everyone from zooming around school zones and residential neighborhoods, but do these people have any clue how *slow* 20 mph is, especially when you're slowing down from 40 or 50?
And what about the utter hypocrisy of speed limits? I've never seen a cop on the road who obeyed the speed limit, whatever it may have been. Local, County, State cops. All of them speed whenever they want and then park their cars on the median, pull out the lidar, and nab anybody doing 62 in a 55. What I love is the signs all over the LIE that say "State Speed Limit: 55" but then when I went up the NYS Thruway a couple of years ago, there were signs that read: "Speed Limit: 65." So the absolute maximum speed limit for the state is 55, unless it's not.
I think the driver's test should be modified to include some highway driving -- I don't think everybody is a good high-speed driver -- and the speed limit should be raised to 70 nationwide. Also, something has got to be done about the fines levied upon these heartless criminals who dare use their automobiles to their full potential. For example, When I came home from college this past September, I was stopped on I-95 in Connecticut in my mom's Volvo station wagon (loaded to the brim with bike, refrigerator, clothes, lamps, desktop computer, 17 inch monitor, tv, etc.). The officer said I was doing 77 (speed limit was 65). I tried explaining that I didn't think the car would go that fast, but he wrote the ticket anyway. I didn't look at it until I got home (Queens now) but when I did I was shocked. The officer was allowed to make up any fine he wanted, and he gave me a single ticket for $239. For going 77 in a 65, on an interstate. Well, I hit the roof, but I had to pay it.
The nation-wide, and, it seems, world-wide crackdown on speeders seems to me nothing more than government-sanctioned extortion. This, coupled with the hypocrisy of the police who so selectively enforce these laws, demonstrates the need for change. I don't really know what can change or be changed, I only know something must.
(I have nothing against police, mind you, I just think it's wrong for them to charge whatever they want of us [well, me, really] for a "crime" they commit several times a day.)
rooooar
is this for real? i mean...The masons? Methinks this poster is living in the 18th century, they are about as influential as the womens institute.
Am i the only person here who thinks this dosent sound such a bad idea? Sure there are privacy implications, but what we have here is a serious problem (deaths through road accidents). Surely us slashdotters should be commited to finding a technological solution, not going all luddite because we think we may be prevented form breaking the law. As to this bullshit about needing to accelerate away from danger, thats so damned simple, just make the first 60 seconds of acceleration 'free'. its easy to look at a graph of someones speed and distinguish between someone in trouble momentarily and someone just breaking the speed limit.
Come on guys, wake up and be adult about this, dont behave like spoiled kids worried their favourite toys might be taken away. I was recently in a 4 car pileup thanks to some arrogant speeding driver and i think if there is a technological solution to car accidents we are fools to ignore it.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
It seems to me that there is a spectrum of technologies and methods that governments use to enforce the laws of the land. In the case of speeding, the methods range:
Self-enforcement (i.e., for red lights)
Citizen reports
Random checking
Police monitoring by car
Police monitoring by aircraft
Automatic devices within the car (like the satelite example)
Automatic check points (like toll booths)
Other automatic systems (like roadside pictures, etc.)
I think most would agree that it is the proper role of the government to establish and enforce regulations, like speed limits, for the common good. The government has a right to enforce speeding laws to the fullest extent SO LONG as it does so in a manner that balances our other rights, such as the right to privacy.
I am not sure people realize it, but even in the good ol' US of A we have helicopter speed enforcement where they ticket hundreds of speeders on California highways in one fell swoop. In NYC, the EZPasses are used to automatically track your average speed between toll booths and can issue speeding tickets.
So the real question about this technology is: "What is different about the satellite tracking system than other forms of enforcement?"
The difference is that such a system would generate personal tracking data whose very existence is a threat to privacy, regardless of the policies for its use and technical safeguards implemented.
In the case of satellites, I don't believe the benefits of improved enforcement outweigh the risks associated with the loss of privacy.
Hey democracy lovers, add Quorum as a c
My opinions of guns is best summed up by this recent article on Salon.
Cheers,
Lars
************************************************ ***
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
This isn't so much of an argument about what is safer. It's an argument about forcing more restrictions upon how everyone goes about their daily business. (1984) If everyone rode a bicycle to work each day, I'm quite sure we'd have fewer deaths due to transporting ones self about. However, I think just about anyone would get a bit annoyed if their government decided "ok guys, no more cars, everyone has to ride their bike... because it's safer" (especially me with my 100 km commute)
What next, outlaw skiing and snowboarding because it's "not safe"?? I don't know when all goverments around the world decided to become our mothers, but I don't think it fits their job description. A Government should at most make sure there is at least a 51% chance that a device won't hurt you, rather than hurt you during normal use.
Just hoping to help to clarify-- please don't hurt me for dissenting.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
Roblimo asks:
Does anyone think *any* government could really get away with this?
The Japanese, possibly. Think about it, they have terrible traffic problems, a history of strong government regulation on domestic products & imports, and far less of the "right to drive" mentality that Americans and (to a lesser extent) Europeans have.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Most accidents happen DURING THE DAY. DURING RUSH HOUR. Most deadly accidents involve alcohol.
I've got a fantastic idea.. let's put a sprinkler system on the Titanic.
What are they not telling you, that is ALWAYS the issue. Can that stop your car at any time? Can they collect individual's driving data? Can this data be sold, published, or used in a court of law? How can it be used in a court of law.. could someone be implicated in a murder based solely on your car's data?
You're playing a deadly game of British Roulette in my oppinion.
And every Catholic Irishman knows that is he's near an explosion in England, he's guilty. Brits could take a lesson from them now.. A little rebellion now could save a bloody hell later.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Progressive has a black box they are putting into the cars of volunteer insurees in certain areas. The box lets them track your driving habits.. the times you drive, where you drive to, what parts of town you drive in, the kinds of roads you use, how often you make sudden lane changes and sudden decelerations, and most important, the speed you drive. Subscribers who allow them to attach this device to their car sometimes get better rates becuase their habits fall into the left hand side of the bell curve these insurance types reference before they take a dump. How long before your insurance company requires you to have one of these for the first 6 months they insure you? Heres a link to a recent story on the box.
Ohh yeah.. they patented it, so maybe that will slow down some of the other companies from adopting this.
Please check out http://www.sema.org/faq/obdIII.html
ODBIII is on it's way in the US and with it the prospect of monitoring from the side of the road and satellite for emmissions violations and possibly speed violations, etc.
It is also possible for police to remotely shut down specific 'speeding' cars.
I am surprised FOX isn't fighting against this. Think of how much programming they'd loose not having 'incredibly stupid police chases' shows.
I agree that here in the US eveyone would have a problem and any politician that tried that here would soon be out of a job. But in the UK this is something that would happen and the politician would still have a job. Here driving is considered almost a right rather than a privilage but in the UK driving is probably considered more of a privilage than a right. And there are less drivers in the UK than those have nots would be pushing for this more than the haves.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
I used to work in the automotive industry and some of the post in idustry news discussed the research going on in 'smart highways'. The concept is "certain" devices on the sides of the roads would regulate speed and help to regulate traffic congestion. (I guess sort of like Demolition Man.) Input your destination and off you go. If there was high traffic then the 'smart highways' would automatically select the quickest way to your destination.
This is one of those "good government" ideas--in the pejorative sense of bright ideas that haven't really been thought through. The premise here is that "speed kills"--so if we can make sure everybody drives at the speed limit, nobody will be killed.
Nice theory. But wrong.
Most speed-related fatalities happen when a driver is operating a vehicle relatively close to the speed limit--but in totally wrong conditions. If there are 8" of snow on the ground, and snow is falling at a rate of 3" per hour, doing 55 miles per hour on Interstate 80 is incredibly dangerous. On the other hand, if it is a clear day, nobody is on the road, and your car is in reasonable mechanical shape, you can safely drive 80 miles per hour. Put 100,000 other cars on the same road, and once again driving at the speed limit constitutes reckless driving.
It rains, occasionally, in Britain. Like, say, every day. The appropriate speed in the rain, the appropriate speed in heavy traffic, the appropriate speed in heavy traffic while its raining, and the speed limit are four dramatically distinct numbers.
Trucking companies have used "governors" for years to limit speeding by their drivers. A number of trucking companies in the U.S. monitor driver speeds, believing that there is a correlation between higher speeds and greater damage claims. (There is some basis for this: if hitting a pothole in Pennsylvania makes the trailer bounce 4" at 55 mph, how high will the trailer bounce if you hit that pothole at 65 mph? A number of trucking companies have speed limits for Pennsylvania in particular, because of the lousy roads in Pa.) Anybody using governors will quickly discover the response of drivers--every single driver now drives at the maximum governed speed. Pretty much regardless of the circumstances. And that maximum governed speed, in the dark, in the rain (or snow), can be a dangerous thing.
The are a number of advocacy groups that decry public expressions of illiteracy. John Dos Passos and others have periodically made public protestations against "innumeracy"--the blithe acceptance of bogus figures or statistics. Perhaps it is time to protest something similar: the belief in a technological silver bullet that will somehow substitute for human judgement.
Once you have location management in all cars, you can simply bill the car for parking in a metered space! Think about the convinience of not having to fumble for coins. Then, we can automatically ticket cars for parking in the wrong spot; the car computer will have a record of it. Then there are all the possibilities for subpoenas in things like divorce, competitive intelligence, any time you want to know where someone's been. On the bright side, it'll increase the criminal use of taxis, so we'll have to be sure to install video cameras in those. England was once fond of liberty. Oh well.
The introduction to this article needs restating - the cars aren't talking to any satellites at all, just receiving GPS signals. The car has an onboard database of speed limits.
Thus, with no back-channel, simply disabling it is no problem and noone will know.
This kind of crap is one of the few reasons I'm still happy to be in the US - at least our politicians are still somewhat bright, in that they know that nothing like this would ever fly here. Every device of this type in an American car would be disabled five minutes after the car left the lot. Besides, it wouldn't be implemented for ten years after being announced, what with all the court battles over it.
I was in the UK driving a few months ago. I rented a car and found the following. 1) Most major freeways are 70 MPH. Unless you're driving in the middle of town the other roads are 50 MPH.
And when I say other roads, I mean roads that in the US that would be 30 MPH are rated at 50. These roads curve all over the place. Often don't have shoulders, and are much narrower than US roads. And even when the roads do have shoulders people are parked there. You couldn't fit a GMC Suburban on most of the roads.
Although I generally don't like the whole big brother deal I must say that if you're breaking the speed limit in the UK, you are driving unsafe.
Semi Trucks already have speed governors on them in most of Europe. Many parts of Europe already make comercial cars and trucks put speed meters in that make paper logs of the vehicle speed. If you get pulled over the Cop they pull the paper out of the meter and give you a ticket for however fast it says you were going.
The rampant paranoia of the slashdotters never ceases to amaze me
It's only a feasibility study... It's not like it's going to happen next week!
Fatty Prescott is such a liability that if Tony has any sense he's bound to kick Prescott out of the cabinet (and maybe upstairs - out of HM Gov) before the next election. Prescott can't open his mouth without sticking his foot in it. This - for non UK people - is the guy who goes around saying how everyone should use public transport - then gets in his Jaguar (one of his Jaguars - they call him "Two Jags") to go 250 yards - and explains he only did this so his wife's hair wasn't messed up and not because he's an idle fat git).
You "Ooh! It's the New World Order" people should get a life.
To be honest this does not surprise my that much. The London circular already has distance/time averaging based on OCR of number plates and whilst this is only currently being tested (with 4000 speeders identified in the first week alone according to local news reports) I would expect that within the year I will be recieving fines through the post after speeding around the M25...
Remember the CJA anyone? (Surely more harmful to personal liberties than anything else) Well that got through parliament with no difficulty... The only reason I see preventing this from getting through parliament is some serious lobbying from manufacturers and motorists citing increased prices etc....
The government has openly stated that speeding is it's number one offence on the road and that it will be taking 'measures' to reduce the risks to motorists. It just didn't make it clear how drastic these would be.
Considering the amount of acceptance for 'Big Brother' tactics from the uneducated middle classes in the UK at present, I don't think it will be long until the government is driving our cars via satellite, fining us for speeding, charging us for use of the motorway and all on top of our car tax and petrol levies... Gimme wings and I'll fly...
-- Ego is nothing without Arrogance to back it up! --
It seems to me there would be a strong surge in used, pre-2000ish cars that would not contain this technology. I think all a law like this would actually accomplish is to wreck the new car industry. (Was that a pun?)
;)
Having had the pleasure of driving in England on a trip last year, I find it hard to believe that motorists in the UK could possibly function at less that 75mph on an "M" road. Talk about white-knuckles...
Well now, this really gets my goat. If the government (either US or over seas) put half the money into better educating drivers or funding auto safety research, we wouldn't need these rediculous devices. How about making a rigerous driving school which teaches everything from changing a spare tire to driving at high speeds mandatory in the US? How about giving money to the manufacturers to research how to make their cars safer in high-speed collisions?
I know *I* wouldn't want one of these things slowing me down if I was trying to get away from some nut beside me in a minivan waving a gun around...
ALG
Driving Enthusiast
Why not just have a lighted digital display on the outside of the car saying what speed the car is moving at? Or at least a light that goes on if a car is moving faster than 65 mph?
Even as great a proponent I am for rights to privacy, I cannot see how this would be reasonably objectionable since a speeding car can be very dangerous. It doesn't stop someone who needs to speed (to get to a hospital or avoid an accident...) from speeding when necessary, and it makes it extremely easy for a cop to give a fair ticket.
It's relatively cheap to implement, saves lives, saves fuel, and will make it easier for cops to make the roads safer.
I've been wondering about this idea for a long time. It seems reasonable for police to ticket speeders even though people always try to get out of their tickets.
The problem is that police have a hard time determining exactly what speed cars are moving at. And yet every car has a perfectly good speedometer in it.
This is just awful; why doesn't Tony Blair just fit us with computer chips and be done with?
Wendy, UK
I think that this is a bad idea: not because of personal liberty, but because it will remove the only job that the UK police can actually do! They are hopeless at catching murderers or burglars: what will they do when they don't have the "soft option" of motorists to pick on?
Ian Lowe, Scotland, UK
The GPS satellites only transmit radio waves that the receivers interpret. They don't know nor care how many are listening.
Hmm -- I just thought of this: what if the transponder is disabled or modified?
Tampering with the system will be a felony.
Soon, driving older non-compliant (i.e. classic) cars will only be permitted for parades, auto shows, etc. not for daily driving. Only "compliant" cars may be driven routinely on public roads.
There's a two-fold trend here: 1) more govt monitoring and intrusion into personal lives
2) The eventual elimination of personal transportation vehicles altogether. The average Joe cannot afford to buy a new car anymore. Soon all older cars will be off the road. Only the rich will be able to afford their own cars and everyone else must either stay at home or use public transportation, that way it is easier to monitor where everyone is or where they go. Eventually most of the rich people will no longer be able to use their expensive cars because fuel will become exhorbitantly expensive due to taxes intended to destroy the concept of private transportation(i.e. eventually up to US$100 per gallon and you must first be licensed to purchase fuel). This scenario is only about 4 or 5 years away from now. Scary.
Exactly what human rights does this violate?
I'm guessing that a lot of the posters here assume that the satellite somehow tracks the position of every car, and the government can watch your movements. That's not the system described in the article: the device in the car gets its location through GPS, and limits the maximum speed accordingly. I don't see any privacy or human rights issues here.
There are a couple of problems: the first is mentioned in the article, the danger that some drivers would just floor it for the duration of the journey and let the machine keep their speed legal (as my driving instructor used to say, it's a limit not a target).
Secondly, although I'd discount the "escape from carjackers, volcanoes etc" arguments, there are many occasions when I feel it is reasonable to exceed the speed limit momentarily. If you're stuck behind a tractor on a windy road, and you're on the only straight for tens of miles, you want to overtake as quickly as possible, to stay on the wrong side of the road for as short a time as possible. When you get back in your lane, then you return to the correct speed limit.
I *would* argue that while vehicles have become safer (better brakes, visibility, etc), the speed limits are still designed for the cars of the 1970s.
Perhaps the most reasonable way to deploy these things would be to make them an option, and to subsidise the cost of purchase (from road tax). If it were cheap enough, I'd certainly consider buying one -- I'd like to stay under 30mph in built up areas, but frankly it's a challenge. It just seems to slow.
One more thing. My car, and most I've driven, like to be in third gear at 30 MPH, and fourth gear at about 40MPH and higher. Most cars in the UK have a manual gearbox -- I can't see this device being safe unless it works in conjunction with an automatic gearbox... Hmmmm.
--
Reality check..
"Give me your car."
"no." Punch in the face, pulled out, kicked down..
"Give me your car"
"Okay."
Call police, they track car, swarm with police and shut off the engine via remote... It's like lojacking every car in the country..
Besides, how many car jackings where there in the whole of the UK last year? Insanely few I bet.. How many gun touting car jackers are willing to chase you down and kill you in a car to car shoot out? Zero. How many people would car jack a car with an active satallite tracker and remote shutdown? Zero..
Well a gross privacy loss, this technology wouldn't be all bad by any means..
Why not fit breath test meters on a car so it wont start unless you're below the limit.
It would probably reduce the amount of Drunk drivers on Britains roads.
But it could also be fooled.
A passenger could take the test.
But if the passengers stupid enought ot let someone over the limit drive, they probably should be locked up.
I cannot BELIEVE that Click and Clack had the balls to come out on the air and say that it should be illegal to sell/buy cars that were "too powerful" (in their Hog-Fucking opinion). These guys are the Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman of the auto world, and here they come across sounding like Bill Gates. Pricks.
Fuck Slashdot
Think about it. No more car chase scenes in movies. No more Fox's Scariest Car Chases (of course, the police would have their devices removed, so any chases would be over pretty quickly.) No more _Speed_ movies (since the bus would just automatically blow up when they hit a side street). I'd rather see a satellite that could detect the stupidity level of the driver behind the wheel. Then a signal would be sent to another satellite, and a huge frickin' laser would disintegrate the driver, while the original satellite safely guided their now driverless car to the shoulder. I can provide the license plate numbers of several candidates.
This seems similar to a system i read about that let parents keep track of their teenagers' driving habits...it entailed the use of sensors to monitor things like speed, brake temperature (for hard braking), and g-forces (for hard turning/accelleration), etc. The parents could transfer this info into a computer for veiwing, and punish their kids accordingly ;)
Anyone else heard of this?
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Rememeber: All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
Lets see em try to install one of those gizmos in a 69 Vet Stingray roaring down the highway......hehe
I'll skip the political and legal ramifications of this. They have already been talked to death. But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that this system is put into place, and that the satellite only sends out speed data, relying on the vehicle to check on and limit itself to the legal speed.
Can you imagine what would happen if someone hacked that satellite? Some April 1, somebody decides it would be really funny to set the speed limit on a residential road to 100, and the speed limit on a major highway to 10. That could really screw up your commute.
Or perhaps a work of industrial/economic espionage. Slow all traffic into a city, or perhaps just people going to a major event. Terrorism uses of technology like this are also quite limitless.
Then again, with some creative programming, I could cut my commute down to 5 minutes and make everyone else late...
Whee! Now that is the way to do terrorism!
First, we'll assume that the UK gov't is smart enough to make the system such that it can't make a car go faster than the driver wants. This is a giant if but I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt. We'll also assume that this system couldn't possibly be used to get direct control of a vehicle. Even so, this system is still dangerous.
For example, we could use it to stall a car on the train tracks, as a train approaches. Hell, with a railway timetable, I could cause cars to stall at every crossing in the country at exactly the right moment for each crossing . . .
Or we could use it to slow cars down, thereby blocking the emergency vehicles that are trying to reach the site of the latest bomb blast.
Or we could use it to stall every single car in the greater London area, thereby causing enormous chaos and financial loss.
Hell, why not just stall every single car in the entire UK? The country would be in ruins!
Note that serious hack/terrorism attacks would not require breaking the satellite security! A local transmitter would usually suffice. Given time and effort, you could just snoop on the sat transmissions, and awwaaayyy you go . . .
Read the article. This is not a monitoring technology. The car finds out where it is via GPS (hence satellite), and controls its own speed accordingly. The satellites merely broadcast.
Would it be more acceptable if rather than apply the brakes, a speaker were to sound an alarm whenever the car exceeds the current speed limit?
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FYI: I've seen a (military) toy that can cause a GPS RX to display the wrong location ...
threadeds blog
People who love to drive love the freedom of driving. This may be not true in a huge traffic jam, but driving in general is fun. The main feature of the system is control, but who do you trust? You or a computer system that is 15 mi in space. A small bug in the software or during solar flare can cost thousands of life.
- Etam
Isn't there already a little instrument in your car that measures speed? Just add some electronics that prevents the car from going more than 120 km/h and you've solved most of the problem.
And actually, this is a case where I consider that my right not to get hit by a car doing 160 km/h is stronger than your right to do 160 km/h.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
So, in your opinion, guns are there to prevent tyranny. Right. How? When? I can, however, think of people who would agree with you - terrorists. Look at the Republican and Unionist groups in Northern Ireland for example. They have cut broad swathes through innocent civilians in their attempts to enforce their political opinion by non-democratic methods. So, flamebait, get real and get out of here.
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"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
just my $0.02
However, I would put money on this system only initially being applied to motorways (freeways in US parlance) - the safest roads in Britain.
If the UK government is serious about reducing raod deaths, they need to enforce and reduce urban and country speed limits, and leave the motorways alone - there was another idea floated by the Reverend Tony to drop the national speed limit for single carriage way roads to 50, to enforce it with speed cameras (almost all speed cameras are on motorways at the mo), and to leave the motorway limit at 70. That would save far more lives and injuries more easily than this cretinous scheme.
(I speak as someone who is assiduous in sticking to urban and single carriageway speed limits)
--
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
Most accidents happen in leafy suburban roads with people accelerating to 40 in a 30 zone mowing down pedestrians on the way. Motorway accidents account for relatively few deaths as a percentage.
A satellite based system would be dumb. It'll take 2 seconds for a signal to get to the satellite, another 2 seconds to be beamed back down to the processing centre, X seconds of processing time (say 2), another 2 seconds to be beamed back up to the satellite and another 2 seconds to be beamed back to the car telling it to slow down.
That's 10 seconds, about 5 seconds too late. Then you've got launch costs, operating centre costs, single point of failure with a satellite.
Basically, it isn't going to happen.
In any event a better solution would be a mandatory acceleration and top speed limiter. Some people would try to get arround it, but make it part of the MOT checks etc.
Deleted
Please read the original BBS article. Monitoring won't be happening with this. GPS receivers don't have transmit capability. The phrase "allow satellites to monitor" was incorrectly introduced by the article submitter. Though, in fairness to the submitter, the BBS figure showed the GPS "communicating" with the satellite.
SQ
Given current trends in the U.S., expect this to happen sometime in the future.
It's about freedom people--the freedom to be able to judge for oneself how best to behave, or in this case, drive.
Our government is currently on an unintended witchhunt to ban all activities which are extremely newsworthy and/or statistically a threat to people's security. The most obvious example is gun control. Statistically, gun accidents are rare. But boy are they newsworthy! This gives self-serving politicians an issue to champion, constitutional amendment or not.
The same arguments will be used to press for mandatory governers in all automobiles and maybe this satellite monitoring system. After that, maybe they'll mandate the use of helmets in all bathtubs. Somewhere, sometime, (at least 20 years into the future) enough clueless voters will be tricked into thinking these are "issues" which need further regulation.
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
This is a country that cannot even have a phone network worth a damn, and they are going to do this? This is where everyone uses cellular because the landlines suck so badly, and you get to pay per minute for local calls. This is where people throwing concerts worth millions of #'s cannot even get better than an ISDN line to webcast their event. I just got back from the UK two days ago, and honestly the limies are OUT OF THEIR HEAD if they don't tend to more important issues first. Namely improving their communications infrastructures.
This is just another case of being able to do something and thus considering actually doing it. Considering that the use will need to pay for the cellular airtime (GSM in the case for the Brits) means that the business case for this actually being implimented will fail! Can you imagine the government saying to you that you'll need to pay an extra $5-20 per month just so your vehicle can comply with speed limits? (Imagine how much fun it would be to "enter some data base values" which caused drivers to have to drive at 5 mph on the expreesway??) >
Some more practical uses for this type of technology can be seen at http://www.mot.com/telematics.
Well the system uses GPS which is not exactly that accurate, more accurate than stars etc to find you position but not accurate as in you can black out your windows of your car and navigate using GPS alone.
:)
So what happens when you drive near a motorway, hmm seems to think I can go very fast here, or even better the motorway goes over or under or near a 30 zone and suddenly the guy behind you is rapidly filling thier pants as your car slows down from 70 - 30, not by using the brakes (which would light up) but by cutting down on the fuel.
Now when I overtake I don't want the fuel to cut off when I am on the wrong side of the road and can see cars comming towards me. Hmmm that might kill a few people, or any situation where flooring it gets you out of trouble.
Speed does not kill, driving stupidly does, there is a difference and they do not equate to each other. Another thing is that in the UK when you get a fine for speeding it goes straight to the treasury and does not get ploughed back into road safety, bit like our road tax as well, which has most of it's money go to the government coffers.
So really this is not going to happen for technical, political and revenue reasons. Anyway I would love to know where the figures come from for saving lives, dream on.
Well looks like I had better hang onto my Lotus a bit longer just in case.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
isn't to force cars to slow down, but to allow cars to manage themselves. I have much better things to do with my time on a long trip than drive. If I could get onto a 'smart' road, tell my car where I wanted to go, and then read, or work, or sleep until I got there, I would. With the car being managed for me, as a convience, its acceptable. With the car being managed for me because my judgement isn't good enough, its insulting.
- No malice; you didn't kill them with intent to do them harm, you did it to protect yourself.
- No forethought; you didn't go out looking to hurt someone, it was forced upon you.
- Generally, no unlawfulness; self-defense is a lawful act and killing is reasonable if there was no other way to stop the threat in time (reasonable force).
All that aside, how could you possibly implement such a thing? If someone is carelessly or recklessly (but not maliciously) doing something that threatens to kill you or a member of your family, would the anti-murder device stop you from using a possibly-deadly amount of force to guarantee that they are stopped before anyone else gets hurt? I can see some validity in psychologically conditioning the chronically violent to put brakes on their impulses, but the world is just too complicated for any "anti-murder" device to work unless it is far smarter *and* quicker than a human being. At that point, humans are pretty much irrelevant anyway.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
it follows that seatbelts are not always life/injury saving in collisions other than straight crashes into fixed objects and head-on crashes with other vehicles. no crash is head-on-government-test-perfect. how'd you like to be held in place by a belt while the other vehicle/object bends the door inward and squashes you? the surgeon does not have to pick out glass, but deals with squashed people with severe internal injuries. such blanket statements are made by stupid and unimaginative people, regardless of occupation.
i've always worn a seatbelt while driving/riding. one must be ready to release it or duck if necessary. compacency and stupidity kills.
Evil NSA people are going to track your cars every move and know all your car related secrets.. Personally, that's a big 'so what' for me.. My car will be unstealable and no one will be able to drive like a moron? That's pretty appealing..
Think 100 years down the road.. All cars (or whatever) will be on a universal automatic traffic control system.. It's the only logical way to do it. There is a privacy loss, but personally I think it's acceptable..
The privacy thing is really only an issue because a 'loss' in involved.. Compair it to telephones.. Phones have always been trackable.. 'They' can know who I call, when I call them, and what I say. Yet no one complains too much, and the legal system generally makes it all work out.. As long as as warrent is required to log any single trackers actions, I think I could live with this. If 'they' can convince a judge to tap my car, they could have just as easilly tapped my phone or installed their own bug. If they don't get a judge to sign off, it's not admissable and I walk on the whole deal most likely.
IMO, the payoff is worth the loss.. Lojack would be out of business though. They cost way more then 200 quid.
Besides, I'm totally sick of living in fear that someone in a $200 rust bucket driving like an idiot is going to trash my nice shiney car.. No more speeding teenagers, traffic management that really works, sounds great to me.. Hell, I'd make my car trackable on the web so people could figure out where I am and page me if someone steals it..
I agree that it would be nice to have the speeding idiots take themselves out of the gene pool - but all to often it's the people in the other car they hit/cutoff that pay the price. There never seems to be a convenient Semi around when you need one...
People will be upset since they feel they have the right to be stupid - and they do - as long they themselves are the only victims of their stupidity.
First they burn books, then they burn people.
Well logically, the faster you drive the more likely you'll be involved in a fatal accident if you have an accident. If you have a head-on with both of you doing 70 you're probably going to be toast.
But don't misconstrue that I'm saying that speeding itself causes the accident. It's bad driving. Some people couldn't drive safely at 40 mph! Splitting hairs I know, ;-) but I'm just sick of the catch phrase world. It would be more accurate to say, "Bad Driving Kills."
Not sure who said this but, "Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot. Anyone driving faster is a maniac!"
This revolutionary law goes far beyond speeding control and nice concern for your health. Speeding control would be simply achieved as it is in some southern US states by putting a hard limit in the anonymous fuel injection system software.
With embedded ID, this can stop and immobilize actually anybody based on speed, criminal record, random suspicion, race, political opinion, religious belief and sexual disorientation.
All automaticaly, witout paying hundreds of policeman, whose conscience makes them unreliable.
Blessed are those, who had a chance to live in the 'dark' ages! Get ready for another, yet darker century.
Petrus
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
-- John F. Kennedy
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
How about just installing a simple device so that the car can not go above a certain speed limit! And that just proves that they are so stupid that the idea will not go live anyway.....
Anyway, where I'm going with this is if motor-vehicle electronics keep going the way they are, and with stuff like this, I figure there'll be a cottage industry for hacked components. I'd like to see a whole replacement set you can bypass automotive lameness if you want to ('course, you might KILL yourself in the process, but hey..)
-- The unsig...
european liberal marxist bastard. like the guy who breaks into my house with a knife "stop for a sec, lemme dial 911"
What bugs me is the lack of commonsense about speeding (and drink-drive limits).
It's NOT speeding that kills, but POOR, DANGEROUS
DRIVING - where speeding may be PART of the problem but most of the problem lies in the
attitude, ignorance or lack of skill of the driver.
20mph around a narrow road's blind bend is FAR
more dangerous than 100 mph on a motorway.
It all depends on the conditions. I'll be very
cheesed off if I ever get booked for what I
consider safe driving.
A lot of pissed-up drivers kill themselves and
others when steaming drunk. There are never any
figures released showing whether any deaths
result from drivers who have had one unit over
the limit. I want the facts, and I want them now!
+Bah!+
I also like the way the article mentions that itwill "cut total road deaths by UP TO 2/3" [emphasis mine]. Well, what if it doesn't? Do you think for a second that the law requiring these devices will be repealed? Not a chance. The British government is getting very good at justifying their actions, (in the U.S., we're faced with the "we need this to protect the children" mantra), and (at least in Britain) the people are getting very good at responding like a mindless herd of sheep.
Let's look at another example...the U.S. spent a couple hundred million to construct a "Y2K preparedness facility," or somesuch. Now that most of the Y2K concern has abated, they're talking about using it for dealing with other "technical emergencies". While it would surely be a waste of taxpayer money to decommission the facility after such a short time in service, it's no different that the ENDLESS waste that occurs in Washington, where funds are allocated to build Navy ships that aren't requested, parking garages that aren't used, and roads that don't go anywhere. The upside is that once it's out of service, the fed can't use it for anything that wasn't intended to begin with. With projects like Echelon lurking in the mist, it's wasted in the most productive way possible.
how else did the US become free from england? with guns you dumbass.
This is a logical extension to current speed limit laws. They have said for years that speeding is the number one cause of death in an automobile. That is how they justify the big fines. I have always complained that these fines serve nothing more than a tax, because:
1. Most people speead.
2. They could stop most speeding by arrangments with auto manufactures.
a. Limit top speed via smaller engines.
b. Limit top speed via governers.
c. Limit top speed via external sensors/satellites.
3. Speeding fines generate revenue.
I applaud a government that is concerned about saftey more than money. I really don't know the Brits motives though.
If automatic speed regulation was to happen, I see:
1) More accidents do to congestion, speed limits raise.
2) Electric cars replace gas cars. The era of the fast/powerful sports car is dead.
3) Eventually, as we get more cars, there is no safe speed with manual driving. Either we go to fully automatic driving or mass transit.
Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, on the whole, they suck at it. About 40.000 killed annually in the USA alone should show us that.
We know software is never foolproof, programmers and engineers fuck up, etc., but still, I think a suitable team could make a system that would keep more of its users alive, take better routes, use less energy, etc., etc.
"But the average red-blooded American working stiff likes driving and won't give up that feeling of being free and in control for anything!".
<sigh> For the sake of 40.000 people a year, the average red-blooded American can grow up!
PS. Sorry for the US-centric post, but I wanted to fit in "red-blooded American". Just pretend we're all American for the moment.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
This would probably not work as well with an automatic transmission because the computer uses the output speed to determine critical things like torque-converter slip and clutch locking.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Not even delving into how this is just another way goverments add more control over our lives hiding behind reasoning that they're making everything safer for us. (Since when is it governments' job description to be our mothers?) I can see exactly how this will be (I think someone used the phrase) "a monument of unexpected consequences" I'm not sure whether this restricts fuel, adjusts the entire throttle system or whatever, but there are a few problems I can see with this. (I'm trying to mention ones previously not already mentioned) Lets say I'm driving in my car, a very sleek sports coupe, it's very lightweight, aerodynamically sane and only has a 2 liter engine. I'm poking along with my foot on the floor yet only going 45 miles an hour due to this nice restricting device. There is a Ford Bronco in front of me, it has a huge 351, butt-loads of torque, and the aerodynamic equivelent of a 3 meter tall brick wall. We hit a 35 mph speed zone, the bronco cuts fuel, air whatever and begins to slow down, then my car hits the zone and cuts fuel, my car is going to coast right into the back of the Bronco unless I apply the breaks. I can picture many accidents that will happen at night time because people didn't see any break lights from the car in front slowing down, and either rear-end someone or slam on their breaks and get rear-ended. Obviously, if you are paying attention this isn't going to be a problem, but I have a feeling many people will just get used to having their foot on the gas all the way, it's one step towards automation and I have a feeling it's one more excuse for people to be less alert.
Of this there is no question.
If I spend $70,000 on a Dodge Viper, then I should be able to take it out onto a deserted country road (which my tax dollars help to maintain, thank you very much) and run it up to 160 MPH. The whole concept of speed limits is a socialist invention to get people to think in a herd mentality. "Oh, we must all do as the government says," they say. No way, I say. It's my car, and it's my life, goddammit. I say this: if the United States ever adopted a "satellite system" like the one being discussed here, that would be more than enough reason to engage in a violent cleansing of the government.
Yes, I'm nutty. But uberlibertarians have cars too. It's my car. It's my road. I should be able to do whatever the hell I want to do so long as I don't endanger others (and please don't think I'm advocating driving 160 MPH in a school zone or anything like that!)
Me too. Following a 25-30mph vehicle is a right
old yawn. I can feel my stress levels rising!
I tend to watch the scenery or daydream!
With a clear road I usually manage between 40
and 50 (our limit is 40 here!) and I'm wide
awake enjoying myself, in full control of (even
"at one with"!) the car.
I am SO fed up with other people governing my
life! It's like they think we're all primates,
they're the only ones with any brainpower, we
are not as capable as they are! Tossers.
At best beating any motor control system will be easy. You can bet the software and hardware will be posted worldwide in seconds of the 'GPS Speed Control Crack'. -d
It should be remembered that GPS is a one way system. The receiver in the car will be able to use GPS to determine its precise location, but then it must consult an on-board map to determine the speed limit. At no time is the location of the car transmitted to the satellite, which means there is no worry of the government tracking you.
Having said all that I don't think I'd be too happy with it installed in any car I drive - for the very same reason I don't like automatic transmissions, traction control or any thing else that makes the car do something I didn't tell it to.
They go after the wrong people, were forced to admit to being institutionally racist, and generally couldn't police a picnic. I'm sorry to the few good coppers out there, but the vast majority of UK police (especially the Met) simply take the easy arrests to meet their quota. Think Chief Wiggum with a really sadistic streak and you've got em.
Sorry.. ranted again
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
> My opinions of guns is best summed up by this recent article on Salon.
...". Until now. The fact is, the right to keep and bear arms is GUARANTEED by our Constitution in this country. "The tree of liberty is nourished by the blood of patriots." is a quote I'm rather fond of - a quote that expressed the sentiment at the time of its coining that we should fight for our freedoms, and remain strong in order to secure them. Well, now King George is President Bill, and the situation is the same. I can assure you that, deep down, there is that nugget of fear of armed rebellion that keeps our government from passing very, very oppressive laws. It's not because those in power are good-hearted; of that you can be sure.
Funny, that.
IIRC, the kids that shot up the school at Columbine were in violation of not less than like 25 existing gun laws. These violations would have landed them in prison for the rest of several of their lives.
The problem is not that we don't have stringent enough gun laws - it's that the gun laws that we have aren't enforced!
Why is it that, if I don't do anything illegal with my guns, I should be forced to give them up because some (group of) idiots has done something stupid with theirs?
Substitute the word "computer" for the word "firearm" in any gun law you care to read the text for, and see if you like the resultant restrictions on your right to pursue your happiness through your interaction with your favorite computer, then you'll see what the NRA folks are up in arms (so to speak) about.
+ Some people actually do like to use guns for sport.
+ Since we've obliterated entire classes of indigenous predators, we (humans - sportsmen)
must use guns to control populations of certain animals (this is why we have hunting seasons).
+ Some people really like to collect old or unusual guns (one of my friends has an old KayPro
computer he fired up to test its Y2K compliance - which it passed with flying colors, allowing
him to merrily play a game of text-mode donkey kong or somesuch - would you deny him that?).
+ Guns are even useful for (gasp!) self defense! In every (not just some, but every) state
in which concealed carry has passed, crime has dropped (not just NRA numbers, but real, solid,
official government statistics). Criminals, it seems, are less likely to mug someone if there is
a distinct possibility of that person pulling out a gun and wiping them out of existence.
It's all about rationality - would you mug me if I could potentially shoot you?
Now, to wax a little philosophical - I believe in the concept of liberty. My right to swing my fist ending at the tip of your nose, and all. If I don't harm you in any way by owning a gun, why should you have any right or reason at all, in any way, shape or form, to dictate to me that I cannot own one, thus injuring me?
All this, and I didn't even go on a rant about "a well-organized militia being necessary,
My rant is done for now, but I urge you to think about the matter a little more before blindly saying, "guns are bad". The old saw goes, "guns don't kill people - people kill people." And that's the truth. Punish the criminals and leave the law-abiding to their own devices.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Maybe they just want to track people and really don't care about speeding. I mean if you can't put an implant in someone, at least you know they can't get far without their car. I don't think this has anything to do with speeding at all, only being able to track citizens by sat. The speeding part and slowing you down is just a cover, and a very good one at that.
Your tinfoil hat is obviously worn out; I suggest getting a bigger one.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I also saw a thing on TV (one of those Beyond 2000 things) where the car checked the status of upcoming traffic lights and calculated the optimum (legal) speed to avoid most of them. It didn't force you to GO that speed, but it helped if you paid attention to it. Always wondered why that never took off.
This is definitely going way too far. Speeding is a problem, yes, but it can be controlled without resorting to such Big Brother-ish methods (you know they're going to install tracking devices in the cars along with this satellite thing too; it's simply too easy to resist).
A better solution would be as follows. The speed limit in a given area is broadcast on some radio frequency (a convenient place would be at each road sign, using what would end up being a very inexpensive transmitter since it only has to use one frequency and transmit only one thing). The vehicle would have a device inside which renders it incapable of exceeding the speed it "hears" from these transmitters.
Because the transmitters cannot recieve data, privacy is protected (since the vehicle cannot be tracked). It also stops the problem of speeding. And even though it means installing a lot of transmitters, in the end it's probably cheaper than launching a network of satellites and installing even more satellite recievers. It is cheaper for the car manufacturers, tool the technology is less expensive.
Now, I do have objections to forcing the cars down to the speed limit, of course. For one, the limits are often set ridiculously low, because the laws tend to use blanket formulas that don't apply well to some areas where faster speeds are safe, but because of the designation it's set slower than it needs to be. For another, I wonder if the British government realizes just how much revenue speeding tickets generate; you can kiss that goodbye (yeah, that's a self-serving reason, but to governments ever have any other kind?)
Like killing people.
The MI speed limit went up to 70 mph in 8/96. In that year MI saw 1510 traffic fatalities, 141,007 traffic injuries and owing to 434,135 crashes. Overal fatality rate was 1.7. For '97, MI saw 1446 highway fatalities and 124,777 injuries in 386,795 total crashes (a fairly dramatic drop.) Fatality rate stayed at 1.7. Now, for the sake of comparrison, lets look at '95 (during this enitre year the speed limit was 65 mph): 1537 fatalities, 146,303 injuries in 421,073 crashes-- fatality rate of 1.8.
Is this conclusive? No. Is it interesting? Sure, if you like traffic data, it's pretty fascinating. Daddy loves his MDOT.
FYI, MDOT is trying to move towards a "rational" 85 percentile rule (where the speed limit is set at 85% of that which most drives go when no limit is posted.) I don't know what that would put the limit at, but I certainly like the idea of rational, experimentally derived laws, rules and regulations.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
Check out this web site. If you think the US won't find a way to weasel this stuff into cars, you're wrong.
http://www.sema.org/faq/obdIII.html#whatisobd
Once the idea is laid down, it's only a matter of time.
The limit's 70, but most people drive at about 80-95mph.
That however is nothing. Germans drive at 150mph on 2 lane autobahns. Now, *that* is some scary shit. Cruisin along at 130mph, look in the mirror - nothing, next second there's a Mercedes screaming up behind you at 190mph.
Why do you think the best Formula 1 drivers are German?
Deleted
The police won't allow such a device in the U.S. After all, impossability is an excellent defence against a speeding ticket. A number of small town would dry up and blow away without the revenue. Sadly, I'm only half joking.
the reasons are simple: - speeding tickets are a great income for the state. using this system they would be the same as disallowing the sale of cigarettes. - the car industry won't allow it. why for god sake would somebody buy a porsche/bmw/audi/merc? i mean, hell my fiat can go as just fast and i'm not gonna pay 10 times the price for "just" more comfort. - it's dangerous, i think in the beginning there will be more accidents instead of avoiding them. btw: i don't have a fiat it was just an example :))
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
All of the comments I have read on this thread seem to be missing on some of the deeper issues that touch more than just law and limitations. We are in an age where technology can accomplish what the convention could not. The question is not whether the government can or cannot pass legislation to regulate the behavior of the masses, but if they should use technology and the computer chip to replace the reasoning and experience of a seasoned police officer.
There is not a reasonable, thinking adult out there that would agree that a computer could apply the same logic to a situation that the human brain could. Yes, there are advances in Artificial Intelligence, but they are far from perfect, and definitely far from reliable.
Assuming that this automotive speed daemon (Oh, I see the puns now) does limit the speed of a driver, what type of interaction with the driver would be present? Would a display pop up on his/her windshield HUD informing them of an emminant slowdown if they are to continue at their present speed, exceeding the speed limit? If the satellite does slow down the vehicle, how will it decide when it is safe to do so for the driver and all involved? Would you, as a driver, appreciate having been regulated by an inatimate object, or would you prefer to know that there is someone observing and approving this proactive approach to slowing you down?
*rofl* I could just imagine an interface of the classic "Frogger" being used by the traffic controllers at command central!
This topic is far from closed. As technology advances, people will see new ways of regulating and enforcing policy decisions, business, public, or private, that they could not otherwise do. Ethics debates will ever be present and will have to evolve with our continued advancement. Right or wrong, technology is here to stay and it's going to be used. We just have to be wise in how it is used.
assert(expired(knowledge));
It has been mentioned that large vehicles must have a speed limiter but many commercial production cars have one too, including mine. It cuts the fuel to the engine at 114mph and is usually called a govenor. Many cars have this "feature" so do most mopeds and motorcycles.
Just read your owners manual for the details on the negative effects of depriving an engine of gas at 114mph to see why this is a bad idea, and why involve a satalite?
Consider that we have 100 times more government than we did in 1776. One way the government does this is by proposing such an outrageous law at first, and then many people people will actually be relieved when the final law that is passed ONLY monitors your driving and doesn't remotely control your car. Another technique is to claim there is a crisis. For example, over 30,000 people die on the roads each year!!! Can't you already see the tearful mothers testifying before Congress on TV? Another technique is to point out that other western nations, such as Britain, has even less freedom. It does not make me feel any better to know that we are not as far along the road to serfdom as other nations.
I heard an interview on the radio this morning with the guy that's been heading up the research. It seems that it just uses the normal GPS satelites to cross reference the car's current position with a database of road locations and speed limits. So the box in the car works out the speed limit based on the car's current position and enforces it there. The data path is one way only, from the satelite to the car.
Of course the government (US) could get away with it. Put it under the CAFE legislation, and poof, it is in every car in the next 3 years.
Of course, they would have all their cars custom built or modified, claiming "Senate immunitiy" like they do in all their drunk driving stops.
But yes, the government can get away with such legislation. Need I remind you of all the states that have seat belt legislation, only because the federal government can't pass the law (no authority), so they just withold funds, until the states aquiesce.
Blessed are the hackers, for tomorrow is theres. :-)
If this is implemented, rest assured it can be removed. rest assured it can also be hacked, which will make for an interesting fun, I can now race that guy's porsche with my pinto, I just have to slow him down to 60.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
You contributed to the construction of the road, so part of it is yours - but not all. And the other 'owners' of the road have some say in how you use it.
Firstly, as has been said, there are of times when you legitimately need to speed.
Secondly, as far as I know, it is only illegal to speed on public roads. People should be allowed to speed on private property if thats what they want to do.
Thirdly, where does this all stop? If they install this system it becomes much easier to justify installing other systems in future
Think the situation through FULLY before you post, man! If the first guy is going the speed limit, the second guy CANT tail gate him, because he has to go the speed limit too.
As soon as we have zero tolerance for speeding (considering that turnpike tickets are timestamped) the first politician who gets nailed will kill the process.
On another note, though, I worry that the speed control ("cruise control") will have an upper limit it can be set at. Heck, I'm surprised it hasn't already been tried...
On YET _another_ note, the latest cars which know the road they're on (thank you GPS) my eventually whine at you anytime you exceed the posted limit. If all cars were required to have this (and you spend more only for the display) I suspect that the ROM chips'd be the first to go...
I can just imagine... Mamas & Poppas (I think) doing "Slow Down, you move too fast..." (Hmmmm... a mainstream application for MP3s!)
And if you took much of the above seriously, you are in WAY worse shape than me.
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
The GPS stations now operate in two modes -- one meant for public use, and an encrypted signal for percise military use. Isn't the public signal only accurate to 300 meters? There are lots of side streets/intersections that will run close to major highways. How is the government planning on fixing this?
Rick
Personally, I would want the choice to be able to do this. Again, as others have pointed out, a lot of people die from lung cancer. The government would not get away with outlawing tabacco (see American Prohibition, 1920's.) Please note that a lot of innocent people die from second hand smoke as well.
There is a point at which people sometimes become willing to give up freedom for security. I'm sure if we were willing to give up enough freedom, everyone could be guarenteed to live to 100 years with sufficient income. Personally, I'd rather have risk in my life and know that I'm the one in charge of my destiny, rather than place all my little details in the hands of the government.
I've often thought about why tech types hate Windows. Why people perfered the PC over the Mac. I think it's because we like to be in control over our computers. When my software starts to take that control out of my hands (ala Windows 95, or MACOS) I start complaining. Since I wasn't the one to painstakingly set things up by hand, when it crashes, I complain even more... It wasn't MY fault it went down, and had I more control over the system, it wouldn't have gone down.
I really hate this kind of thing with cars, which are bigger and more simple. I just bought a car that has daytime running lights. The lights are on all the time no matter what. When I asked the salesman if there was a way to shut them off, he looked at me in shock and said, "Why would you want to do that??"...
Lots of reasons. First of all, I want control over my own car. It's that feeling inside. I want to be able to shut them off whenever I want. My last car was old and had battery problems all the time. If anything was drawing power while I tried to start it, I couldn't start it at all... Someday the car I have now will be old and give similar headaches to someone.
For another, there are circumstances beyond the all-wise and knowing government/automakers. Like the time my mom and I were being chased by a drunk driver, and we pulled into a driveway and turned off the lights and we lost him.
Or like air bags, which for a while were seen as the greatest thing since squeezable mayo. Yet now I can't put my 5 year old in the front seat because they've found that airbags kill kids.
It would bother me greatly to be seen more as a number to my government than an individual. When you start saying, "Well, more lives would be saved by forcing people to go 55 that would be saved giving the freedom for contengencies," I get scared. Sure, THEIR lives might be saved, but what about mine? My life is what matters to me, and the life of my family. If my kid was bleeding from the neck, like hell if I wouldn't want to get him to the hospital at faster than 35 miles per hour.
GM also has a system that is capable of transmitting from Cadillacs TODAY. It is called OnStar. Read about it. It can transmit your location and it does its transmitting via cell phone. If your air bags deploy the car phones your car's lat/lon into a GM control center. The technology is real and here today. There is another feature going into cars today - A flash ram chip that maintains driving data (speed, rpm, braking, etc) so that if the car is in a collision the cops and insurance companies can figure out who to blame...
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Fag.
If I could just set the destination and not think
about it, that would be much better.
But if I am doing the driving I want to drive at
a safe and reasonable speed. Unfortunately, in
the United States, speeds are set to MAXIMIZE
TICKET REVENUE, not to maximize safety.
Also, laws need to target people with poor lane
discipline (i.e. the left lane blockers) because
they lead to traffic jams - which are the leading
cause of problems on the freeway next to alcohol.
Mark
Not worth getting worked up about, it'll never see the light of day. Academic types like to work on cool projects regardless of how realistic or cost-effective they are. So they've persuaded their bosses that this is the way to go. Satellites! Digital maps! State-of-the-art or what. Beats just making use of the speedo info they already have access to. Actually come to think of it this is not limited to researchers. Just about every computer project I've ever worked on has been way over-engineered. Why use a pen, appointments book and phone when you can spend millions on an object-oriented distributed booking system which ends up going over budget and getting cancelled?
"Besides, how many car jackings where there in the whole of the UK last year? Insanely few I bet.. How many gun touting car jackers are willing to chase you down and kill you in a car to car shoot out? Zero. How many people would car jack a car with an active satallite tracker and remote shutdown? Zero"
Come live in Gauteng in South Africa for a while.
So where and when will I have to go to, to get my chip installed under my skin or where is my ear tag? What is the address the concentration camp that we will be reporting to? Whoever had the idea for this, better yet, whoever has the desire to implement this idea should be hunted. I'll get my cammies and polish my M16-A2 ready in the eent that we find out who.
I think that here in the UK we have suffered a huge erosion of our personal freedom in the last few years, generally due to the current Labour government although to be fair it occured a lot under the Major government too.
Transport fiascos are bad enough. Seeing Two Jags Prescott or our Glorious Leader swanning down the "bus" lane of the M4 like Soviet style leaders makes my blood boil. Recent tax hikes on fuel prices while halting road building and mantainence programs is absurd and is making our transport system practically Third World. But this are just some of the minor things we are losing.
What about the proposed restriction of the right to a trial by jury?
What about the loss of the House of Lords and its replacement by Tony's Cronies?
What about our continual loss of democratic government (including tax and defense issues) and replacement by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels?
Just imagine knowing the exact location of a target vehicle at a specific time. Surgical Strike capable - Way cool, hope they put these devices on the expensive vehicles owned by rich people first.... Think you got the point - pretty scary if you ask me.
I believe that the USA need not worry about this due to our current lawsuit lottery. What manufacturer is going to put thier seal of approval on a limiter know ing full well that a class action suit will be filed if ANYONE is hurt in any fashion that can be linked to the speed limiter? This is similiar to why the US will never have automatic road systems, too much responsibility in case of a major malfunction, especially once lawyers get involved.
Afteralll someone has to protect the little bastards (ie:children) from being squashed under some lobbyists beemer. FooGoo
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Speeding 'offences' in the UK are a joke, everybody knows it, some just refuse to accept it, these regulations are not about safety they are a back door taxation scheme, why do you think the previous government introduced the points system in the first place? So you don't get banned for speeding you get fined instead and the government gets more revenue.
Personally I can't see this ever happening, it's like banning smoking, it won't happen because the government would lose too much money.
No, you are probably referring to monitoring of taxi cabs, which is an entirely different (albeit related) thing. I have no privacy problem with the ability to tell where a particular taxi cab is located or what its current speed is, as long as the taxi driver accepts it. Mandatory tracking devices for private cars constitute an invasion of privacy though, and having someone interfere with the operation of a moving vehicle by remote control against the wishes of the driver is sheer madness. In case of an accident, who will be responsible for driving the car?
Ultimately, the government will send one of its own agents to drive your car, it will be converted to run on rails only, and several cars going in the same direction will be hooked up together to form a "train" for reasons of economy.
To make the speed control thing actually a part of the car itself instead of being controlled from a remote location. That way, whenever speed limits changed, everyone would have to bring their cars in for maintenance.
Sounds like a logical next step to me!
ok, so it's a bit pie in the sky in this day and age, but I'm all for the idea of saving a few lives and perhaps even stopping the odd boy-racer asshole in a pink escort from driving into your rear end at 110mph.
I'd prefer it if we could have limits set per road (there are some freeways which should be at 85-115 because it's safe and it would help reduce the traffic congestion which is the real danger) and focus more on the basic speed law (drive at a speed which is safe).
The speed differential between cars is the real danger.Moving at the speed of traffic is much safer than following the speed limit - I've been on freeways in bad weather where 40MPH would qualify as "maniac speed" because everyone else is going 15MPH due to very low visibility and poor road conditions; I've also been on freeways where the average speed is approaching 95-100MPH and there was little danger because everyone was going roughly the same speed and it was not inherently unsafe for the freeway in question.
<RANT> I'd also like it if the police would pull over people driving slowly in the left lane(s) and explain the whole "Slower traffic move right" concept. I've seen this cause accidents, while I've never seen one caused strictly by speeding (as opposed to speeding while driving like a moron)... </RANT>
I dont know about you but certainlyy I am.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Photo is the only fair way to do it... police are
supposed to bust as many people as possible and
let a judge be fair.
the problem with photo systems is that people
actually start obeying the law and then cities
LOSE MONEY.
Current laws are there to maximize revenue to
local governments - speed limits are a form of
pork given by the state. This is especially true
in Ohio which has a special type of court - known
as a "mayors court" which allows someone with just
a couple of weeks' training to sit on the bench
and convict people of a whole range of crimes.
The vast majority of accidents happen OFF THE DAMN
FREEWAY and are ALCOHOL RELATED. And yet people
think that the way to solve problems is to crack
down on freeway drivers... it is insane.
On the way to work yesterday, our local consumer advocate briefly discussed a similar measure that is being trialed by an insurance company. I don't remember the details, but this company installs a monitor in your car which records speeds, use of turn signals, etc. At the end of each billing period, the data is evaluated and your insurance bill is reduced according to how "well" you have driven. Since insurance increases due to receiving a speeding ticket are typically more than the ticket itself in the long run, this could be just as much of a deterent to speeding as a government installed system. Additionally, it is voluntary and does not affect the drivability of your car. If this trial is successful, I guess people will have a decision of "Do I forfeit some of my privacy for potentially lower rates?"
Jim Shepherd
If you're concerned about having to speed to escape a carjacker, or to get to a hospital, go ahead and speed, and when the ticket comes in, get the judge to drop it.
While monitoring people's position or behavior does seem to violate the basic human right to privacy, it does not when it is geared towards protecting another's even more basic right to life. The most obvious use I can think of for speed cut-off technology would be to stop reckless drivers and high speed chases. How many lives are needlessly endangered by every episode of "World's scariest police chases"? While I don't favor a blanket speed limitation system, a strong argument can be made for engine-remote-control on a case by case basis. (What about an unconscious driver slumped on the gas pedal?) Of course, then every gangster and geek will have an "engine-shut-off" gun ready to stall people at the freeway entrance. . .I want one already :-)
If you had lived the most time of your life in a country with no speed limits on major highways.
You would known that there are no more accidents due to the speed.
You can only drive at high speed when the traffic allows you! But then it's nice to drive 110 mp/h or even 160 mp/h, when your car can do it!
There should be no problem with your speed when you take a little care with:
Weather, traffic and your car
P.S. I don't want the government take us that right, because almost anything is regulatet and often forbidden in this country...
Yours
Michael
At first I started to laugh at this post, but then I realized that you might actually be serious. You actually believe that since you pay taxes that it is your road? Does that mean since I pay taxes which helps pay for the military that I have the ability to wage my own war? You do not have the right to drive, and you sure do not have the right to speed. Dont get me wrong, I speed most of the time and I think speeding is a bogus law, but the police still have the right to give me a speeding ticket. And you are correct, it is your life, but if you are ingaging in an act that people believe brings unnecissary (sp?) risks to other people or their property then you no longer have the right to go threw with that act. I do not believe that speeding causes that much of a risk, but most people do, so there isnt anything you or me can do about it. So speed if you like but dont complain when you get a ticket because you deserve it.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Driving like an ass makes accidents. In the US, 56% of all accidents are caused by aggresive driving. Aggresive driving involves speeding, passing in the right hand lane, red light running, and other stupid road rage tricks. Also, wrecks that happen this way have a larger proportion of fatalities. This outwheighs drunk driving, weather conditions and mechanical failures.
Minimum speeds are posted and Legal, drive accordingly! Blame can not be fixed on someone who is rear ended by some impatient ass. If you could run into someone who is driving the minimum speed limit, then you are driving too fast for conditions and should slow down. The disparity only increases when people speed.
It would be nice if some of those minimum speed limits were raised, but it's not practical. Large and oversized loads have to be moved by road sooner or later, and it's very dagerous to move them too fast.
It's great that the US finally threw off Jimmy Carter speed limits, but there has been a downside. More people are speeding because they feel as though all their previous speeding was justified. "See? I was right," They think, and they also get up to all of the above road rage tricks.
People who speed have very bad driving records, and are the same group of inconsiderate jerks who run red lights, etc. This was verified by a large urban study where redlight runners were photographed by computer cams and their records checked. This new, previously undetectable, record of offense correlated strongly with accidents, speeding, DUI, etc. Criminal record correlation was not strong enough for proof. Interestingly enough, red light running was the largest single cause of traffic fatalities in the US. Yep, they beat the drunks. As sharp as these morons think they are, they screw up frequently.
All of that ranting asside, there are better ways to monitor speeding than having BB know where everyone is, but these have been posted very well already.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There are far fewer accidents on the Autobahn than there are on US roads.
The only drawback is, if you get in an accident on the Autobahn, you're most likely going to die.
http://efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu/
I have a whole list of objections to this system, as well as several other proposed recently. This is certainly going to be a long thread on comp.risks, where a more reasoned discussion will take place than on /. Technology is now regularly being used to monitor your every action, and there is less and less you can do about it. By your argument everyone who doesn't like it can stay locked in their homes, and never come outside. That is wrong, I shouldn't have to stay locked inside my home just to have a little privacy or to avoid being treated like a criminal.
This system will make use of a GPS/CDROM unit similar to the ones currently on the market. I've got one of those, and it is not all that accurate or reliable. It quite often forgets where the car was parked last time it was powered down, so for the first 5-20 minutes it tries to figure out where the car is. And any type of reflections in a city render it unusable, as well as driving in hilly country.
The GPS system is an ex american military system, and although the US has turned most control over to a civilian agency, it can still be overridden by the US military at any time. The system regularly has problems, outages, position shifts and other glitches, which is why no commercial airline is allowed to use it except as a backup secondary navigation unit. I can't see other governments allowing their citizens to be so heavily influenced in daily affairs by a system still controlled by the US military.
The CDROMs containing the map database (which can easily have speed limits added for each segment of road) are often quite out of date. My system has a CD only 6 months old, but it is still missing 10% of the main roads in place for years. The system has a nervous breakdown whenever I take a new freeway section through a forest.
So what happens when a local council changes the speed limit on a local stretch of road (perhaps up, since repaving or straightening), and nobody can drive the new speed limit? Same question, but what if a speed limit is lowered in a dangerous area, but millions of cars are still allowed to drive faster? With this system in place, many drivers will go as fast as the system will let them, and pay less attention to the posted limits.
What happens when some drivers have one limit in their databases, and other drivers have another?
What happens when the unit mistakes which road you are on (say a parallel frontage road with a much slower speed limit), and force you down suddenly to 25 MPH in a normal 65 MPH area? What happens if this happens to 20% of the drivers in an area?
What happens during a GPS satellite outage? What is the default behaviour during LoS?
Will the system be able to compensate for rain/snow/broken water main conditions? Or will drivers start driving whatever the maximum is, despite the weather dictating a slower speed?
What happens to court cases, when someone has a perfectly functioning unit and still gets a ticket? How will this affect law enforcement credibility when people can use the existence of the system as a viable defence?
For those who are tracking how our liberties are being threatened by new technologies, there has been a parallel threat from cell phone companies. I have seen cell techs watch their debug screens and show me drivers who are speeding on the autoroutes, it is just a function of predicting how often to hand off a phone from one cell to another. Recently a cell phone company in the US has put together a package (they want to make more $$$) to sell to state police forces. It will track cell phones moving too rapidly from one cell site to another, and provide position info as well as subscriber info to a waiting police cruiser. Hey, instant tickets. Don't like it, dont own a phone.
I can predict this system will not be mandatory at first, but will be offered as an option with a reduction in insurance rates. The first adopters will be the old biddies who never get near a speed limit, and want to save some money. Next will be the families, followed by young people desperate to save some money. After 50% of the cars on the road have the system, expect the laws to change to require it on all vehicles within a few years. That also gives the system a while to be debugged, and for the initial panic to die down. But I expect a few hundred extra deaths due to this system before they get the kinks worked out, mostly due to large speed mis-matches.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
And you are correct, it is your life, but if you are ingaging in an act that people believe brings unnecissary (sp?) risks to other people or their property then you no longer have the right to go threw with that act.
I said very specifically that high speed should not be allowed when it endangers others! I don't think I have the right to endanger other people. I **do** have the right to endanger myself.
Before you burn me at the stake, please hear me out.
:-)
We need Big Brother. More precisely, we need a living example of Big Brother. We need to see a country like the UK devolve into an all-seeing, all-knowing police state.
We need an example that we can point to that shows that it CAN happen even in a "democratic" society, so that we will KNOW that it is we, the people, who must remain firmly in control of the government, and not vice-versa. So that we will see with our own eyes what happens when we sacrifice freedom for security.
But it has to happen to a country that is relatively small and thus relatively harmless to the rest of the world.
I think the UK would make an excellent candidate. It's big enough that it'll have an impact on a large enough number of people to make the example compelling, but not big enough to pose a real danger of taking the rest of the world down with it.
It would be much, much worse if the U.S. devolved into such a police state because the U.S. is powerful enough to take the rest of the world with it. If that happened humanity might never climb out of the resulting hole.
We need an example like where the UK is headed to keep the rest of the world free.
If the UK wants to volunteer for this, who are we to argue?
--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
But the last 10 years or so the government has put a lot of pressure on getting the speed down by drastically increasing the fines (including the real posibility of loosing your license, which is *realy* difficult to get in the first place) and with huge amounts of camera's both in the city's and on the motorways.
So that explains why the Dutch these days tend to abide to the speed limits a lot more.
The British on the other hand, tend to drive like snales. On a 3 lane motorway where the speedlimit is 70 the left lane (remember the british drive on the other side of the road!) is empty. The middle lane gets hogged by people doing between 55-65, and on the rightlane you find people doing 60-70 and not moving to the middle lane to give way.
Part of the problem is that the British where never thought how to drive properly. Like they are not even allowed on the motorway until they have PASSED their driverslicense! And anyone who has had a UK driverslicense for 2 years and is over 25 can teach someone how to drive (in a normal car without special controls).
The driverstest is really easy to pass (or at least it was a few years back, when passing your 'B' certificate to be allowed to drive a normal car also gave you 'E' (allowing you to drive with trailers) and parts of D and E allowing you to drive trucks and busses with trailers upto 12000 KG and upto 12 passengers)
The British also don't know their position on the road. when they need to take a turn they just remain in the middle of the road, brake and make the turn. While on the mainland you are thought that you need to be aware of your position on the road and when for instance you need to take a left turn, you start driving on the left side of your lane, brake and turn (e.g. giving space for someone to overtake you).
- directional indicators : most British probably never even heard of them.
- fog lights : most British seem to think these are supposed to be always on.
Sadly, I'm sure Blair's Socialist government will succeed in mandating this and I'm equally sure most Brits will applaud it ... just as they have his government's revoking of trial by jury (Gov now decides which cases warrant a trial ... saving taxpayer money you know) and permanently jailing the mentally ill on the suspicion that they may someday commit a crime. There is a reason that "1984" and "Brave New World" were both authored by Brits ... Orwell and Huxley could see the writing on their own proverbial walls.
Where the government won't go, the accursed corporations here will go instead! Grrrrrrr.
Great, Yet Another way to train the population into not being responsible for their own behavior anymore. Now that people can't speed, they also don't need to use turn signals since they can just say, "The satellite was watching me. If it lets me turn without signalling, then it's ok to do that." They don't need to watch where they're going either.
Big brother will make sure you drive safely, don't ingest any drugs that might harm you, and don't agree to a job contract that exploits you. Thank you, Big Brother.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So then the question comes down to would it save more lives. I'm not sure what the answer to that question is, but I'd like to see some work done to determine how many lives might be saved or lost.
Another major advantage of this system is that it reduces the opportunities for the police to randomly stop any car they want. Think about it, as it stands now, probably 85% of the cars on the road can be stopped at anytime by the police for any reason because most of us travel at faster then the speed limit. This means the police have carte blanch to stop anyone because they don't like the look of their hair, or their general appearance. I'd like to reduce the power of the state and this would be one way to shit the power to something I think might be more reasonable.
Then again, I always wear my seat belts too.
These Mason accusations map pretty well to the classic anti-Semitic balderdash: the Masons control the banks, the Masons control the media, the Masons will use clandestine measures to destroy your biz if you cross them, the Masons take care of their own and leave the rest of the world out in the cold. Probably an AC will post soon to note that the Masons have horns, poison reservoirs, eat Christian babies and love nothing more than defiling our non-Mason daughters.
Let's drop the histrionics. The Masons are a bunch of old white farts in funny hats. If someone was posting about how the ZOG (Zionist Occupational Governemnt-- shadow organization that controls the US, popular theory with Christian Patriots and Militia sorts) we wouldn't pay it any mind. So, let's leave those Masons alone.
(or am I a part of the conspiracy, too, out to distract you from the real issues?)
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
Consider, just for starters: The main character of the story is named Jim Hacker.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
How about a satellite that electrocutes people who tailgate.
This is a far cry from some of the more interesting traffic control measures that have been tried in England, such as cardboard cut-outs of police cars, in strategically-located places, where drivers can't tell if it's real or not. It's worked very well, in the past, without infringing on anyone's rights and without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg.
;)
My mates have one in their sitting room, I'm green with envy. Last I heard they had all been nicked by students
EZ
-'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in..'
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
> if the ownership committee for the roads (the Government) decided that you need limiters to use their roads, then by golly, why are they any less entitled to do so any more than the owners of Talledega could impose a 50 MPH limit on their course?
Because, mistaken Eccles, WE are the owners of these roads, we picked up the tab for the land, the materials, and labor, WE ARE the ownership committee.
We, the majority of active voters, should not be subjected to anything which we deem innappropriate, or just plain not fun. If we don't like it, it shouldn't be. PERIOD.
I would seriously recommend a little brush up on the finer points of Democratic Republics.
Unfortunately, this is what happens in a society which has become lulled into docility by their own contentment.
--\ din..
You don't have to speed - speed kills remember. So he has to rush to the hospital, that doesn't change the fact its dangerous to rush, what if he runs into another car, or several? "I'm sorry man, i killed your wife and kids - but hey i had to get to the hospital in a hurry!"
This is really just the beginning of the govt. getting a complete data stream from our cars. The satellite bit is redundant here; black boxes (like in airplanes) will save data so they can do a post-mortem and see what was going on when an accident occurred. I think I heard GM is starting to do this already. It's not a wild leap to imagine speed limit signs that broadcast the allowed speed and your car will have a governor that prevents you from going faster. (Why get a satellite involved? Local control is very easy.) At some point you won't be allowed on the highway unless you have a compliant car, so you guys with the '79 Ferrari 308 (carb. model) will have to stick to the side roads.
:)
While I think this totally sucks from an Orwellian point-of-view (and continue to save pennies for my own old Ferrari) I have to admit to some mixed feelings. Where I live, the posted speed in most places is 55MPH, some 65. Where it's 55, people do 70-90. I don't mind people flying down the fast lane, but these days you have to do 70 in the SLOW lane to keep from being run down. I have a couple of speeding tickets, both when I was doing the normal rush hour speed but late at night. Logic says this is OK; if there's nobody on the road then going a little faster (as long as it's in the bounds of your ability and equipment) should be fine. But that's when the cops have nothing else to do. So now I have to go slow even during rush hour so I don't risk losing my license.
This morning I was doing 70 in the fast lane of a 55MPH, heavily trafficked road when a Ford Explorer or something came barreling up at about 85. I'm not dumb enough to stay there; I got out of her way, but that's not always an option. She was obviously far enough removed from reality to think she was doing OK, but I would've loved to see a governor cut her down at that point. Not that there would be a cop around or anything.
Race drivers drive for a living on a closed-course which has been swept for debris; they wear 5 point safety harnesses, wear fire-resistant materials, helmets, and drive cars that often cost in excess of a million dollars. Furthermore, their professional reputation and livelihood are based on their actions on the track. That doesn't much describe the idiots I see driving around. Eventually we'll be on auto-pilot for everything, and while I'll have to move to another country, or buy enough land to stretch out my hot rods I don't think there's much we can do about it.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
So how do you know when you are endangering others? If you are driving down the road at 160 mph, what are your reaction times going to be? If there is a problem how much time do you have to respond to it before you could hurt someone else? Let's imagine you are driving down the road, BANG - you have a blow out, lose control, and smash your new Viper into the Honda Civic coming in the opposite lane actually obeying the speed limit. Tell me how you are going to avoid this. In many cars, and with new tire technology it is possible to retain control of your vehicle when you have a blow out at low speeds (like the speed limit). You have just endangered MY life if I happen to be the driver of the Honda Civic. You may counter that it is a vacant road. How do you know it is vacant? How can you guarentee that no one will be coming the other way, or be in your lane as you come driving up on them? There is no situation you can pose that will remove all chance that you MAY somehow hurt another person - unless you actually own the property you drive on, but in that cse there is no speed limit anyways.
Read any of his other works, especially 'Homage to Catalonia' - or in fact just read 1984 carefully - for evidence of this.
m.
On South African leg the recent Around Alone , a solo circumnavigation sailboating race, one of the contestants was "piloting by navigation"--instead of getting his bearings by actually looking at the coast and comparing that to a map, he kept his eyes on his GPS receiver. Then he hit a reef, destroying his keel and putting him out of the race. The GPS had misreported his position by nearly three kilometers.
Once when I was on a camping trip in Colorodo, my friend's GPS spent a good half hour insisting we were in Kansas.
GPS is not reliable. At its absolute best, the fast-reading "civilian" version of it is only accurate to within around twenty or thirty meters. Have you ever driven down a controlled access road that had a city street right next to it? What will your car do when it thinks you're speeding on a surface street you're travelling parallel to?
And I seriously doubt that any practical system can cope with modern three dimensional roadway topographies. What happens when you're driving 120km/h and the GPS suddenly misreads that you are in a 50km/h zone because your motorway has a city street and a hospital beneath it? Or if your GPS reading takes place at the very moment you are on an overpass, where your motorway goes over a 20km/h cart path? Thirty seconds later your car slows to a crawl and you get rammed as you attempt to struggle from the rightmost lane to the shoulder.
Furthermore, GPS is not guaranteed to be available. Quite possibly the device can be defeated by building a Faraday cage around the receiving antenna, or better yet getting a 0.5mW transmitter that says "I am in Greece" over and over again in GPSspeak and taping it to the antenna.
The internal maps had better be accurate, too, and remain accurate. When that tiny roundabout finally gets enlarged to handle trebble the traffic at double the speed, you had better hope your car won't keep you "safe" by holding you to the old circle's rated speed. This probably represents yet another hidden cost: having to upgrade your maps periodically.
--
This is not my sandwich.
Safety campaigners say the device, which will cost around £200 to install, would cut road deaths by up to two thirds and reduce total road accident injuries by a third.
if it does this then it is a *good thing*
if it doesn't reduce deaths then its a *bad thing*
roads are absurdly dangerous. extreme measures must be taken to make them safer.
UK citizens are too much like sheep. They will happily roll over and accept this since some politician is claiming it will save 66% (yup thats the current claim) of all fatalities on the UK roads.
Even if this claim is proven to be utter rubbish, people will still accept it and agree to the nanny state takeover; They did when the right to silence was abolished (keep quiet in an English court and you might as well plead guilty !).
UK politicians know they are immune to what the plebs think - the plebicite is only every 4 or 5 years and all sorts of false promisies can be made to ensure re-election; Many candidates are 100% guaranteed to win their seat merely because of the party the are in (Labour/Conservative or whatever). In reality the colour of the UK government is decided by only a few marginal seats and even then the policies of one government are quickly taken up by their successors (Labour have followed the Conservatives, despite being fierce opponents in opposition of laws which they themselves have now passed !)
Since this system uses GPS to locate a vehicle and then limit its speed, the next progression will be to download the data, just to help Big Brother keep an eye on where you are going - there couldn't possibly be any sinister reason, after all.
(Insert tongue in cheek)
Only someone with something to hide would object to the state keeping track of where they are, in which case the state should be keeping track of their whereabouts.(/Insert tongue in cheek)
Check on the levels of street crime in the UK compared with the US. Know what happens if you take away guns here? The prices will skyrocket 10 at least 10 times what they were. I would make a killing selling my collection on the black market. So your average citizen isn't armed, but a criminal would have no problem finding a gun. Personally I would never give up my firearms. When that knife wielding crackhead breaks into your house at 3am intent on robbing/killing you/your family, are you going to say "Hold on one minute and let me dial 911?" Its the same situation with nuclear weapons. As soon as the US built some, the russains said "oh shit they have nukes" and started building theirs. Now have we ever used nukes again? No, both sides know that they are capable of wiping each other out. If some guy on the street was planning to rob me do you think he would, knowing that everyone was armed?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Driver:
Total driving time in minutes by each driver of insured vehicle;
number of minutes driving in high/low risk locations (high/low accident areas);
number of minutes of driving at high/low risk times (rush hour or Sunday afternoon);
safe driving behavior,
using seat belts,
use of turn signals,
observance of speed limits, and
observance of traffic control devices;
number of sudden braking situations; and
number of sudden acceleration situations.
Vehicle:
Location vehicle is parked at night (in garage, in driveway, on street);
and location vehicle is parked at work (high theft locations, etc.).
It will be interesting since this IS happening today.
Regardless of how good, bad or indifferent an idea this is, it is important to remember that in Britain there is no reason to drive a British car.
It is perfectly acceptable to buy a car anywhere in the EU and drive it in Britain. More and more people are doing this just to get a better deal when buying a car.
Most cars are 20-30% cheaper in places like Belgium and it is easy to just drive it back and register it. If cars made in Britain are forced to have big brother devices in them, the Belgium car trade will boom.
Thank god for the EU 8-)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Even if this does happen and it won't, just say it does then we all know that it will be compromised with very short space of time which would mean people could cause accidents to people via satelite! Man that brings a new meaning to DOS Attack (Dead Because Of Satelite)
- "One fry short of a Happy Meal."
Well duh, fellow cretin. I think that may have been the point of "on their own proverbial walls". However, the fact that Orwell was a Socialist, or Crypto-fascist, or that Huxley buggered small furry animals doesn't really change the central issue of the relation of the individual to the State and the unremittingly bleak future painted by both. A future Mr. Blair seems determined to fulfill for the Brits.
cos i'll just stick with the little sports car i've got, and all the lame tossers i have to pass every morning when i'm late won't be able to go fast enough to stop me getting past em' cos the computer won't let them !!!!!!
Being from a town where the drunk driving rate
is through the roof, and more people get killed
on my main road than any other in the state, what good is a speed limiter? It won't keep that drunk truck driver from rear ending you when you're at a red light.
All of the people who have been in accidents here at work is all from idiots that rear end them.
Speed limiter?? bah!! i can't break 65 on that road! you can't go long enough until u hit a red light!
what's with the brits trying to outlaw everything? guns , then swords, now cars, what next? we got our constitution from your example!
We just didn't like being a colony.
no wonder all the rock stars went over here.
Playing life the silly way this day,
Malachi
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
You do infringe. There is noise and air pollution generated by a moving vehicle.
Right. A lone vehicle on a deserted country road is going to punch a hole in the ozone layer the size of a snooker table. It's also going to generate enough noise disturb the farmer that lives a mile away. If you want to ride around on a bike all day with your new-age girl Mary Moon, then be my guest. But don't get in my way!!
That problem is a whole lot more complex than high speed==unsafe. You make it sound like the reason for traffic accidents is speed, which is over simplifying to the extreme. That said, it is RANT TIME: this is not, I repeat, not a good idea. Government is not supposed to save us from ourselves, it is supposed to regulate that which needs regulation. Why the hell do we spend so much in taxes for the government to pour money into something as ridiculous as regulating vehicle speed, especially by way of such cost-ineffective measures as satellite, GPS and forced retrofitting of all vehicles. The government's function should be to ensure that its citizens have a good and fair chance at earning a living, keeping shelter and consuming safe food and medicine. That is about it. I would be pissed if the U.S. government spent my taxes on such an endeavor.
I like the technology but hate the implementation.
:-)
I don't someone (other then my girlfriend)limiting my driving speed, for example I spend quite a bit of time driving around rural areas of Washington state. There's no traffic and no people and the roads are essentially straight. I should be able to go 70 instead of 50 and save myself an hour.
One good thing this could do would be to have the car remind you that you are speeding. For example the car could tell from the GPS that you just got off the free way. Since you'll be velocitized and feel like you are going slower than you actually are it would be nice to have the car audibly remind you a few minutes after you exited to check your speed to make sure it's reasonable. (Of course cities won't like this cause it'll cut into their ticket revenue)
Modifications could also allow the cops to remind those dense people and idiots in their SUVs to slow down when it snows without pulling them over. They could broadcast a special message instead.
Of course you should be able to turn it off.
In my opinion there are a lot of pros and cons for this. I can agree with the argument that "big brother" would be too tempted to monitor me with this technology, but in the same argument, this could be used to limit so many other problems, like car theft, etc. The arguments for the occasional "punch to avoid" are all valid and can run either way -- no one argument can win.
All of the millions of pros and cons aside for a device like this, why not fix the original problem first? I think the real problem here is bad drivers, not speeding. I can gurantee that there's a whole lot more involved with accidents than just speeding. If people were better at judging when the appropriate time was to speed, or illegally lane change, or forget to signal, or answer the cell phone, or pay attention to what's behind them, we wouldn't have as many of the problems we do.
Let's get the incompetent people off of the road. I'd like to see more people pulled over for the "standard" violations like illegal turns or skimpy signals that are completely ignored these days. Hey, how about this, why not stop people from riding three centimeters from my tail pipe at 30mph? I can gurantee that I'm safer at 100mph with 30 car lenghts between me and the next person than at 30mph with 1 inch. If people were better drivers, speeding wouldn't be as much of an issue.
My two cents...
nuff said
On the other hand, the British Government felt compelled to pass a law requiring Masons to declare themselves if they belonged to the civil service, the Government, the legal profession, the police or the intelligence community.
Hey! The Thatcher Government were all secret Conspiricists! Bet ya never knew that!
Seriously, it's only been in the last decade that it became public knowledge as to who the head Mason was. At least, who the acknowledged head was.
Yes, lots of groups keep themselves to themselves, but few have sufficient resources to remain national and completely secret. Even fewer have the resources to scare one of the most powerful Governments Britain has ever had.
I'm not into the idea that the Masons are out to rule the world. If they did, I'm sure they'd have done so already. Or, at least tried. Nor am I into the idea that the Masons are necessarily evil. They are, as another poster has said, out to protect their own. As far as anyone on the outside knows, that's the limit of their manifesto.
Does that make me a "Conspiracy Theorist"? If so, then anyone who has read up on Trade Union history and their origins in coffee houses must also be one. Come on, come all!
I believe that the Masons are very influential in Britain, and probably make up a non-trivial fraction of the corporate, political, civil servant and legal worlds.
I don't particularly want the Masons considering me a threat, and hope that regarding them as a significant but totally impartial (except in matters affecting a Mason directly) is in keeping with that.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Others have pointed out that this particular example just doesn't work. If you are in a city, there is a pay phone or cell phone close enough to get an ambulance to meet you. You are more likely to kill someone than avert even a small problem otherwise. If you are out of a city and trying to get someone into the city, the situation becomes trickier, but if the gov is going to put something like this in a car, they should include one of those "hotline to 911" cell phones they're marketing as well.
But aside from that, there may be conditions where you need to speed temporarily to avoid an accident. Thus, my question about the idea would be - how long do you have to speed for, does it give you a warning signal, how imediately would it cut your speed? In general,I would agree with giving tickets based on the data, and you can argue the exact circumstances if you want.
There was a "philosophy" of law book I read once with a discussion of "law" vs "justice" based on a similar example of someone crossing the double yellow line to avoid an accident.
...will work for Chick tracts...
This is another one the cops add in when they're pissed.
Sounds like we have similar driving habits ;-> - BTW I agree with you.
One of these things is worth 8 times what my car is worth.
And I only have a few more payments to make.
This is strictly a non sequitur, but there in fact is an event where (as its organizers put it) "Anyone can run flat out on a public highway!" It's called the Silver State Classic Challenge. See www.silverstateclassic.com
I agree, I see this whole situation going 1 of 2 ways:
the whole thing falls through, goes away and gets forgotten
it's passed and then some witty SOB trying to "improve" it will render it useless and people (with a friend that has the software to do it) will be all over E-bay buying the goods to construct their "better" chips.
in the end I think the gov't is fighting a loosing battle, they always leave enough loop holes so anyone that's smart enough can pretty much do whatever they want.
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nothin' says lovin' like an open source penguin.
If you read the article on the BBC website, you'll find that there is no monitoring done. This is merely a device which uses the satelite to pinpoint its position and then uses that to check if the car is exceeding the speed limit. The idea of satelites tracking all cars in the UK is inaccurate.
Here's the part that doesn't quite make sense to me. If all the system is meant to do is prevent cars from speeding, then why is it being tied into the GPS system? Why does a satellite have to check it's location and then tell it how fast to go? Surely it would be cheaper to install cheap transmitters on the ground that activate a governor in a car.
Can someone please explain to me the benefit of implementing this type of system by satellite if there is no intent to monitor the actual position of vehicles?
numb
Sorry if I sound a bit out of place, but I think this is probably a good idea, if expensive. Surely, no responsible motorist would be speeding anyway, and in a perfect world the police would have enough speed traps to catch them.
I don't think I'm alone in the UK- driving fast isn't treated as a fundamental right here. We don't have enough open roads where its safe. This is therefore likely to be a vote-winner, rather than an intrusion on civil liberties.
Apologies if this looks like flamebait, it wasn't intended as such.
> There is a real noble cause here, that is saving the masses from *other* peoples stupidity. I don't think people commiting suicide in their own cars would raise the same objections as roadkilling pedestrians! All governments pass laws banning their citizens from doing things. It's only tyrranical if the laws don't reflect the values of the public. To deny this is to say that traffic lights are Orwellian (which I suppose some people do!). I don't think speed controls are more creepy or unjust than speed limits. If there are laws they should be policed. Police speed traps are worse because they only catch a minority and there is nothing worse than arbitrary justice. If speeding is OK then speed limits should be scrapped. The potentaily creepy thing here is the ability of the government to abuse the information it collects about peoples whereabouts. US citizens are definately better protected than we are (in UK), and most people in UK admire US constitutional protection of citizens. BUT treating freedom as an absolute doesn't lead to justice or security. It allows people to keep, use and sell misleading information which can harm a persons chances of getting a home or job, for instance. Protection from misuse of personal information is the BIG issue here. Democratic control is the *really* important thing (i.e. laws that really reflect the best balance of the values of the public) and that's the hardest to thing to achieve. It's something we could all use more of. (thanks for reading my overlong rant!)
Commercial vehicles are being monitored first. In-motion truck weighing, toll collection, road use billing, hazardous material tracking, and similar functions are already automated on some Interstates.
But that's just the beginning. Here's an analysis of ITS by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner:
Besides having the ability to identify individual travellers, ITS can also collect and store a lot of sensitive information about you. It can, for example, be used over time to create individual travel profiles indicating, among other things:
- your driving habits and any traffic violations committed;
- where and how you like to travel;
- where you live and when you are home;
- where and when you go to work;
- where and when you shop;
- where you go for recreation (bars? casinos?);
- what place of worship you attend and how often;
- what community groups you associate with;
- where your children go to school;
- where your friends live;
- what political protests or rallies you may have attended;
- whether you have been to a doctor (or abortion clinic, or AIDS clinic...).
These profiles can, in turn, be matched with other personal information, such as insurance, credit, buying habits, income, bankruptcies and liens, age, marital status, health data, and so forth. On a large scale, all of this could be arrayed geographically, resulting in amazingly detailed personal profiles on potentially millions of people.Such a personal profile could be used to make decisions about you, as well as to predict and manipulate your future choices. It could be used as a substitute for dealing with you personally. It has even been suggested that this ability to assemble information selectively, or to correlate existing information [is a] capacity, obviously facilitated by information technology, [which] enables (government) agencies (and other organizations) to identify, target, and perhaps manipulate a certain segment of the population that has common ... characteristics.
U.S. privacy protections in this area are weak to nonexistent. The general view has been that since anybody can stand alongside the road and watch the cars go by, logging all that data doesn't require any new authority. It's going to be interesting.
Spare me the groupthink. You're forgetting that roads are for pedestrians, cyclists, animals, farm equipment, and damn near anything that needs to get from point A to point B, at whatever speed it can muster.
This is not universally true. Consider limited-access highways, which are the primary use for these devices anyway.
DNA just wants to be free...
However, you missed one important scenario: the people that go to get on the freeway and STOP on the on ramp AND WAIT FOR AN OPENING because they aren't moving fast enough when they get up there.
Too many times I've seen people behind them checking their blind spot (not expecting the car in front of them to come to a screeching halt) smash into them. AND IT'S THEIR FAULT because they hit them from behind.
This is case of too slow vs. too fast. Personally, I'd rather have people speeding all over the place than people stopping on the on ramp. With a chip hindering top speed I may never get on the freeway for fear I won't be able to merge.
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nothin' says lovin' like an open source penguin.
With all the talk of self driving cars, would you feel safer or less safe driving such a car if the control software was an open source project ?
I am not keen on the speed governors (though they are fitted in lorries/trucks in the UK)...
I thought that's what roundabouts were for ;-)
Seriously, however, how much driving do UK'ers have to do? You can drive across country in a day. In some places in the US it takes a day just to get across one state. This is not a slam at the UK, it's just that what one govenment does is usually followed by other like minded ones.
The problem: Over here our government seems act like what's good for Europe is good for the US and will probably try to legislate something similar (although I feel they'll try to legislate us out of our vehicles first!) They tried this logic to get us to pay higher oil prices via taxation by pointing to the high price for petrol overseas. In one urban area they are seriously proposing to have odd/even days for driving by licence plate or other driver day limiting methods. These will likely fail, but they'll get in restrictions none-the-less as we holler about the most ludicrous ones.
The problem is what works (or doesn't) in New York City is not going to necesarily work in Fargo, North Dakota. But the real issue is control by a government over a population under the guise of protecting them. If the UK population doesn't stand up they will just be the first domino to go down once again under government control. Basically over here you can watch what they pass over in California to see what's up the road for the rest of the US. But we in the US need to keep our eyes open for what's happening overseas. It will surely try to find us here too
The sage who first said that comment was George Carlin.
Considering that police can perform DNA sweeps in England, going door-to-door and getting blood sample from everyone in a neighborhood to match them against the criminal's DNA, I am not at all surprised if this becomes a reality. Seatbelts aint the half of it!
No electronics, no gizmos, no nothing! I am not a number, I am a free man!
I sure hope I dont get hurt in a town that relies upon volunteer ambulances.. although Im sure the restrictions would not be put on emergency vehicles, what about driving your own car to get to the ambulance?
Yeah--its kinda intrusive having satellites control our personal cars--but you have to face the fact that the speed limit is the law and the government has a right to enforce it. Maybe an alternative, like satellites that monitor our speed, and tell cops when we are speeding would be a better alternative.
-Yoni K SinMostaza@aol.com http://members.aol.com/sinmostaza
maybe if the police could activate this device in a speeder's car, rather that it being automated? This would put an end to the UK's regular dangerous high speed police chases.
The 'I need a burst of speed to get out of dangerous situations' claptrap I'm hearing is bogus. A technical solution would be to allow 15 seconds or a minute of speeding to merge, pass on a 2 lane road or whatever.
'What if someone's in need of medical attention?'
Well, howzabout an override button which you can press which registers you for a visit from the local constabulary. When they call, you tell them you had to take someone to the hospital, they'll be able to tell, since they've been watching where you're car's gone, and can see if you've actually gone to a hospital.
If you're in a PUBLIC place (public roads) you should act in a way where you don't CARE if anyone's watching.
If you want to drive fast, go to a PRIVATE racetrack where they won't monitor your speed.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that:
A) All cars should be governed to 100kph/60mph or maybe even less. We're not in THAT much of a hurry. Lives are at stake.
B) Cars should be replaced by decent public transit systems in metropolitan areas.
This could create a whole new niche market in Britian. Non speed controlled cars could be taken across by people moving into the country from elsewhere in Europe. Then the cars could be sold, at greatly inflated prices, to people who do not want to deal with the devices.
Also the used car market would boom as well. Anything fast would go for alot more money, even those ass-ugly Firebirds from the '70s.
Last of all there will be people who illegally remove the speed control device, similar to people who remove the catalytic converters in the U.S.
This new "feature" will do nothing to stop committed speeders, and be a major headache for the average driver.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
I think you have a valid concern for most parts of the world. However, I think GB does have a consistent record of violating their peoples rights for their saftey. One such saftey factor actually might make this a little bit better than the situation you describe above though... that is GB's TOUGH gun laws...
Here is some history.
Here is a pretty damn frightening article.
Here is some more interesting discussion.
Here is a chart.
You say you want a revolution?
Way back in the ancient times (before they figured out how much revenue they could generate giving tickets) traffic engineers used to use radar guns to help set the speed limits.
They were typically set at the speed at which 85% of the drivers were traveling.
.
Yup. My brother's in the U.S. infantry. He uses GPS in the field, without the civilian randomization. He's also a former field geologist. He says the GPS ain't so bloody accurate as people make it out to be. 90 yards off is not uncommon.
Yeah, know that feeling. And I've also noticed that driving habits have less to do with tickets than they should. Getting a shorter haircut and a less conspicuous vehicle has done wonders for my driving record. My habits really haven't changed at all. Other perks are that I haven't been threatened by a cop, sworn at by a cop, been accused of transporting drugs, or had my car searched for drugs. Of course, some of these changes are probably due to moving out of New Jersey.
By the way, I really believe a lot of local authorities would fight a system like this. This would be incredibly detrimental to revenue.
numb
Officer: "Don't you realize you were driving 85 miles per hour? The speed limit is only 55 MILES PER HOUR!"
Steve: "Yeah, but I'm not going to be out that long."
--Steven Wright (paraphrased)
Maybe a better idea than slowing a speeding car is to send speeders a bill. If you observe the speed limit (it's an upper limit, by the way, although here in california the CHP seem to enforce the local limit (usually 65 in LA) as a loose recommendation) then you don't pay a thing. If you go over a little, or a lot for a little bit, then you pay a little bit. If you go over a lot for a long time, then you pay through the nose. And really egregious speeders just get their licenses revoked, so populists don't get to complain that rich people can speed at will.
If it is just a fine, not car control, then as long as the gps doohicky has secure encription, and as long as it includes some sort of unique id method so that no one can monitor where individuals are going, then this is no different from getting a ticket based on \emph{very} thorough enforcement of the speed limit.
Without the anonymous encryption stuff, jeez, can you imagine all the wacked out slashdot readers throwing together linux boxes in their cars to track the current hot betty of the moment? Just find the right IP address....
and i'm anonymous because it doesn't really matter. no one is going to read this comment anyway.
I think that if they did this correctly, the system could be accepted. Controlling speed is a bad thing. What if you were driving down a hill, going at speed limit, and a truck's brakes behind you were out, and the only way to get out of its way was to speed? Or what if your pregnant wife is going into labor in the car, and the nearest hospital is an hour away? Controlling the speed is bad within limits (Ok.... if the cops are chasing a speeder, the satelite should be able to transmit an engine shutdown command to the car). But what if the system just tracked speeders, and automatically gave them a ticket for speeding? That would be more acceptable
Doesn't this create huge problems with the British driving on the left? After all, cars sold in Britain are built for that, and IMHO it's going to be somewhat stupid for the driver not to sit closest to the middle of the road.
Maybe this will finally make the Britains drive right! :-)
It's right there in the 9th and 10th amendments! The Constitution does not enumerate our rights; it's limits are only for the federal government. Anything not explicitly in the document is a right still held by the people.
This was the main argument during ratification of the constitution against having a bill of rights; that enumerating some rights would necessarily make the other rights that we still seem invalid, because they were not enumerated.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
As someone who cycles on most journeys I can't *wait* for speeding enforcement to be taken as seriously as, say, drink driving. It is equally dangerous.The speed limit in urban areas should be reduced to 20 mph (which would cut road deaths by two thirds) and enforced by pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists.
You can never eat too much, only cycle too little.
... could that be Las Vegas?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
If it were at the stage of being a serious proposal, they'd be mentioning that it would also help stop drugs, terrorists and pedaphiles.
You know the routine by now.
Because, mistaken Eccles, WE are the owners of these roads, we picked up the tab for the land, the materials, and labor, WE ARE the ownership committee.
...which is why WE vote for the steering committee (at least in Democratic Republics), who decide whether to put these measures in place or not. They are well within the powers of government to do so, or not to do so.
We, the majority of active voters, should not be subjected to anything which we deem innappropriate
More properly, that is the case in (generally non-existent) pure democracies. In a democratic republic, we vote for representatives (and can run for those positions ourselves) so we are not subjected to anything *they* deem inappropriate. If their judgement is faulty, we should vote for someone else next time or start a recall campaign.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>- directional indicators : most British probably ever even heard of them.
What?!?!, I've been in and out of the UK for quite a few years now, and they DO use directional indicators properly (most of the time).
What you are describing sounds like Spain, Portugal, Italy, or perhaps France.
On my visits to these countries the only time I saw the dir. indicators blink was when I saw people turning on their car-alarms.
..because I will be majorly pissed off if I can't do 140MPH+ on I94 late at night. Damn is that fun and even better if you're intoxicated!! Ha ha ha..just kidding about the drunk driving.
How fast do you need to go in order to get thrown in jail? This is probably a statewide rule, but any examples would be helpful.
I'm afraid there's ample precedent for mandatory monitoring. For many years, it's been the law of the land in the US for aircraft.
It is illegal to operate an aircraft within 30 miles of a large airport without a monitoring device that informs the FAA of your position and altitude. (From successive positions, they can derive speed as well.)
How does this differ from requiring a speed monitoring device in every car?
No
But I wouldn't be too sure.
How does this one get through, potentially? They bring out small kids who lost small siblings to speeding drivers. End of story. That's the way the British public's been trained to react by the media.
The problem is that we've got a heavily tabloid culture and not that high civil liberties respect. Our Labour Home Secretary (Jack Straw) has been putting out illiberal legislation for most of his term in office, but most people just don't notice.
This is horrible, short-sighted and probably trying to drum up publicity for the department at Leeds University who did the research. I really hope it doesn't get through, but I don't hold out much hope.
To stop (some of) the flames, why do I think I should be allowed to speed? Several things. Firstly, let's imagine I'm overtaking someone on a single carriageway road. Is this safer if I do it more slowly? No. It's safer (up to a point) at higher speed because I spend more time on the right side of the road and not on a collision course. Speeding briefly makes it a far safer maneuver. And if I don't pass, I'm potentially helping build a tailback - so causing air and noise pollution and frustration, so more accidents.
Next, look at how this works. It cuts off the fuel. Imagine what happens if it fails - the car dies, and there may well be nothing you can do to fix it short of calling out a repair technician. One more thing that I can't fix but that can strand me is dangerous.
Next, it perpetuates the myth that speed is the only problem. Police research shows speed is the primary cause in under 5% of accidents. But if there's a limiter, I'm safe, right? As it's speed that kills.
Now look at Japan. All cars are limited to 112, in theory. So, backstreet tuners hack the limiters away, with varying degrees of finesse. Some do a good job, sure. But is it really a good idea to encourage people to reprogram their cars? Because that's just what people will do to get round this, but it potentially introduces new bugs. Not pretty.
Finally, there's the fairly obvious civil liberties thing - not that I should be permitted to speed, as I'm happy with sensible law enforcement. It's more that this makes vehecile tracking extremely easy and, regardless of how legal my movements are, they're my business. I know they can be tracked to a fair degree via CCTV, but this would make it trivial.
What would I do? Jaguar have a new Adaptive Cruise Control system. Basically, there's an ultrasound system in the front bumper so that the cruise control system can keep you a sensible distance from the car in front. Build that into every car, linked to the speedo to determine sensible gaps, and I wouldn't complain. But this system is a very bad idea, which deserves to be fought.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
A computer hacker working together with a machanic hacker in the privacy of a home garage would probably be able to diasable the system in short order.
Ideology is for ideots.
You know, wouldn't be that much of a problem to me if they did it. I'd just get a licence plate in another European country and drive around with that. Nobody's screwing around with the mechanics of my baby. And since there wouldn't be many police patrols around anymore to check for speeders, woohoo, turn the M6 into a 400 mile autobahn with no speed limit.
You first state that guns have no practical purpose other than killing people, then you give an excellent example of an alternative use... sports.
Reality check.
I am driving home from a friend's house one Friday night at about 1am. A truck pulls next to me and begins trying to race me. I ignore and at the next stop light he begins to yell and scream at me. He and his three friends are obviously drunk and angry. Further down the road he is following me, tailgating and driving in the other lane swerving into mine. His friends are hanging out the window yelling at me. My girlfriend is terrified. I slowly accelerate trying to leave him behind and he continues to follow. I put my foot on the floor (on a lonely highway that I drive often. Speed limit 65mph.) and because I have a sports car designed to be SAFE at high speeds I am able to leave him far behind. I held speeds well above 100mph until I got to the next exit a few miles down the road.
If cars are designed to handle higher speeds, and people are trained to handle their vehicles at those speeds, the roads would be safer today. My Supra is safer at 120mph on the highway than an Excursion is at 60mph.
Outlawing dumbshit drivers, and crapily designed vehicles would do a lot more to save lives than this BB monitoring crap.
2) Who can be monitored on public-owned roads?
This is less well defined. How far can that monitoring go? You would need to do some research on that one. There are many search and seizure related cases which could provide precedents. However, as monitoring becomes more sophistcated I believe you will see more cases challenged in court. That's where it will be settled.
Similarily, many cases of avoiding monitoring are not well defined yet. You can dig up a few obvious ones (e.g. certain states don't allow radar detectors or license plate covers). Once again, though, as monitoring and evasion become better, more of these cases will end up in court.
My personal view is that tracking devices should not be installed without probable cause. That's how I would vote on such an issue anyhow. To allow more than that would lend itself to abuse. Wiretapping laws exist for similar reasons.
Best regards,
SEAL
It seems that a key point has been left out in discussion of airbag fatalaties. Namely they are an apparantly unique problem to the USA. Here in Australia seat belts are a requirement so the airbags are actually set to a lower pressure. AFAIK there have been no airbag related fatalities in Australia. However, in the US the airbags are rated to stop an unrestrained adult due to non uniformity of seat belt legislation.
There is also the requirement that children are to be restrained in an appropriate device according to age. I don't know of anybody who has been booked for non compliance, but every person I've met that has a young child has either a capsule or booster seat in their car.
GPS CANNOT and DOES NOT monitor. I have worked with military GPS systems on aircraft and know this for a fact. The GPS training course I sat on made no reference to this being a two way system... The systems you are refering to rely on GPS for their location, then use other systems to relay any required info (such as the cell phone you mentioned in the GM car). The only difference between mil spec and commercial GPS is accuracy. As a motorbike rider though, I want to know how this system would affect my CBR600 when it suddenly slows me from a high speed to a low, mid-corner?! I suspect a higher number of motorcycle fatalities...
Check out this - I am sure there is more out there, but has this been tested in court (it appears it might have been):
Driver Licensing vs. the Right to Travel
Please - read this over, and let us know...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
(I like to argue about mild tangents and this is no different.)
Why are there car chases in the first place? No one runs... if they're NOT CHASED!! Get the license plate, keep some eyes on the car (but stay back), and fallow it to a stop. Wait, and arrest the person.
Don't do this: see crime. see guy in car. must get. chase. he ran. go faster. he went faster. i go faster. ouch. people dead.
I see car chases often where I live, and I can say with assurance that the police have *caused* at least 80% of them!!
How do they plan on paying for this? does it automatically debit your bank account when you go over the limit? - gonna be hard to pay for it when they lose all the revenue generated by speeding tickets :)
Your rant is pretty fucking objectionable. I like the majority of my fellow citizens do not want to run around machine gunning each other, You quote hungerford and blame this on legislation. OK i'll quote that shitty thing that happened in your south. What caused this? Well Xena Warrior Princess of course. We have a stupidly low death rate in the UK precisely because we dont have guns. Want to argue? knock yourself out. Free guns for everyone, fuck you & dont come to england please
stty erase ^H
Whew, I feel safer already.
Whilst I agree with some of your car-related points, your text about the A320 crash being caused by the flight-control software is just plain wrong. The flight-control software *saved* lives; the pilot had no chance of recovering from the state he stupidly placed the plane, if the flight control software had not kicked-in, it would have been a catastrophic stall and crash, as it was it was a much more "controlled" crash. Numerous references abound to back this up, other than the ill-informed Boeing-biased scare mongering, but my books are at home at the moment. One which springs to mind is the excellent "Air Disaster" series by Macarthur Job.
Nobody who knows anything about technology is allowed anywhere near the British Government. They proposed to make a law against encryption "to stop criminals using it". We spent more per head "fixing" the Y2K bug than anyone else. (Quite fun, that bit). We don't have DSL yet. We pay in pounds sterling prices, the US dollar prices for computer kit.
The upper echelons of Britsh society are composed of rich, technologically illiterate nit-wits. Oh, and the nonsense that can come out in the media has to be heard to be believed. The TV told me *twice* that 40,000 tons of fireworks were set off for the millenium display. Laugh? I nearly cried. You have to have an Arts degree to work in the media as anything but a technician, it sometimes seems.
My guess is that some engineers have played on the credulity of Government and the media here in the hope of juicy research grants.
Yet another gizmo designed to turn our utopian dream into an Orwellian nightmare.
As for emergencies - untrained persons driving fast in a perceived emergency have a higher chance of compounding their emergency and creating new ones than actually doing any good. If you'll notice, that asshole that passed you dangerously usually remains only a couple of cars ahead of you at several red-lights, so speeding did no good.
The point is - as with a vast majority of other life-saving situations from ocean rescue to patient transportation, the health of the rescuer is of greater importance than the victim - if the rescuer gets in an accident and is incapacitated, then both the victim, rescuer and possibly bystanders all become victims and death can and is often the result in some or all involved.
Another thought that people seem to forget - at least here in the states, driving is a priveledge, not a right. If the government up and decided to remove your drivers license for any number of reasons, they can do that. The roads you drive on are owned by the government and they say what you can do on these roads. If irresponsible driving is becoming excessive, then they have every right to order manufacturers to install limiters of some sort into vehicles - the lives saved would far outweigh any imagined excuse for speeding.
A famous pre-automobile author posed this question - (paraphrased) "if you could have fast and convenient transportation in confort, but you would have to sacrifice 2 thousand people a year to have it, would you do it?" At the time, the question caused a lot of shock, but in reality, that's exactly what we did, and then some. Every year many times 2 thousand people lose their lives because of the luxury of driving, and many more than that are injured and permanently disabled or maimed. Driving is one of the single most dangerous things you could do, period. You drive every day many times a day amongst people of various mindsets and skills or lack thereof. At least with skydiving, yourself and your fellow divers are well trained. Frankly, I'm surprised the government allowed the introduction of cars that went over 70. We have sports cars and sedans that can easily go over a hundred, and a few that can approach 200. Why? We have no autoban here.
Reality Check - the government will certaily balance the need to impose such drastic measures against the revenue from fines. It's not likely to happen here in the states - fines are a major source of revenue and the police even have quotas they have to fill. It's big business.
It has to be said that when a speeding car causes an accident (as is often the case), the car which was driving nice and easy was often not paying enough attention and could have avoided the accident equally as well.
It would be much cheaper, easier, and more effective to spend money on improved drivers' education courses with higher standards and much more comprehensive tests. Make it clear what is allowed and not allowed on the road. Require a new test every 5 years (maybe take it at the same time you bring in your car for emissions testing). And make car insurance for liability a requirement in every state. Those found driving without a license or insurance, or with a suspended license, should have mandatory prison time. Etc, etc, etc.
There are many better and more effective ways to save lives and reduce injuries on the road than having satellites spy on vehicles. A car forced to slow down against the will and discretion of its driver can cause an accident anyways. Plus, if satellites can monitor cars that well, why can't the satellites be used to direct all the driving of vehicles at super-speeds and without accidents. We should need drivers if the technology is up to snuff. The 'we'll just govern the speed' schtick is dangerous and incompletely thought out. That's my 2 pence.
Lower rates for using this device == surcharge for not using it. It won't be "voluntary" forever, unless competition works to favor the companies that don't require it (insurance being a heavily government-regulated oligopoly, I don't see that as too likely). Eventually, only "the rich" will be able to afford the state required mandatory liability insurance without it.
If the government wants this to get through it will do. They have have a large majority in the commons and have just removed the power of the Lords so what they want, they get. This will just add to the increasing attacks on motorists. If they can't tax us off the road by making us pay 85% tax on each gallon of petrol or increase congestion by cutting the number of lanes on one of the busiest roads in England then they try and force us of the roads by making it more dangerous with more of the poeple going the limiter setting instead of what they feel safe at. I suspect most people will just by the cars abroad where it is cheaper as it is. Whats the betting the scots will be exempt from this?
Put it this way - I own a business. My employees follow a certain set of rules. I have the ability to monitor their checkin and checkout times. If they screw up, I know it. I also have the right to request piss tests. If they're getting high, I want to know about it - I'm liable if they screw up and cause damage or injury. If I say there's no smoking in the bathroom, I'll put in a smoke detector so I'll know if someone is smoking. If I have off limits area, then everyone will wear a magnetic badge that will be detected by scanners which will alert to unauthorized access. As long as they follow my simple rules, they're happy and I'm happy. If they screw up, well it's my business and I'm the one who'll can them.
The government owns the road. And the majority in the government support the laws that are in affect concerning driving on these roads. If you break these laws, they have every right to penalize you. They also have the right to monitor you while you're on their property. And they have the right to demand that manufacturers of vehicles that will be driving on these roads to keep up to predetermined standards of safety and ecology. That would include limiters.
All of you can whine about it, but it won't do any good unless you take part in your government's decision-making process. Otherwise, live with it. At least you can get from point A to point B without having to walk.
And for those of you arguing that you have to speed to get on this highway, or that you may have emergencies, with such a limiter in place, speeding to get on the highway is unnessessary especially when viewed from a defensive driving standpoint than an offensive driving standpoint. Emergencies - why would you risk turning one victim into several? You're irresponcible driving under the guise of responding to an emergency could very well get your victim, yourself and other drivers and bystanders killed. So that argument is both stupid and ill thought out. Even ambulances keep within a certain criteria with relation to the speed limits. Your life as a rescuer is far more important - if you die, your patient dies too.
My car has a manual setting where you can specify a certain speed. When you excedd that speed, a warning beeper goes off. I typically set it at about 10-15kph above tha posted speed limit. The beeper only beeps a couple of time as you pass through the setting.
Rather than actually stopping you from exceeding the posted limit, what they could do is have a loud, continuous beeper going off anytime you are exceeding the posted speed limit.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Don't forget that the UK has a public health system. When the government is having to pay for medical care then prevention is better than cure. The less number of accidents, the less you have to spend on health care.
I am sick and tired of this speeding crap. Where are the figures that prove that doing 100mph and above (in the right places) causes deaths? My blood boils when driving along these huge California highways I am supposed to do a miserable 75mph even if there is no one around.
Rather than insisting on this they should come down hard on slow drivers, drunk drivers and drivers who use the cell phone while driving.
The article said no such thing and I would expect GEEKS to at least think first before leaping into print. The /. headline is almost impossible to start with - think how many channels would be required to 'control' (sic) vehicles in the UK alone (approx 30 million vehicles). The MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) test vehicle - a Ford Escort - controls the speed itself NOT the satelite as incorrectly reported above. The satelite (GPS) merely provides the positioning signal to locate the vehicle on its internal navigation system. The navigation system in the vehicle is programmed with the speed limits of each highway and similar to 'cruise control' a vehicles speed can be set - in this instance 'a maximum speed'. Think positive, if you have it fitted and engaged - no more speeding tickets - and if you are involved in an accident - speed could not be a contributing factor.
Given that driving a car is a privilege, and not a right, and that this privilege has killed and maimed far more people than all the wars since the dawn of humanity, limiting speeding, which is the major cause of accidents, is a darn very good thing.
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Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
I once submitted an idea to my firm's patent committee for a device that would inform the driver when he was "x" miles an hour over the currently posted speed limit. We had a very technical but cheap way to determine the appliciable speed limit. The response was as follows: In the 50s Ford made a car with a governer on it that kept the car from exceeding speed limits. No automaker has ever attempted to included such a device on a car since. Investigation and interviews showed that the first thing a buyer of the car did was to remove it. Many bought the car without knowledge that it was there. Nobody wants to pay for a device they don't want and then pay again to remove it. Nobody wants to be reminded when they are speeding. Nobody will trust an auto with such a device not to inform the authorities when they speed and it is doubtful if any party mandates such a device that they will get re-elected.
Inquiring minds want to flame them...
Didn't Larry Niven write the story about manually controlled cars being illegal?
In the past few years there have been lots of experiments involving adaptive cruise control, strict urban drive control and platooning. Results from these experiments have all sugested that these techniques in general will result in less accidents, improved trafic-flow and less harm done to our dear mother nature. Speeding to avoid accidents?? Speeding in case of an emergency?? I don't want to offend any individual... but are you serious? Again there may be freak cases where this might be the awnser, but in general this kind of behaviour costs more lives than it saves... ...
This is the real issue.. would anyone care to oppose to sattelites preventing guns from shooting innocent people???? These things should matter to anybody and don't have anything to do with bb watching you. I don't care what you do in your own private life, but when you get on the road you are not alone! This is what government legislation should be about.. keeping the stupid people from doing stupid things..
OK.. so now we get to the issue of preventing bb to monitor our every step. This also is my deepest concern and the effort should be on making absolutely sure that abuse of this technology will be imposible!! back to you
Hmmm... Did Duncan Mackenzie control any cars? I( don't remember. I do remember that a Belter came to Earth in a Larry Niven story and was shocked to witness people racing (manually) internal combustion vehicles on the abandoned LA freeways. Apparently a lot of writers have thought of this one. Here in San Diego there is a stretch of commuter lane on the I-15 that has something embedded in it, it's not uncommon to see automatically piloted GM prototype vehicles speeding along (look, ma no hands!).
It's not biased, it's untrue.
Seems to only want to talk about carcinogens (of which tobacco smokes contains more than 100), and neglects childhood and adult-onset asthma completely.
http://www.lungusa.org/tobacco/
http://www.lungusa.org/tobacco/quit_be n.html
Secondhand smoke comes from two places: smoke breathed out by the person who smokes, and smoke from the end of a burning cigarette. Secondhand smoke causes or exacerbates a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma. Secondhand smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals; 200 are poisons; 43 cause cancer. Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen). Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and other health problems. The EPA estimates that secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 37,000 heart disease deaths in nonsmokers each year. Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. EPA estimates that secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age annually, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year. Secondhand smoke is harmful to children with asthma. The EPA estimates that for between 200,000 and one million asthmatic children, exposure to secondhand smoke worsens their condition. Secondhand smoke can make healthy children less than 18 months of age sick; it can cause pneumonia, ear infections, bronchitis, coughing, wheezing and increased mucus production. According to the EPA, secondhand smoke can lead to the buildup of fluid in the middle ear, the most common cause of hospitalization of children for an operation. Individuals can take several steps to reduce their exposure to secondhand smoke, including: If you smoke, quit! Keep smoke away from you and your family by asking people not to smoke in your home. Make sure your child's day care site and school are smoke-free. Use no-smoking signs, buttons and stickers at home, at work, and in your car. Eat in smoke-free environments. Seek a smoke-free worksite. Support clean air laws that protect you from secondhand smoke. For more information call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872), or visit our web site at http://www.lungusa.org.
http://www.lungusa.org/tob acco/secondkids_factsheet.html
The US Army installs governors in it's tanks to prevent road damage (tanks eat up road like nothing). It's ripped out at the nearest motorpool. I'd imagine (and hope) that if the UK government went so far as to actually do this, a similar situation would happen. SOMEBODY's bound to make a workaround, if nothing else.
What the heck is a 'sig'?
Example: .nl some big brain thought up a way to slow people down. Something like speedbumps, but in the shape of big rubberish circles in the middle of the road. It worked pretty well on cars, but when you tried to negotiate one of those on a motorcycle you were either launched or floored immediately!
Here in
So the result was that the average motorcycle would be doing something like 10 km/h trying to zigzag between these things. Yeah, that really improved the safety if you're driving up to it in your car doing 50 km/h.
I don't have first hand experience with these, but I've heard the stories from friends. (And I've seen the damage!) These were separate occasions, with radically different bikes. Suzuki RF-crotchrocket, and Honda Shadow-cruiser-thing. One went flat on his face, the other was launched.
(And no, this had nothing to do with the competence of the riders!)
Allright, how about, instead of directly _limiting_ your speed, have a warning sound inside the car beep when you're exceeding the speed limit? Or a flashing light... something to help drivers be more aware of just what they're doing.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
I think folks have forgotten the time in (I believe) the late 70's or early 80's when seatbelt switches were installed in some American cars which would prevent you from turning over the engine until your seatbelt was closed.
The goal was also to save lives--after all, if you can't start your motor until you have a seatbelt on, then you're less likely to die in an auto accident. The problem was twofold--first, many people were circumventing the system by locking the seatbelt closed and sitting on the belt. Second, the system made people more easily carjacked.
I predict this mandatory system will last three years--and as soon as folks get really pissed off, and as soon as a dozen or so people die when someone's car navigation system malfunctions and decides 25MPH is the speedlimit on the A1 in moderate fog--the whole thing will be scrapped in favor of a warning buzzer.
Now this is the kind of stuff I've been looking for. Something I could hack into and actually cause real havok with!!!!
Just imagine, half of the cars on the highway, going a max of 5 miles an hour. Or maybe half the cars going 100 mph MIN! Throwing random cars into reverse! Definately a worthy technology. Maybe you could trigger airbags or suddenly over tighten those automatic seatbelts. Perhaps I could make you listen to Barry Manilow at max volume on your stereo!
Are most Deputy Prime Ministers this stupid?
I can't confirm this, but I have read that more people have been killed in auto accidents than in all of the wars since the invention of the car.
I am all for my privacy and freedom, but I would also like to be guaranteed a safe public road.
Something has to be done. If you look at all other forms of transportation, cars are so much more dangerous that it is a miracle that they are legal.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
as the GPS receivers in the car are used by the in car system to locate the cars position on a map NOTHING is sent to a satellite.
As for not allowing speeds greater than 70Mph, I am sure the designers can see that there is a need to allow limited speeding for about 1 minute and maybe an accumultive period of 20mins per hour
anyway if the goverment wants it they will get it somehow, even on the back of an unrelated bill, which seems to be the way to get unwanted legislation pushed through nowadays
did they include this and all the terrorist bombings when they calculated the "guns kill this many people" rate?
Having lived in the UK and California, my experience is that freeway driving in California is less stressful and feels safer. The main reasons seem to be:
1. The speed limits are enforced, so most people obey them.
2. Traffic may overtake on either side.
This tends to lead to all the lanes on the freeway moving at fairly similar speeds. By contrast, in the UK, there will often be one lane moving at 60mph (50 up hills), one a 75, and one at anything up to 100. Changing lanes becomes a serious business.
This leads to a further problem that all the light traffic concentrates in the centre lane. The traffic density in this lane often exceeds the critical density for the speed, leading to sudden speed changes in the lane.
The US system may seem dangerous to UK drivers, but it leads to much better distribution of traffic between lanes, and much more even speeds.
I think hardare speed limiters are going a bit far, but I would certainly like to see speed limits enforced in the UK.
Wow, did you read waaay too much into this...and where did he "rant?"
I like the majority of my fellow citizens do not want to run around machine gunning each other.
And with that little self control shown on your part, more power to you. I should certainly hope you wouldn't want to. Owning a handgun, does not instantly turn you into a blood thirsty killer. But aparently if GB repealed or revised its gun laws you would go out and buy an automatic rifle... You sound like a real danger. Have you considered being committed?
OK i'll quote that shitty thing that happened in your south.
For those of us who are not mind readers or know to what south you refer, could you elaborate - maybe just a little?
f*ck you & dont come to england please.
Now that's not very nice. Actually last time I was in england I wizzed on several nice landmarks... The nice thing? The worst the bobbies could do was club me.
God Save the Queen!
Toodles.
1) The speed limiting portion has nothing to do with rights, crimes, etc...it has to do with putting restrictions on a driver, as he's driving. This is ludicrous, which probably means it's a flashy headline to get people to take a "compromise" solution, which is more insidious and is what the instigators of the measure actually wanted.
/dev/null, the Customer Service Dept.
2) That being said, I think the real intent here is to use GPS-based computers for information gathering. Think about it. In the US, mileage to/from business trips is tax-deductable. IRS could use these devices to verify such mileage. Traffic officials and city planners could get real-time info on delays or wrecks, and use the info to redirect/advise HERO (Highway Emergency RespOnse), police, and/or fire trucks to the scene, before the call gets to the call center.
Time to take some catnip and, like, project my astral being into the future, to find out...
That it's really going to look like that traffic computer from The Fifth Element (the one in Corbin's taxi). The GPS-based unit will record your relative speed, and check for something like "speed over X miles per hour". The unit will forward any "violations" to a receiving company, and inform you of these violations while you're driving. This company will calculate ticketing charges according to a federal/state/local rates, add some "processing fees" for their own good, and send you a monthly bill. Non-payment of the bill results in your credit rating being trashed, and all disputes can be forwarded to the meatspace version of
Some percentage of the proceeds will go to the state/local governments, to replace the lost ticket income, and Big Government scores a double play, if not a trifecta. (a) There will be increased revenue from a back-door auto/gas tax. (b) There will be increased revenue for local/state governments, who can still write their own tickets, etc. (c) it can be marketed as a private-sector environmental initiative, with the "assistance" of the government, (d) if the "violations" are packaged as usage fees, it isn't a rights violation. (e) if the English implement a more rigid version, that gives the U.S. a worse case to say "well, our system won't really be that limiting...."
It's just too damn easy to happen. You can't just buy cars like you can PCs, there are too few manufacturers with too high a profile. They can be regulated into implementing these devices, particularly if bottom lines can be increased.
I live in 'Britain' and have quite a bit to say about this. Firstly, there aren't cameras everywhere, I don't no where you were told this but there aren't. Traffic cameras are used to see if there is congestion on roads, they show on local news and stuff. Other cameras on roads aren't cameras, but devices that use radar or something to tell if a car is speeding, then they photograph if the car is speeding, so they only see the criminals. I won't go into gun control much because a lot of americans I have seen are very protective of their right t have a gun. I won't argue. There was a shooting in Scotland a few years back and lots of school kids were killed, as a result you can't legally posses a handgun as they are deemed obviously dangerous, and unlike other weapons, easy to hide. Frankly, my opinion is: If you want to have a gun go to the USA, if you don't want one go to UK. There is no point arguing about it as nothing will happen if someone on slashdot convinces someone else that gun control is bad. I have never once had my privacy invaded so leave out big brother comments until you've lived here for 10 years.
Come on. This is turning into a 3 year old's argument. 'Don't come here' 'I pissed on your landmarks' Give me a break. Look the majoirity of people don't want to own guns here, and they think that no-one else should have one either, that way less people would die. Frankly I don't care, one if my firends families like guns and want everyone to have one, most people think that it is bad idea and that guns kill people. As for British people following orders and being under the thumb of big brother? Well america isn't all that great is it? You produce 90% of the worlds waste and polution. About 20% of american kids leaving high school couldn't put USA on the globe. And I thought my friends were thick. Look, I won't mock your country any more, but please don't have a go at mine. Americans are infamous for being out of touch with the rest of the world and being stupid, please prove this is not the case by being nice, clever, polite and stop talking about guns. Phew. Score: 0 come one, just cos I don't have a name.
Normally I would launch off into a tyrade about 1) I'm sick of being repressed by safety legislation 2) Why isn't this technology being used to track CONGRESS? However, part of my New Year's resolution was to try to be more cheerful. So here goes: The good news is that the day after they install this puppy in America 137 million working people will get speeding tickets. This will cause such an outrage that the speeding laws will be adjusted to conform with reality and my commute to work will be decriminalized once and for all...
> I held speeds well above 100mph until I got to the next exit a few miles down the road.
Couldn't just get off at the next ramp and drive up on surface streets, that wouldn't impress the lady.. Do that a few more times, you're luck will run out.. Granny merges off the sholder in her 74' LTD, you run up on her slow ass doing over twice the legal limit in the dark.. Ever done a full lockup(breaks to the floor) at 100mph? I hope so, cause the first time is the best..
I suggest you go and race some autocross in that supra before you go on about how safe it is and how you can drive like mario andrette in it..
Umm, could you please give us a source for this? I don't doubt your veracity, I just want to know more.
Don't need to impress the lady. Been w/ her for years. Like a wife.
Again, as stated in the post which you could have read more thoroughly, I got off AT THE NEXT EXIT. You even quoted it! If I had allowed them to stay near me anymore, they would have run me off the road. I don't like a large Dodge Ram swerving within a foot or so of me at highway speeds.
I don't go blowing by entrance ramps at 100mph, that would make me about as bright as the truck driver.
Ever done an emergency lane change at 80mph? I have. I have done full brake at over 100mph as you mentioned. No brake lockup though. Why? A well designed and maintained brake system. Car and Driver said (In the 3/97 issue) that it was the best brakes they have ever tested. I tested it myself. I believe it. Horrible noise though as the ABS cycles.
Autocross? You are right, it would be best to learn how to drive on a track. Thats kind of my point. I have not had the opportunity to do so myself, but I believe I drive quite well anyway.
Funny you mention Mario Andretti, well he did a test of the Supra, did 184mph in it and stated that it was the easiest car to handle at it's limits.
This all underscores my point. A well designed and maintained car w/ a good driver is the best way to lower accidents.
I have a feeling that it'll never appear.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.