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Speeding To Become Impossible In UK?
dmearns writes: "Picked this up from comp.risks. It seems the UK government is planning on requiring computer controlled speed limiters on cars within 5 years. The system uses GPS to figure out if the vehicle is in a speed limited zone. The original story is here.
I suppose it is inevitable that officials would think of something like this, but I never thought people would accept it!"
What if you're rushing someone to the hospital. This is exactly the kind of "good intention" government crap that ends up screwing up peoples lives (like taxes!).
Someone you trust is one of us.
The police aren't going to want to give up their speed ticket income, nor are do drivers want control taken out of their hands. Most speeders do so intentionally, so why not just make them pay the consequences. With the GPS system you can determine how much over the speed limit they are and for how long. Charge the driver a fixed price per minute per mile an hour over the speed limit they are driving. So if I want to go fast I can pay the extra buck to do that without worrying about getting slammed with a $100 speeding ticket.
Not that you mention it, I wonder if Bill Gates = = UK........
I'm, as cucked as a newrt. I've had a few ntognightr5, nd wqriet \franekhy;y I think i SOHGULD N'T Drive.
U;n avnazed I caj do HGTMML on an eZ basis. I'm surpsied I know what a
ius for.
Andrew van der Stock
Subjects, not citizens. Quite a difference. Once they gave up their guns to the government, they became slaves. It is just a matter of time.
Have you seen the charges for ambulance transportation lately? - Its horrible if you do have insurance - if you don't you are REALLY screwed....
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Or am I incorect in thinking that the UK is an island?
:)
Yes, you are. Great Britain is an island. The United Kingdom includes both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The two are separated by the Irish Sea. Okay, so that doesn't affect your point at all but you did ask
Next thing you know they will want our guns...
Or what if I'm on the freeway, and I gotta pee, really, really, REALLY bad, and the next rest area is 30 miles away.... (assume using a tree isn't an option this time).
Obviusly it's extremely dangerous if it's going to prevent you from exceeding the limit to get out of trouble. Imaging you're in the UK passing on the opposite side of the road, when an oncomingn vehicle appears out of nowhere...
Never mind the obvious danger, this would also massively congest roads. Motorway driving speeds in the UK are 80-90mph, vs the official limit of 70. If cars are limited to 70mph, then it's the same as turning the water pressure down on a hose - you're not going to get as much water through...
Just buy your car in Ireland, Netherlands, France or Belgium & register it with relatives or a friend in that country. The you can drive arround the UK as much as you like without having to worry about it.
If a cop pulls you up you just tell him you borrowed the car off a mate of yours from Amsterdam or whatever who drove over & is staying at your place for a while.
I did this for years, by living in Sydney, NSW, but having interstate rego from Victoria, that way I didn't have to worry about speed cameras, red-light cameras or parking tickets, but all the states have linked up their computers. So I flew to New Guinea with a bit of paper which had my engine number & body number writen on it & I payed a bribe (New Gunea is as corrupt as like any island up that way) to get a instant registration for my car back in Sydney in a made up name, then I flew back & screwed the New Guinea rego plates on my car & its back to 'no worries mate' time.
This also means I don't have to worry about a NSW rego test every year, instead I have to send some money up to a mate up there (with a bit extra for him) & he re-registers it for me.
BTW, I drive here using a New Zealand license & a motoring orginisation international permit, but that's another story.
But it means if ever I'm pulled up by the cops I have to say I'm over here on business or holiday & I'm staying with a friend & I'm driving a car I borrowed from another friend of his from New Gueinea who's staying at his place for a while. It hasn't happen yet though....touchwood.
George Orwell would be very impressed.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The same would happen as if any other part of the car malfunctioned in such a way as to make the car inoperable. Presumably you'd get someone to come to you and repair it or you'd get the car towed to them to be repaired.
So now they have no recourse against the government at all
Except for the democratic process of elections,of course.
Several years ago, AAA did a study on the causes of accidents. Speed does NOT cause accidents. Higher speeds merely increase the severity of a accident when it happens. The cause of accidents is differentials in speed. 9 cars travelling at 80 mph and 1 at 55 mph, the slow car is going to cause the accident. Reverse it, 9@55 and 1@80, and the fast car will cause the accident. This came out at about the same time as the raising of the speed limit on interstates in CA from 65 to 70. Needless to say, the insurance industry quickly buried the study...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Just buy your car in Ireland, Netherlands, France or Belgium & register it with relatives or a friend in that country. The you can drive arround the UK as much as you like without having to worry about it.
If a cop pulls you up you just tell him you borrowed the car off a mate of yours from Amsterdam or whatever who drove over & is staying at your place for a while.
I did this for years, by living in Sydney, NSW, but having interstate rego from Victoria, that way I didn't have to worry about speed cameras, red-light cameras or parking tickets, but all the states have linked up their computers. So I flew to New Guinea with a bit of paper which had my engine number & body number writen on it & I payed a bribe (New Gunea is as corrupt as like any island up that way) to get a instant registration for my car back in Sydney in a made up name, then I flew back & screwed the New Guinea rego plates on my car & its back to 'no worries mate' time.
This also means I don't have to worry about a NSW rego test every year, instead I have to send some money up to a mate up there (with a bit extra for him) & he re-registers it for me.
BTW, I drive here using a New Zealand license & a motoring orginisation international permit, but that's another story.
But it means if ever I'm pulled up by the cops I have to say I'm over here on business or holiday & I'm staying with a friend & I'm driving a car I borrowed from another friend of his from New Gueinea who's staying at his place for a while. It hasn't happen yet though....touchwood.
Never happened.
I suspect that if you start putting speed controls on cars, people will start fixing up the old ones to avoid having the privacy intrusion. New car sales will falter, and the speed controls will come out. No large corporation wants to get a bad reputation with it's clientele, and I think the fear of being labelled as a 'big brother' type of corporation will keep automakers from actually implementing this...The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Huh? Not that I have noticed - not here in Japan, nor in the US & Canada in the last 20 years or so.
As someone who REGULARLY drives on Japanese roads a speeds WAY ABOVE the posted limit, I can tell you that every Japanese car I have driven, has easily gone over 110mph - unless, of course you are talking about non-turbo "K-cars"...
("K-car" is a type of car with a 660cc engine which are quite popular in Japan, and if I remember correctly in some parts of Europe.)
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
If I am cycling at 20mph and hit someone, what is the probable outcome? Bruising and perhaps a broken arm?
If I do the exact same speed in a car? Someone will have a good chance of being dead!
Also, if I find my bike heading towards a small child, I may well take a dive and risk injuring myself. You can't do that in a car!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Surely Mel Gibson?
And of course anyone who managed to do it would probably have worse things than a speeding offense to worry about.
A system like this can't possibly last. Give it months or weeks before people ask around £150 to disable the GPS system in a car, making the satellite blind to its speed. Any Government who puts this blatent 'Big Brother' idea into practice have no chance of winning the next election, so it's unlikely it'll go ahead anyway :-)
I do get the idea that there are lots of ways of travelling at more than 10mph that
a) are not likely to kill or badly injure other people and
b) don't hurt the environment.
Home zones are designed to make the places people live nicer by reclaiming the streets for children to play in, neighbours to chat etc. They have a number of nice side effects including better chance of a vibract community and lower crime rates.
Dave
Can someone explain me why is it a bad thing to have car speed controlling devices? This is nothing to do with personal freedom, or in the other hand is, the govnerment has the duty to protect me from the others. So if theres a good system who cant avoid ppl driving 250km/h its definitely a good thing. Am I missing something here?
BeOS - free.be.com
I hope nobody has to get to the hospital in a hurry. Like, when you're helping someone cut a tree down and they get swiped by a chainsaw or something. No time to call an ambulance and "let the professionals" do over 40.
Time for that '66 GTO I think.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
If I remember the figures correctly you are twice as likely to kill someone if you hit them at 35 compared to at 30 (it's quite a high death rate at 35 and I think almost certain at 40). If reduce to 20 you rarely cause death.
(all speed figures in mph).
Dave
er why would robbers chase you? surely they would be too busy cleaning your house out?
How I wish the UK government would give me the option to use mass-transit, as there's not much fun in sitting in traffic jams. However the free market doesn't allow for customer convenience, only massive profits.
I won't even get into how this violates rights.
Well I wish you would because nobody seems to have explained it so far and I don't see the problem.
I can understand objections on practical and safety grounds (need to speed to avoid collision, doubting the reliability of the device etc.).
I could sort of understand objecting to a speed limit on principle. I think that having laws that pace speed limits is acceptable and desirable but I can see that someone with fairly extreme views might think otherwise.
I can certainly understand someone thinking that the speed limits are set wrongly, whether they think they're too high or too low.
What I don't understand is what using a device that limits speed has to do with rights. If placing legal limits on speeding is itself acceptable, i.e. you have no "right to speed" then I don't understand why preventing cars from exceeding the speed limit would be thought to infringe any rights.
God, this is one of the times I wish I had mod points.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
anyway there is all the chance such a law could be passed here, it wouldn't be the first time. oh and the commons can simply push thru a law if the lords doesn't like it, too bad
The food here is now pretty good, all those jokes about english food are pretty out of date - you can still get bad food, but that's even true in France/Italy. In England you can now get Good food - it's not a reason not to come here, honest.
I don't feel I can argue with the rest of your points though (see the sig).
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I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
er no we vote for our local candidates and their party, the party with the most seats then forms the government. enough of this creeping presidental bollocks already, i voted labour at the election not blair
That wouldn't be a problem for me considering my car won't do above 35 on a good day anyway ...
What about places where you can't get a good fix on GPS satillites? I know with my eMap, if theres enough tree or building blockage I can't get any satillites. In downtown minneapolis I have no reception at all.. will the cars just stop totally?
I suppose once the system is in place there won't be any more patrollers on the road looking for speeders. So if you crack it you can speed and no one will looking for you. So for once I suppose I'll be on time :-)
my question is: in a situation like this, where pretty much everyone (IMHO) is against something like this--how can they find engineers to design something like that? Is everyone so immoral that they will sell out the freedom of a country for a decent sum of cash?
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Won't the police be missing a huge portion of their revenue with these cars on the road? Will they lower the speed limit to 30mph and catch speeders doing 40?
Dancin Santa
if you need to speed for some reason? If you need to get to a hospital or evade another vehicle? This has potential to cause harm as well as give protection...
I did feel that the final pro-gun comment at the end was unwarranted. Armed rebellion against the government is not a form of recourse! It's STUPID! Especially since America is a democracy and thus elections can be used to change things, which everyone seems to forget.
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
Oh shut up you troll. I never once said I don't also drive a little over the speed limit. My point was what the guy I was defending said was valid, and that increasing driving speed linearly decreases control and survival rate exponentially.
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
>How many people are killed by speeders each
>year vs drunk driver, put a breath-alyzer on
>every satart in the UK, not a GPS speed limit
>device...
Now THAT would be cool!
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
I happen to think this is a good idea... just another step towards automated cars. Having to drive is going to be a thing of the past eventually!
I guess it's easier with cars and such.
What I'm really waiting for, however, is that they finally come out with a similar device for humans that - once implanted - prevents atrocious acts such as teaching kids about evolution, perfoming acts of homosexual sex, or voting for Al Gore.
Replace the sensor with a sensor that have a non-linear response curve. That way lower speeds will be reported more true to the actual speed, much higher speeds will appear much less (say, 80 MPH appears to system as 60MPH).
Won't work if they embed it in the engine control computer and drive it off the same sesore that times the spark.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm not saying I like the idea of being tracked, but this does have a positive side if it is used properly (a big "if").
Several months ago I was driving 70 mph on the freeway and I was about to switch lanes. An instant before I did, some idiot can flying by me at what must have been 120 mph. It scared the piss out of me. Had I switch lanes a second earlier, I might not be here to write this. There *is* a reason for speed limits, and there *is* a reason to enforce them!
Consider also that the idiots who would be most inconvenienced by this tracking system are usually also the same idiots who cause cause those traffic jams that waste a half hour of your time every couple of weeks.
Actually, if they set the thing to trigger at about 10-15 mph over the actual speed limit I don't think I would mind it.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
... career civil servants who ... do a good deal of thinking ...
You've obviously never watched the excellent (though very cynical) comedy "Yes, Minister" (or "Yes, Prime Minister"). Yes, civil servants think a lot - they think about how to keep their gravy train going, and how to set things up such that decisions are made the way they would like.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
While I admire your ingenuity, I must also point out that you're not the first to think of the problem along those lines.
In fact, the data in any given 4 km area is substantially more complex than a vector and a few arcs. So there are significant bandwidth issues.
There are also significant geography issues--because your vehicle would have to know which 4 km square to download next. (In fact, you wouldn't download 4 km squares--you'd download .2 or .25-degree squares. GIS generally doesn't do miles or kilometers.)
And once again--you'd have to absolutely, positively guarantee, regardless of wind, weather, or atmospheric disturbance, that the data transfer happened in time. Or you could be sending cars at 100 kmph hurtling into an interchange whose speed limit was just reduced to 40 kmph.
Politicians love control. But they get very nervous about the possibility of large numbers of voters getting killed.
You might be thinking of The Day After - a made for TV movie about the day after a nuclear attack on the US.
You know those white TV detector vans in the UK that police if you've paid your TV license or not?
I'd bet 10:1 that they make something like that for this... Except that they'd put sensors for this all over the country, not just in white vans.
The UK loves to police things differently from most any other country in the world. Heck, I can't even think of another country where the regular police can't bear arms. Or another 1st world country that lets people run over jaywalkers legally.
Just an observation, not necessarialy a social comment against the UK.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>theoretically that truck couldn't go faster than the speed limit
Except down a hill (assuming this device only limits gas, not brakes). Gravity will take over when the engive won't. And I'm gonna bet the HGV drivers use this advantage to the maximum of their abilities.
From what I've seen England is full of big, long, huge hills. Now you have even more problems... it is much harder to drive your car down a steep grade than on level land. This could be lots of fun. I'll have to remember to check out the newpapers over there from time to time....
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
It's fun to speed when it's safe to do so?
I assume you consider yourself to be a good driver (in the same way everyone thinks they have dress sense and a good sense of humour...)? Even if that is the case, it's a fair bet that there's a driver near you who's not, and it's no bad thing to see them limited, especially in built up areas.
On the other hand, drivers here routinely speed on motorways - safely for the most part - and I'd rather have speed limits there enforced by a human being than a machine. They're on the spot, and can see the condition of the car, the road conditions, visibility, the behaviour of surrounding traffic, etc, and hopefully come to an educated decision whether it's "safe to speed", or to pull you over.
Paul
Also, why don't people say the same thing about Chevy's NorthStar. They can track you in you car.
YM OnStar. Northstar is the engine in the Cadillac. Yes, it's confusing, because Northstar and OnStar are often equipped in the same vehicle.
BATMAN
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
i think it was a piss take, either that or it was george dubbya talking about foreign policy
Are you familiar with the "tyranny of the majority?" Perhaps a reading of a few Federalist Papers or "On Liberty" by Mill.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Here's a wrinkle. Assuming it can be made to work reliably, safely, and securely, etc., what if a motorist could voluntarily install this in their car for a significant reduction in their car insurance rates? Obviously someone caught speeding (and thus tampering with it) would be in deep doodoo. But I can see a lot of people adding it just for the savings.
Michael
A loud siren inside the car (like in Singapore) would be safer.
I can just see it now. "Man crashes in to stuff in emergency situation because his already distracted attention was totally removed by a siren". I haven't heard a more stupid idea yet...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
That would be assuming that all Brits are lovable cockney chimney sweeps. Just like Americans all talk like Texans y'all. Dumb Americans.
Hi!
You're essentially advocating one giant, massive computer to track all these vehicles. And you're suggesting a 10-second latency between vehicle reports. Here's an academic exercise for you: there are more than 5 million registered vehicles in the New York City metropolitan area (specifically, the FCC-designated MSC). If a position report requires a minimum of 64 bytes (it more or less does), and each vehicle is reporting every 10 seconds, how much bandwidth does it take to handle all the traffic?
Lots.
Having one massive system to control vehicle traffic can work--but only if it is
Which is to say, this works when you're the Federal Aviation Administration tracking airplanes through the sky (there are only several thousand airliners worldwide). The problem is vastly more complicated when you have hundreds of millions of cars in North America--the bandwidth requirements, and the computing requirements, are overwhelming. And all you need is one vehicle in the middle of it all to suddenly decide to fry its GeoBigBrother chip, and lots of people die.
Yes--some transit systems monitor the positions of their buses. Here's how: the bus does have geodata onboard--but since it is only traveling within the Portland area, it doesn't need any more data than a few counties. That's substantially less than 37 CD-ROMs. The bus also includes a radio transmitter that is talking back and forth with a controller. The system tells the controller where the bus is.
But--that bus gets "lost" all the time, depending on how often it passes large buildings, goes under bridges, etc. If there's a tunnel on the route, forget about it. In a real sense, these systems are just like cell phones (and in some cases, they are cell phones): there are some places where you just can't get radio reception. (And there's the opposite problem, too--sometimes you get radio reception a hundred miles away.)
The system you see when you ride the bus is a reporting system. A system to govern a vehicle's speed--with obvious life-and-death implications--is a command and control system. Don't confuse the two--the first is relatively easy. The second is extremely hard--and the consequences of a failure are catastrophic.
3. As telephone and computer networks have been doing FOR DECADES, activity by client-machines is logged and can be produced at any time.
If you send a signal to them then of course they can log it. Now, what would that have to do with GPS? It RECEIVES sattelite signals and works out your location based on the signals.
that they will ticket you. Even though the system can handle a spped of about 50mph and still be able to send the correct information, 90% of all EZPass toll booths only allow you to go 5-10 mph. The reason why? Because they feel that it would "upset" the current traffic flow, even though that in most places the EZPass was put into place "because the NEEDED to upset the traffic flow" for the flow of traffic was not moving anywhere. And yes I do believe that they can and do ticket people who go above the speed limit with it. They can also track your car with it, which is why I will never get one.
If we suggest a policeman in every car, they'd accept that too. Very, very frightening.
Michael
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
Personally, I'm not so paranoid that I'll gladly allow this type of cellphone. I would much rather have my cellphone company be able to tell where I am for whatever inane reason than be lying in a ditch somewhere in the middle of nowhere while I freeze, bleed, or be eaten alive while drifting in and out of conscienceness.
And you're the one who ISN'T paranoid? I don't even have a cell phone and I'm not losing sleep over the possibility being eaten alive.
If this is a real risk in... well, whatever it is you're into, then I can see why you might take steps to have your whereabouts monitored, but advocating extending that monitoring to everyone else with a cell phone seems a little slefish.
I think you mean Hitler, and he died 55 years ago. I'm glad Brits can't own guns, as every two-bit kid will have one, just like they carry shitty little knives at the moment. However I can take a knife off someone because they have to come at me to use it, however someone standing a foot away from me can shoot me. Glad I don't live in a country where the only way people can defend themselves is with lethal weapons.
Trying to get pregnant wife to the hospital makes perfect sense. Suggesting that this is a good time to be speeding doesn't.
But then we don't really get random killing sprees, as it's quite hard to kill lots of people with a knife as opposed to a semi-auto. Yes, the UK is a shithole, but you should look at your own country before you pass judgement.
Although the UK labour (left wing) government seems to enjoy micro-managing its citizens (I lived there for the last 1.5 yrs)... I'm here to tell you that it is certainly no better back here in Australia. Every holiday season here the media enthusiatically run what appears to be a sports-scoreboard of road deaths per state. The police media spokespeople make tearfull pleas for people to "slow down" on the roads...crank up speeding fines to ridiculous levels, take away licenses etc etc. Now our left wing wowser-element (big here) are lobbying for speed limits to be dropped to 50km/h in cities (from 60 now). Frankly it drives me insane... Noone seems to ever use actual stats on the correlation between road speed and death. In countries like Sweden where they did drop speed limits, deaths went up for the next 2 years! (The wowsers responsible for the laws claimed statistical aberation to explain it). Fact - Fatigue is the biggest road killer...you make people take longer to get places (and driving between places in Australia takes a while) deaths are going to go up. Simple. Check out this page on speed stats from our Canadian friends: http://sense.bc.ca/research.htm p.s. Spent a week driving around Italy last year. Their highways have no speed limits (like Germany). After a growing up in Australia I kept feeling like a naughty child while doing a comfortable 140km/h (of course at that speed you're in the slow or middle lane ;-) ). Didn't see any carnage, I wonder what their road death stats are like in a very liberal (although oddly facist back in the old days) country like that ?
Living life in the middle lane...
Dave
I was driving one of my 8 series (an M Tech believe it or not, we're talking a potential 200 MPH + ). Anyhow, on a country road we were forced to slow down (I don't speed BTW) because some loon had been pulled for speeding. Anyhow 5 minutes later, said loon is behind and harrassing me 'cause I'm only doing 30 in a 30 zone. I hope he gets banned 'cause he just doesn't understand.
threadeds blog
Suggesting that this is a good time to be speeding doesn't.
Do you mean it isn't a good time to be going 120mph? If so, I agree. If you mean it isn't a good time to be going above the posted 40mph limit (which these devices would prohibit), you need to get some reality smacked into you.
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Secondly, such a system would have to be accurate to at least 1/2 a lane width (to accurately differentiate acceleration/deceleration lanes from normal traffic lanes). A lane is about 3-5 meters wide. Thus the accuracy of such a system would have to be about 2 meters. If we look at the accurace of gps, stand alone systems are accurate to about 10 meters (thanks to W.J.C's executive order).
What this means is that inorder to effectively and safely implement such a system either military grade GPS receivers would have to be installed in all vehicles (woohoo, I'll take 2 thank you) or we will have to move to a differential GPS system which means that D-GPS transmitters will have to setup all across the country ($$$$ major bucks). Either way, what this effectively means is that with the purchase of any vehicle you will receive a box that can pinpoint your exact location to about 2 meters. This sounds really great on the surface, but now imagine a rogue nation with a slight beef against the US (or any other country for that matter).
Though there may be laws against tampering with the device (there are also laws against setting off explosives that seem to be routinely ignored) all that, say Iraq, would have to do is send a couple of operatives to the US, purchase a couple of cheap cars, extract the GPS receivers and implant them into a missle. Launch the missle from just about anywhere and you can be reasonably assured that the missle will be within 2 meters of its target.
As much as law enforcement agencies may love this idea, I am reasonably sure that the even more draconian military will promptly pimp-slap such a plan based on national security.
You made the exact same point that I was trying to. I'm still trying to work out how you could read my post in such a way as to think I meant the opposite.
Are you kidding?
My boss said he wanted to see more of me. So I gained 12 pounds. This post may or may not be sarcastic.
Yeah, like the dumb bitch that accidently drove through a stop sign into three lanes of oncoming traffic in front of me one day. Slammed on her brakes and stopped, when "punching" it would havew just shot her through the intersection with time to spare. Just sat and watched her scream with her hands over her mouth while my 2 ton car smoked to a stop beside her door. I never hit the car, but I was extremely close - close enough that I got out and checked, since the nose up when the car actually stopped was so violent I thought I might have clipped her. I will tell you the story of the blind intersection and the train some time. Nothing like an alley (with a 10 km limit, no less - remember that when the limit is enforced) crossing a track when you can't see until you are stuck out enough to be hit - have to listen. And not all trains are loud. On the other hand, I bet you can really rock going down a service road alongside a highway!
64 cent question: if a cop sees me speeding (and they can estimate speed very well by eye alone, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise), will he know?
Presumably, if you go to an inspection, they look to make sure you didn't mess with the device. If you did, you get fined, fail, or some other penalty.
Sure, I don't have to have to do these things. I could buy fresh tires and brakes, go to an inspection, and when I get home, put the bald ones back on. That way I'd never have to spend cash on tires again. I realize the difference between tires and a limiter- one's optional, one's not- but the point is it would be easier just to deal with it than play the swapping game.
I still think this is stupid idea, but never understimate the power of legislation to make stupid things happen.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
<sarcasm>Oh no! Someone is going to prevent me from being able to commit a crime.</sarcasm>
Boo-hoo.
Not EVERYONE speeds. I don't, so you're wrong already. Comparing this to the DCMA is absurd. How in the hell are these related. I hate the DCMA, but I am all for something that will keep me safer from people like you who obviously feel that they should be allowed to drive in any manner they like. And I suppose that if you get caught and have to pay a fine thereby lowering my taxes, I should be indifferent or even grateful. You are an asshole. Plain and simple. You are inconsiderate and selfish -- at least on this issue.
If the sign says "Speed Limit 70", the speed limit is 70, not 75.
If the sign says "Night Speed Limit 65", the speed limit is 65, not 70.
People like you seem to feel that the speed limit is whatever you decide it should be.
I will gladly pay higher taxes to make up for the losses in ticket revenue if it will keep me and other responsible drivers safe. Anyone who hurts me or my friends/family as a result of their selfish driving will have hell to pay -- one way or another.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
"Windows crash" will take on a whole new meaning. Scary.
Do you like German cars?
The Massachusetts Turnpike, also labeled I-90, is a ridiculously expensive limited access toll road running the length of the state of Massachusetts.
The time you get on is known. The time you get off is known. It's been known for 20 years. All the state has to do is subtract the times, divide by the distance, and if you averaged more than 65 mph (the Pike's speed limit), you're docked by mail.
This has never happened. It never *will* happen. If Massachusetts was serious about stopping speeders on the Pike, it would have implemented a system like this 20 years ago.
There is no political will in the United States to stop speeding. We *like* to speed, and we don't like people who try to stop us.
So chill. Let the Brits have their fun. It'll never happen here.
It would help if they set reasonable speed limits instead of ones guaranteed to cause ticket revenue. Where I live there are a lot of 35 mph roads I could safely do 60 on. That's a recipe for encouraging people to break the law.
A free society does not mean that people should be free to flaunt laws that are to everyone's benefit
Perhaps you're not aware of it, but in America we have a tradition of breaking bad laws. It's actually sort of a citizen's duty and serves to keep us from dumping tea in the harbor again.
I'm sure as hell not going to pay for the roads and infrastructure you'll need in order to drive around.
Well, you are if you pay taxes. I don't say "I'm sure as hell not going to pay for bike paths so some tree-hugger can ride his recumbent bicycle to work."
---raju1kabir, pedestrian and cyclist
Oh, so you just hate cars... nevermind. I see you morally-superior types all the time... going through red lights, taking up a lane of traffic at 20mph in a 45 zone... riding in the street instead of the bike path MY taxes paid for... yeah, I get the picture.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I agree that speeding in zones where there are a lot of pedestrians/cyclists etc. is bad. Unfortunately, 40mph in a 30mph zone is treated the same as 80 in a 70mph zone. This is wrong!
The big issue with pedestrian accidents that in over 75% of cases it is NOT the fault of the driver, but of the pedestrian. Maybe it is time pedestrians, and cylcists where forced to follow the road rules too.
I work on the basis of always giving way to something bigger. Not because I'm right or wrong, but because if the bigger thing hits me it will hurt!
Nice points, all. I've thought a little bit about GPS-based traffic systems and I think there's a feasible way to implement it, but it's a different philosophy than speed governors.
Keep all the map db info on the server, where it should be. The GPS in the car simply records a time record of the travel path of the vehicle. This information is occasionally fed to local (or satellite) receivers scattered about. The information is then fed into an algorithm that calculates a monthly bill for moving violations, etc. The central system need not even store the bits for the actual traffic pattern- it could process the traffic pattern (the overpass which-road-am-i-on ambiguities issues raised above can be covered through a time average of speed or by removing the overpass regions from the processing) and then throw it away, storing only the monthly bill. If the driver wants an itemization or to challenge the bill, they go to their car, which is the only device that actually retains the privacy-sensitive info on their traffic patterns.
Of course, the system is open to hacking and backdoors, as would any wide-spread IT system. But a good (open-source?) implementation could help ameliorate these concerns. The personal info must go to the central server, but it need not be stored to disk there. Just converted to XX $$ bill. Ain't perfect, but possibly workable? I'd be interested to hear reactions from those more tech-savvy than me.
Many of the disadvantages of such a system have already been posted here, but also keep in mind the advantages. Saving life. Saving fuel. Saving the environment. Saving time (yes- see next paragaph). Greater freedom (yes- see next paragraph).
One nice irony of the automobile as a symbol of freedom (in U.S.) is that the road system is a nearly perfect example of communism. It's build and managed by a central governmental authority, and access to resources are allocated by queue (ever been in a traffic jam :-) ? ).
Soviet bread line, anyone? Road congestion
to a large extent results because a driver
does not pay the very real cost that (s)he imposes
by slowing down the traffic for everyone else.
That economic failure encourages excess driving.
A GPS-based pricing system could go some way to alleviating that problem. (This line of thought
now splits into multiple interesting threads
on social implications, fairness to the poor, etc.
but only finite time to type). Freedom to
some extent is freedom from the unfair "free-ride"
impositions of others...
Curtains for windows?
Simple. We allow one 60 second burst of speed every 10 minutes. If you need to pass more than 6 people an hour, then something else in our world needs fixing...
Besides, soon enough all the driving will be done by computers, no 'stop-and-go' traffic, it will all be 'streamed'.
- Prevent idiots from driving 40mph in the fast lane. (If they could prevent the eternal left-blinker that would be great too, but maybe that's asking for too much.)
- Prevent losers from slowing down to 15mph per-hour to "get a good look" at the accident or dude changing his tire.
- Prevent total boneheads from stopping in the damn EZ-Pass toolboth lanes. ("Duh? Wheres the change bucket? Hello? Duh? Doris, there's no change bucket! Why don't they have a...")
- Stop idiotic Boston pedestrians from jaywalking out in front of you- they're a lot more likely to actually use crosswalks if they know you can't stop!
Maybe it's just me, because the drivers in Boston just suck so much.I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Then by that logic, every time I listen to the radio, the station knows where I am. Understand that the action of receiving a signal does NOT mean that the system that sent it knows where you are. You may know where you are based on GPS, but no one else will, at least not due to the mere act of receiving the GPS signal.
I always wondered how those missiles could blow up a car, but not even make a dent in something as thin as a garage door...
(Do not sign anything.) -- Fell, Planescape: Torment
I believe the S/A drift would alter speed by approximately 1-2kph, not 20.
That's stupid though, what if a car is out of control and you need to speed up to get out of the way? Or a falling rock? Obviously speeding is used to get away from danger as well as to cause it. I wonder how many families will sue because their now-dead relative was not able to control his car in order to get out of an emergency...
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
> What happens if my wife or whomever is about to give birth?
Well gollllly Jimmy-Bob, I think you should get in your car and drive 120 mph, because God knows childbirth is a dangerous life threatening situation that will always end badly if not done in a modern high-tech hospital.
(How the f*ck did that make it to 5-Insightful?)
Not really. A failure or two resulting in a death would not cause the howling protest that would result in the removal of these devices, no more than a tire blowout or other inconvenience. People would look at it, shake their heads, and spend money to improve reliability. Even more people would say "yes, a few people lost their lives, but think of all the people who have been saved because of the limitor!" It's an idea that has to be killed before it is implimented.
If the driving test was anything like a pilot's license, then the road toll would be much lower. You are taught all aspects of a plane's handling characteristics, how to control a stall, loss of power etc. For each type of plane, you have to do a new rating (familiarisation). You have to check your plane before EACH flight. Every X number of hours, the plane is inspected.
Have you ever been to a track to see what happens to your car under emergency braking conditions? What happens under brakes in a corner? What happens when entering a corner too fast? What the car does in the wet/dry/unsealed roads ? I have, and do with every car I buy.
Maybe if we took driving as seriously as a pilot takes flying.....
Other interesting info. Speed is involved in 30% of all accidents. In something in the order of 20% of those, speed is the principle cause.
Well not all of us are able to handle something like that ourselves anymore. If we all were able to, we would not need hospitals to do that for us. ok lets say heart attack or something then
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
I wondered what that plastic crap in the neck of the rum bottle my gf brought back from Mexico was. Kept blocking the flow! What the hell! So it's not that you can't drink down there, it's that you don't have the tools. I see. ;)
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
You know, I wouldn't mind having this system in my car if it acted as some kind of insurance against speeding fines. But the gubmint won't let such a cash cow go that easily. Reminds me of the Bertelsmann Tax.
In the UK they are now introducing digital speed camera's. Instead of a single camera mounted where everyone sees and slows for it (before speeding up again 10 meters down the road) the system employs two cameras set an arbitrary distance apart. The time it takes to travel between camera A and camera B is what decides whether you get a ticket.
The problem is that in the few areas where this has been trialed the vast proportion of drivers are being tagged as speeding - so many that on those stretches of road they set the speeding threshold higher because of the impracticalities of fining everyone.
The authorities are worried : they know that any system which routinely penalises the masses is going to be very unpopular. Anything which brings this many people to book is going to be seen (as it already is) as a back-door tax on driving and since the UK already has the worst public transportation system in Europe, the most expensive cars, the most expensive petrol and for all I know the most expensive insurance the nation is very close to the edge.
So unless they want rioting in the streets it is very unlikely that the UK authorities will introduce a system which penalises a high proportion of the population.
What is needed is more carrot and less stick. Speeding must be made socially unacceptable just as drink-driving has become - taxing us off the roads won't work.
In an emergency, I won't be able to drive fast. How can I get my spouse/child/parent to the hospital in time?!
There are white trucks with red flashing lights, a siren and trained personnel called ambulances that handle this sort of thing.
As anyone familiar with basic arithmetic will realize, the time it takes for an ambulance to cover distance 2X is going to be greater than the time for a car to cover distance X (X = distance between emergency and hospital) unless the car's speed is less than half the speed it is physically possible to drive (which will clearly not be the case in an emergency situation).
But what if I'm in a remote area?
There's almost always some sort of "official personnel" nearby
Er, is this some new definition of the word "remote" with which I have not been familiar?
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! This invades my privacy!
If you're so naive to believe that this is a "new" problem created by this device, go ahead.
The new problem is that a government bureaucrat can track someone by pushing a few buttons in his comfy office. This makes tracking for trivial and illegitimate causes much more likely than the old system, under which agents in the field had to go observe in person and risk getting caught. (Example: If G. Gordon Liddy had been able to listen in on Democratic Party HQ by simply flipping a switch in the White House basement, we probably wouldn't know to this day that he'd done it.)
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! They'll know I'm speeding / visiting a prostitute / buying drugs / running guns!
GOOD. These are ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.
"The government will know I'm visiting somebody on the Enemies' List / buying anarchist literature / running antiwar protests!
(Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Can't Happen Here[tm].)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I think its a very good idea, with the new system in place you will beable to put a brick on the gas pedal and drive with your feet. Without having any fear of going too fast (not that its a bad thing).
Smev
You got it... I was going to post exactly that. It cannot be too much trouble to spoof GPS with off-the-shelf components from companies like Mini-Circuits. A working knowledge of GPS some analogue knowledge and some basic micro-controller programming skills should do the trick ;)
I would like to warn that signalls must be VERY small or you risk causing interference to legitimate users. Putting out a milli-watt is overkill, could cause harmful interference and may be illegal!
Perhaps just destroying the device is a better option? Remove the antenna or just wrap it in aluminium foil are alternatives. Certainly active spoofing is still a hack and companies that use GPS to monitor drivers positions and speeds are blissfully unaware that the technique is actually published.
Not everyone speeds. Inexperienced drivers and those who do not think, speed.
Most young people vastly overestimate their driving ability. After a few close calls they often modify their behaviour. The road tool kills huge numbers of people every year. Speed is a major factor, because it reduces the time you have to react and it increases the damage done when you hit. Don't forget the energy is proportional to the square of the speed.
A lot of the posters seem to assume that the system needs to be perfect for it to be useful. In fact the system could just turn itself off when it doesn't know about a road.
A possible alternative to the 17 CDs and the GPS would be a simple system of bar codes on the roads with a bar code reader under every car. I would welcome such a system, because it is often hard to keep track of the changing limits as you drive along, and this system would pick up the changes automatically. You just set the cruise control to speed limit - 2.
A US insurance companyis selling insurance
pricd to one's driving habits- distance, urban/rural, time-of-day, etc.
The metering device is GPS.
Seems like if you killed someone (with a police officer watching mind you), you SHOULD be in jail. Unless you can prove that officer is lying you're gonna have a hell of a hrad time convincing any jury you didn't do it.
The civillian devices use a very inexpensive module built from clearly published specifications. They use only one frequency and since all must use them, the "encryption" can be no better than sattelite TV services or copy-prevention schemes.
Military GPS is far more complex than the ordinary kind. Several frequencies in several bands, plus encryption keys that are only given to authorised users are indeed used. This GPS can be jammed ofcourse, but all military fighters and most missles use INS and that is not affected by outside conditions. (other than a strong explosion)
I don't mean to offend anyone... But that was some funny sh!t!! Oh man, I'm crying right now so I think I'm goin to bed... hahaha!
The main reason there are less deaths on German highways then in North America is the greater proportion of limited access, divided highways. Moss fatalities occur in head on colissions. In the US and Canada death rates decrease as more devided hoghweays are built. There is an extensive superhighway system but the majority of secondary roads are two way traffic and these are where most of the deaths happen. You can have 1oo car pile ups on the freeway but few deaths.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Strangly enough we don't actually speak like Dick Van Dyke did in Mary Poppins. But then most Americans wouldn't know as they would never have met anyone british, only 5% of them have a passport, not exactly an adventurous population? In my experience, the only things americans don't understand when I talk is sarcasm, why else would their comedy shows have laughing in the background, someone must have to let them know which bits are funny.
This just brings out the road rage in me.
Rip the damn GPS thing out of my car. (BTW, it costs as low as about $23 per unit).
Hell, let the cop catch me. Government can try to insert this GPS govenor into my hot rod and my Smith-n-Wesson will be waiting for them.
This is getting too way too Orwellian (1984).
Picture this: Tony Blair declares himself President-for-Life, and tells us the election is cancelled. What happens?
The Queen immediately dissolves Parliament (one of her very few powers). Tony Blair resists, but the Metropolitan Police, the House of Commons Police, the Army and all the other MPS all owe loyalty to the Queen and not the PM, so there isn't much he can do.
The election is held, the Queen invites the winner to form a new government. Tony Blair goes to prison.
Much more civilised than an armed uprising, don't you think?
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
and sent us into a guardrail at 80mph. [...] would not have happened had my friends been driving the speed limit.
So if you had impacted at 70mph (the motorway/dual carrageway limit in the UK), you would have been fine?
Think about it, though. If the gov't and the cops really wanted to stop people from speeding, this would be the way to do it. If, as I believe, they actually want people to speed so they can give tickets and receive revenue, well, then this won't ever be implemented.
But, seeing as how it is believed to be "inherently dangerous" to speed (not that I believe so, I routinely do +10-20mph over posted limits because I feel that that's what I can personally handle...but, obviously, the greater part of our population does believe it is), I have absolutely no problem with a speed limiter. I've actually thought of this idea myself, though I don't know why GPS has to be involved. Simply place low-powered transmitters in speed limit signs, and have a receiver in the car. The reciever translates the signal and locks the governor to the set speed limit until it receives another signal (from a different speed limit sign) or a certain amount of time/distance has passed. If I was designing the thing, I would allow a small window between speed changes to allow for last minute passing maneuvers from a higher speed zone to a lower, and perhaps also a +5-10mph short-burst mode for passing situations. As for cracking the thing, go right ahead. But, just be warned, speeding in a radio-controlled zone in a governed car carries the normal speeding fine penalty, as well as a hefty fine if you disabled the thing. If it stops working, fine. You're still responsible for monitoring your speed ala the old rules.
And to the man who said that the gov't can't control his car, have you taken a look at current auto regulations? They already control your battery placement, lights, min and max horsepower, size, catalytic converter/exhaust system, noise levels, safety systems, steering wheel, brake and gas pedal, emergency braking system, brakes, tires, license, tag, emissions, insurance, etc, etc. So this would be nothing new.
Oh, and the easiest trial run would be to wire a highway with these things, and place transmitters at the exits to disable the governor after getting off the highway.
hey, next week is sex week on campus, so there. :)
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
1. The system can use the difference in position to calculate the velocity as a second measure.
2. Why not encrpyt this data? Only operate if it is verified.
It'd still hurt a hell of a lot with a 10% speed difference. If your friend had been traveling at 90 or 100 he would have been a few miles away when the accident happened.
what if an highway I'm driving on is over a normal boulevard? Will my car go from 100Km/h to 50km/h to obey the street limit of the road UNDER me ???
Driving isn't a right it's a chore.
Rob
Texas, it's like a whole different country...
Yeah, Mexico!
Hang on, you're in a car. By law it has a speedo, in all probability it has power steering. So you know the speed of rotation of the wheels from which you can get an approximate speed relative to the ground, and you can calculate the approximate heading of the vehicle. Not perfect but possible and probably good enough considering the likely short distances involved. I've heard of satnav systems using this method to survive in tunnels.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
I'm still waiting for some grandma in california to have a heartattack and be unable to dial 911 on her cordless because the base station is without power due to a rolling blackout. Family sues the city, media explodes with the heart-wrenching story, etc.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Heh, most Japanese cars couldn't go 110mph even if they weren't limited. I'll take my Chevy over a Japanese rice rocket any day.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
S/A drift used to typicaly be 2 to 5 mph, not 1-2 kph. S/A was never set to be too agressive or else it could be in the 20kph range.
Even in the UK, 99.9% of all drivers will drive the speed safe for the road and conditions. I have personally noted that on major motorways when it is clear and conditions are ideal, people safely drive 90MPH (145km/h) or more.
Isn't it far more reasonable to go after drunks and reckless drivers that make it more dangerous for all? Surely driving 100km/h on a minor city road is reckless driving? Surely laws must evolve more to "You must drive safely at all times" rather than trying to set arbitrary rules that attempt that. I think that would work, even for the poor Brittish folk who have forgotten freedom ever was. Perhaps their 'speed habit' is one very important expression of freedom lost?
Somehow I doubt this. It seems really easy for Them to say that the robot isn't the accuser, that it was just a tool for measurement, and that the accuser was the person who read the measurements and issued the ticket. As long as they have the robot calibrated (and they can always lie about that and you really can't prove they're not telling the truth) they've got you.
I rang, you rang, we all rang for orangutang!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
So then instead of people driving at 65 mph instead of 55 mph, they're going to be driving at a steady 55 mph but will burst at 85 mph every 10 minutes to try to make up for their lost time.
:-)
I'm so sick of the HYPOCRITES that would rather break the law than CHANGE THEM.
I hope the US adopts this same system. It'll require all the goody two shoes Democrats to rethink the ridiculous speed limits and money hungry small town speed traps to get money from another source.
ME!?!? I think everyone should have they're own personal speed rating based on DRIVING SKILLS and CAR CAPABILITY, not lowest common denominator! I cannot state my opinion more strongly.
>Oh, and I supposed it is just a coincedence that >this will allow people to track where everyone >drives in the UK? How will a GPS receiver transmit its location, if it does not need a transmitter to modify the speed of the car it is attached to? However, even if this system will NOT be used as a tracking device, it is a severe limitation on the right of the individual to use their own judgement on the immediate situation. Are we really so naive as to believe that one solution, imposed universally, will be more effective than millions of individually tailored solutions?
Easily done. Put a differential gps transmitter at stop lights and toll booths. Congrats, you have a known position to start your dead reckoning at and any computer hooked up to a gps system can easily also be hooked up to the speedometer which would correct for accelaration and braking. Since you are going to get multiple readings (each time you pay a toll or get stopped at a red light), you can correct for accumulating error. As for winding streets, perhaps some old european cities might be helped out by that but most modern cities are grid based.
Good try though, keep trying
DB
there sometimes *are* very good reasons to speed. I suppose you could switch on your hazards (which some cars already use to disable the very high speed limiter)..but that would just provide and incentive for people to turn them on in everyday situations which would be a bad thing..
-
Your right! They have thought of all this. As you approach a change down in limits it will reduce the speed for you if you don't so that you will be doing the limit by the time you get there. This is all done smoothly, no harshness at all. I know this because I've actually driven the thing (the Escort prototype). Overtaking etc. is been covered amongst other things. The people who run this are pretty sensible and know their business...
Or why not try this out: Drive your car into a wall at 25, now drive your car into a wall at 55, gee you died in a fiery wreck the second time huh, maybe we should drop all the speed limits down to 25 so no-one will die in an accident. your theory might make sense if all accidents were caused by one driver hitting a stationary object head on. I hope this never actually sees the light of day. I'm also glad I don't live in GB right now.
All that monitoring is there for a different reason. CALTRANS discovered in the 1980s that more than half of freeway traffic delays are due to accidents or other traffic-obstructing incidents. So they put in place systems to detect problems very rapidly and get emergency vehicles to the scene quickly. This increases the capacity of the freeway system by about one lane, but it's much cheaper. The policy change was that the emergency response is designed to clear the freeway as quickly as possible; law enforcement is a secondary priority. So more effort goes into getting tow trucks and CALTRANS vehicles to the scene. This took some re-education of the cops. At first they weren't happy responding to stuff like this:
But now it's accepted, and today when something happens on a freeway, there will be a CHP car, a CALTRANS truck, and whatever else is necessary. (And, months later, in Small Claims Court, CALTRANS will be collecting for damaged landscaping, sprinkler pipe, guard rails, and such.)More recently, TV cameras have been installed along major urban freeways. They have pan, tilt, and zoom, but they don't move much. Mostly they're ignored until some other sensor (usually the speed-sensing loops) detects a traffic disruption. This, in fact, is the real function of CALTRANS speed sensing. Anything that disrupts traffic flow is very visible from the speed sensor map, which has become a part of California culture. In L.A., it's on a cable channel.
Anyway, a couple of points were raised before, which I didn't see as I scanned this discussion:
1. Some countries allow emergency speeding. I think the U.K. is one of them. These devices would deny you your legal right to get your wife to the hospital in time. Your wife dies, a lawsuit follow, and politicians' heads roll.
2. A much better method would be to warn the driver, then report, not hinder, speeding. This takes care of point 1. It's also possible to hinder speeding, but allow the driver to hit an emergency override key and answer to the police later.
3. Speeding is illegal, yet most of do it and feel that it's ok to speed a little. A kid who just got his drivers license has to break the law or look like a loser to his friends. We all get to be criminals, and the police gets to arbitrarily select who to punish. Speed limits are often way too low, because it's taken for granted that people will routinely exceed them by 20-30km/h. We end up feeling hating the police and losing respect for the law. This is the problem with laws that aren't enforced. Laws should be enforced or not enacted at all.
4. Once the technology is there, it will be possible to cheaply alter speed limits in a given area. When the road is dry, visibility is good, and traffic is light, speed limits can be increased. There is potential here to make drivers happier as well as safer, although I won't argue with those who are skeptical it would actually happen.
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Second, the car doesn't have a position, it has a velocity vector . From one point of data no, you can't tell if the car's on I-78 or CR-513, but by checking where the car was 10 seconds ago you can take a pretty good guess. And by seeing where the car is in 10 more seconds, you can tell for sure.
OK fine, but at any one point in time the only information you have is the current information, and historical information. It's no problem determining where he is now and where he was 10 seconds ago, but how do you suggest we figure out where he's going to be 10 seconds from now?? Are we going to make drivers plot their route beforehand? This is starting to sound like that automated highways stuff all over again....
That is a pitiful argument.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
Well, if you're having a heart attack I surely hope you're not going to try and drive!
And if I'm having a heart attack, you'd better be giving me CPR!!
Ok, ok, I'll talk serious now. Certainly if we put our heads together we could come up with a situation where not being able to speed would kill an innocent. But I'm sure I could come up with a situation where not having a grenade-launcher could result in innocents dying as well.
So what differentiates between them? Well, put bluntly, the odds of the likelyhood multiplied by the consequences. The simple fact of the matter is that Air Bags save 100 times as many lives as they kill. The thing that sucks or that is so hard to come to grips with is that these people that air-bags kill, wouldn't be killed if air-bags didn't exist. Completely different people are dying to save a lot more people.
So, how many people are going to be saved by speed limiters and car retina-print-breathalizers, versus how many people are going to be killed by not having speed when they need it or by walking home drunk?
I'm putting *all* my money on these two technologies, and our ability to *eventually* deal with all the complexities. Instead of trying to 'keep people from crashing', now all we have to do is 'keep people from putting kids in front of airbags and put in more technology to adjust for short people'... keep whittling away at all the nasties.
Eventually the human race must venture forth from the black and white shadows, into the world filled with a million shades of grey.
(1) UK govts. are too scared of the motorist lobby to even talk about dropping speed limits to US levels or charging tolls on congested highways. Now theyre going to push through expensive and flaky speed-governors. Not in this universe they won't.
(2) Speeding enforcement in UK and US. Well in my personal experience where the UK may have the odd camera-case-with-no-camera (wet film) in it the US has unbelievable numbers of Cops lurking behind every bridge. I kid you not its a real shock how much speeds are enforced in the US and how rigorously. Cops like flies on a log...
(3) Schemes like this regularly surface. Civil servants have to do something to keep looking busy and one way they do it is by researching absurd schemes for ministers to ignore.
(4) We took it up the A** from King George so "we" (same people of course) take any old illiberal nonsense. Yeah right and we all say "Gor blimey" in a Dick-van-Dyke accent every two minutes. Beside the fact that even in that day power in the UK already resided in Parliament this is 2000. The Reform acts were passed 150 years ago, the hereditaries are checking out of the upper house and the human rights act has come into force.
Check into the history of Margaret Thatchers poll tax if you want some idea of how quiet and supine the UK public is.
Andrew
Exactly. But why are the highway limits unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road? Because everyone speeds.
Therefore, we must assume, that if nobody speeds anymore, we can actually increase the speed limit. Furthermore, because most speed limits are designed for wet conditions, we could hope, that the speed limit will be even more increased on dry days -- that would be easy to do!
I want this system!
It must be nice living in an idealistic dream world. The problem with people like yourself is that you assume life follows a certain set of norms. You never account for exceptional circumstances; what if that ambulance gets stuck in traffic? Or what if there's a backlog, and it takes 15 minutes for it to arrive?
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
OK, so technically it all works. The difficult thing about these systems are always the exceptional cases, such as having to rush someone to hospital. Fixable of course, have a manual override that automatically sends a signal to a government office that will mail you some forms to explain why you engaged the manual override. Speeding (in addition to breaking) can be a way to get out of a dangerous situation. No problem, we can allow people to speed for a consecutive number of seconds (how many though?). And before we know it the 'Ministry of Speed' is born. To replace the lost revenue from speeders, a tax will be levied on the system. New application for the GPS-equipped car will spring up, e.g. the ministry can tell exactly where you were, when and for how long. Imagine what one could do with data like that. Why did you spend one hour at Tesco's to just get the newspaper. In general, England's motorways are wonderful and well suited to go over 70mph. I always enjoyed driving there and never had the feeling that speeding by a reasonable margin was dangerous. On some of the motorways going at 80 to 90 mph is going with the traffic.
A prototype of a similar speed-limiting system was demonstrated here (Finland) recently. They also demonstrated an alternative approach to just blindly limiting speeds. The simple idea is that the car gives off a constant audio nag every few seconds if you're speeding. (Think "pullup ... pullup ... pullup ...") It's irritating enough to seriously discourage, but takes emergencies into account as well.
Another thing is that although heavy vehicles (buses, trucks) already have speed limiters set 5 km/h over their maximum allowed speed here and quite possibly in other EU countries, coaches constantly drive much faster. It's quite easy to find the limiter fuse in the fusebox and replace it with a burnt fuse.
what hump?
hehe, man was I drunk last night :) To keep this from turning into a flame fest, Ill leave wwii alone. It doesnt really matter, were all going to be citizens of The United States Of The Corporation soon. As for the indians, they didnt have anything taken from them. They were conquered, plain and simple.
It's perfectly legal in the UK for an ambulance, or any vehicle acting as an ambulance to drive above the speed limit.
If the governments were doing this to protect the people, they'd go just a step further automatically prevent collisions by halting cars that are detected as being too close. The governments stand to make alot of money by not taking it a step further. Law enforcement agencies would lobby against any technology that eliminates the need for their services anyway.
Just today when I pulled out of my parking lot I made a 90 degree turn on a patch of ice and the speedometer believed I was going 20 miles an hour when in fact I was doing about 1 or 2 miles an hour while my wheels spun a bit. If it was tracking my movement that way it would have thought I turned all the way around several times, straightening out at an entirely random direction.
That's an extreme case, but even if the slippage were small - a patch of oil or a wet spot - it would make the computer think you were pointed in a different direction than you actually were. In an old city like London, with it's many roads going off at odd angles (as opposed to younger cities where the streets are mostly orthogonal) this would be a big problem. The computer can't just round-off to the nearest cardinal direction. For all it knows, a 137-degree turn might be perfectly valid.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
That is true, but judging from what I've seen in "British" shows on cable and speaking to the few British people I know, there seems to be a lot more sarcasm thrown around in casual conversation. The "average" conversation betwen two people from the USA doesn't have nearly as much sarcasm. Of course, I could just be talking out of my arse... ;-)
This really shouldn't be so difficult for you to understand. Either it is potentially dangerous to drive at that speed or the speed limit is appropriate.
If the speed limit is set too low then that is a separate issue to whether technological means should be used to enforce it.
If the speed limit is appropriate (i.e. driving in excess of that speed is dangerous) then having a pregnant woman in the car about to give birth is a particularly stupid time to consider exceeding it. Especially when we consider that this is probably not the time when you are most calm, clear headed, and focused purely on driving.
Why would I be issued a speeding ticket if I wasn't speeding?
'Cause you're a minority and you live in a town like Indianapolis where the cops are so fucking racist even their cars have white hoods?
'Cause the cop pulled you over 'cause he didn't like your "DARE to Keep Cops Off Donuts" bumper sticker, and since THAT isn't illegal, wrote you a ticket for speeding instead?
'Cause he's in a hurry to fill quota and KNOWS you can't prove you weren't speeding?
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
As anyone familiar with basic arithmetic will realize, the time it takes for an ambulance to cover distance 2X is going to be greater than the time for a car to cover distance X (X = distance between emergency and hospital) unless the car's speed is less than half the speed it is physically possible to drive (which will clearly not be the case in an emergency situation).
You're assuming the ambulance or cop car is coming from the hospital. Most small towns / national parks / etc. have at least some vehicle built for the purpose. In either case, I still feel a properly equipped vehicle operated by trained personnel over a distance of 1x - 2x will have a higher success rate of not losing the patient in transit or flipping the vehicle than you or I driving our cars full out. If you're genuinely in the middle of nowhere where the vehicle coming to get you would be closer to the 2x distance, you're probably not getting any help in time without a helicopter, and I think it's safe to assume you don't have one (or just lost one... :-P)
Er, is this some new definition of the word "remote" with which I have not been familiar?
Anyone I know going off-roading in what they considered a "remote" area has been stopped there at some point by a state trooper / park ranger / etc. --- In most industrialized nations, there is very little left one could consider truely "remote" anymore; and if you are in one of those genuinely remote areas, I don't care how fast you're driving, you're probably not going to make it in time without help. That gets me back to my helicopter argument.
The new problem is that a government bureaucrat can track someone by pushing a few buttons in his comfy office. This makes tracking for trivial and illegitimate causes much more likely than the old system, under which agents in the field had to go observe in person and risk getting caught. (Example: If G. Gordon Liddy had been able to listen in on Democratic Party HQ by simply flipping a switch in the White House basement, we probably wouldn't know to this day that he'd done it.)
I think you're being naive here -- Do you think the Iraqi baby-food factories are the only things "higher ups" are pointing the <1m resolution satellites at? -- Though I would have to agree this will make it easier for your local constable to notice Mayor Jones and Judge Smith meeting at the hotel that charges by the hour.
The government will know where I'm going! They'll "The government will know I'm visiting somebody on the Enemies' List / buying anarchist literature / running antiwar protests! (Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Can't Happen Here[tm].)
Again, they already do, and they already know. (Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Ain't Happening Here[tm].)
This really shouldn't be so difficult for you to understand. Either it is potentially dangerous to drive at that speed or the speed limit is appropriate.
Obviously I meant to say "or the speed limit is not appropriate"
If this were the only source of positioning information then I'd agree - hence my comment about approximate data.
This is used to provide a best guess when the GPS signal goes, for whatever reason. It's not going to be used over large distances with lots of junctions - long distances in tunnels are possible but how many tunnels are crawling with subterranean junctions? In that context, it's good enough IMO.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Your straw men are aggrivating my hay fever, so let's blow a few of them away
By the way -- Good one! I'll have to keep that expression in mind...
what hump?
doing 55mph with a 2 mile traffic jam behind them.
Is it just me or is this a purely British trait??
Also, the government ain't gonna lay a finger on my 20 year old Land Rover and I sure as hell won't voluntarily put one of those systems in my car.
Incidentally, I am an Autotest timekeeper. What happens when all these hobbyist racers for the local Sporting Club take their *road legal* cars on to our Motorsports Authority authorised competition area (usually car parks closed to the public for a day - and usually different for each event) and attempt to break the speed limit *for that area but legally*???
The system just won't work and if the government don't listen the public will react (remember the petrol crisis)
Bagpuss
Your friendly cloth cat
I will admit the british are better than those damned canadians.
It is ridiculous to tear down barriers to government abuse -- much less to give the government new powers to abuse -- simply because they sometimes get away with abuses already. It's like deciding that, since a teenager will sometimes sneak a drink anyway, you might as well give him the key to the liquor cabinet.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
heh, you complain about inexperienced drivers and people who do not think, then advocate the use of cruise control as standard practise.
pfft.
I sense a certain amount of flame-bait in that last letter, would that it be moderated as such.
Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
really? and when was the last time the US citizens took up arms against the government in a direct confrontation?
how many politicians/lawyers did you personally kill to have DMCA overturned?
oh yeah, none. you didn't, and it wasn't.
loser.
Glad to see some sense emerging in this thread, I must agree with you on the issue of GPS, it is not really the most practical solution for the situation (mind you if Intel thought this was another plan that they would like to back as an industry standard, however poor, then the point would be moot). .sig you have ever read, and then double it)
## begin rant
But I would also like to make a point to the discustingly uneducated jingoistic drawl which I read previously. That whole nonsense about US intervention in the world wars, a fine example of US ignorance and propaganda if you ask me, but of course you wouldn't because I might contradict the television. I notice a lot of posts on slashdot in general which go a long way to highlighting the american ideal, and thier distance from reality. Now I am not responding to the 'brit bashing' because I am not a brit, but I do believe that it might do the US public some good to follow a couple of these pointers:
1 - there is an extra 'i' after the 'n' in aluminium maybe you should use it?
2 - Whatch less TV and read more books!!!
3 - Bear in mind that the US economy only stays afloat due to the vast amount of money borrowed from China (yes, you know, the communist state).
the list could go on but I would rather not, and before you dismiss this and say I am speaking rubbish, maybe you might just think on it for a second or two?
## end rant
(picture this as the funniest
How about a car that will not allow itself to be driven by a drunk driver or exceed the posted speed limit? We should continue to try to improve survivability but most accidents are from driver error. 42% are alcohol related. Only 200 people died last year from hitting an animal yet the animal rights groups are screaming for more fences and tunnels to protect the animals. A drunk driver is more likely to speed, go through red lights, hit pedestrians etc. The only safe car will be one where the driver is taken out of the loop or at least checked to see if they are impaired.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Here (UK), when that happens, there's a strong inclination not to do so: "I'm already at the speed limit so it's his job to slow down." Result tailgating, road rage etc.
freedom, n. Allowing people you don't like to do things you disapprove of.
My point was that it doesn't even have to be going a long distance to be terribly wrong. In my example, it would have been tracking in a completely random direction after only a single turn.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
As I've been reading through this I've run into a major problem with the system. How do you deal with updates to the road network and changed speed limits? As I see it there are two ways, either you update every car every year (costing tens of millions of pounds each year), or you have the car inform the satelite where you are, when, how fast you are going, and in which direction. Now that sounds like information the british government would LOVE to get their hands on. SOVINFORMSPUTNIK, here we come!
The article talked about speed zones, which to me seems to imply that it would mark certain areas as having maximum speeds. In my neighborhood there aren't any streets with speed limits above 35mph -- so it would be a 35mph zone. The highway is a ways away, and it would have to have a 55mph corridor. So you could speed on the overpasses, but is that such a big deal? And you could speed in the 15mph parking lot in the 35mph zone, but that's just the way it would have to be.
This is not a lot of information. It's just covering the map with variuos polygons and respective speed limits. It doesn't have to be highly reactive to speed limit changes, because it's only trying to say what the highest speed limit in the area might be. It doesn't have to have a high resolution, because it's just an approximation anyway.
Still may or may not be a good idea, but it doesn't seem that hard. At least technically.
I can't argue with you about the Corporates though... may be it should be CorpoRats.
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
For the downloading issue, I just assumed it would download all 8 surrounding maps at the same time. Feasable since they're using different frequencies. When moving to a differnent "map", they would simply discard the useless data and start downloading any additional new maps it might need.
(In fact, you wouldn't download 4 km squares--you'd download .2 or .25-degree squares. GIS generally doesn't do miles or kilometers.)
I don't see how this is relevant. The "maps" wouldn't be connected to the the GPS data in any way. It's the on-board computer that would decide what map was required and what maps would need to be dowloaded. It just gets the position from GPS.
In fact, the data in any given 4 km area is substantially more complex than a vector and a few arcs. So there are significant bandwidth issues
You wouldn't have to send a complete map. Just the roads. Take a AutoCAD drawing of a 4 square km section of a city. Take out everything except the roads. Now reduce the roads so they're represented by a single line. I seriously doubt that file would be that big. Probably under 25kBytes.
And once again--you'd have to absolutely, positively guarantee, regardless of wind, weather, or atmospheric disturbance, that the data transfer happened in time. Or you could be sending cars at 100 kmph hurtling into an interchange whose speed limit was just reduced to 40 kmph.
OK, this system would just limit the speed. The worst thing that could happen is that people on a freeway would have to slow down to 30km/hour. If they're smart, (and I'm sure they are), if any connection errors or anything like that were to occur - the system releases full control to the driver. This is a good thing. All one would have to do is cut the antenna going into the system to disable it. ;)
Willy
Why not? As a U.S. citizen, that is, as a rights-free subject under a police state, I can imagine being arrested, convicted, and subjected to a decade in jail for a rape and murder that someone else committed. Also, I can imagine being assassinated on my own doorstep by a police department death squad, each of whom later being found "not guilty" of even so much as a misdemeanor.
If you trust the cops, or the courts, or the legislatures, anywhere in this loathsome country even any at all, then shame on you for a fool, you obviously don't read the newspaper carefully enough.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
It's also irresponsible to be travelling at an excessive speed, so that people cannot reasonably predict your car's movement and braking ability.
Politas
"So now they have no recourse against the government at all
Except for the democratic process of elections,of course.
"
Without armed citizens, what threat can be held against the government if they decide to NOT obey an election?
I cannot think of even ONE country that has disarmed it's citizens that is still free. The UK since Comrade Blair took office has been turning the UK rapidly into a fascist police state.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Oh, and I supposed it is just a coincedence that this will allow people to track where everyone drives in the UK?
This will not allow anyone to track anything. The GPS reciever in the car will limit the speed of the car based on the reception of Satellite transmitted signals. There is no transmitter needed in this design, there is no reason to include one.
<paranoid>On the other hand, if someone wanted to monitor you movements based on the transmissions from you mobile phone...</paranoid>
--
--
Actually it is rocket science...
Q: First off, the police state types have this inconvienient problem of our written Constitution and bill of rights (which they do not have in the UK).
/KNOW/ people are speeding (the open road/motorways/freeways), and they will catch people, rather that placing them according to safety, e.g. at schools and elderly residence.
...
A: Not as such, but recent legislation, The Human Rights Act 1998, is supposed to be a template that all legislation must conform to, although RIP, ecent proposals from Jack Straw regarding DNA, and many more, aurguably do not.
Q: But imagine the outrage... While the masses may be ignorant enough of the technical details of the DMCA not to get up in arms over it (at least until it becomes impossible to tape stuff), THIS would hit every Joe 6-pack. EVERYONE speeds. Why? Because most highway speed limits are unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road.
A: I agree with you here, just as "joe sixpack" realises he cant tape stuff, we will realise that we no longer live in a free country. The freedoms that once existed will have been slowly, almost unnoticably eroded over a long period of time to such a point that we can't do anything about it, as it will be the status quo.
Q: Also, I don't think the law enforcement types would like this either. One reason why speed limits are lower than they should be is that speeding tickets are an excellent form of tax revenue. This would eliminate the need for speed traps, and thus, the cops might actually have to go after REAL criminals.
A: There are a good form of revenue, except all money made from speeding fines in the UK goes straight back into the local council / police force as opposed to the treasury(tax people).
The police have also been critisised that their positioning of new cameras is done is places that they
Q: But then again, this sort of thing does fit right in with a "1984" society, which we seem to be advancing towards at an alarming rate.
A: absolutely, and it scares me to death it really does.
Q: Only a completely mis-educated, ignorant citizenry would allow police THIS kind of control over them. Why aren't they burning things in the streets of London over this proposal, AND the odius "RIP" law (that allows
A: Maybe they should be burning things, but they'd probably get beaten up by the riot police. And RIP, I personally wrote to my MP regarding this proposal, (and got a reply with his handwriting!), expressing urgency that something be done about it. This is more than I usually do, and if everyone else did the same perhaps we could make a difference. The problem is people don't care ; they just get on with their lives and as long as nobody shouts too loudly about what Big brother is doing, they leave him to it.
Q: any cop to demand your encryption keys at will, and mandates jail time if you refuse or reveal to anyone that they DID get your keys)?
A: I would direct anybody worried about this enactment (like me) to investigate StegFS at http://ban.joh.cam.ac.uk/~adm36/StegFS/ which offers plausable deniability for the existence of data on ones hard drive.
Q: Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
A: This is a complex issue, it is yet to be shown that taking guns off the streets does anything to deter crime, which ever way you look at it, people are not "free" to own a gun in the UK, perhaps they assume some will go on killing sprees, which they can do anyway by other means.
Perhaps my letter to my MP helped the cause. The RIP bill was altered before enactment, let's see all concerned people let their representives know they are concerned, and if that does nothing, we should be armed yes.
skiy - a UK guy who feels pretty strongly about all this.
skiy. www.Smokedot.org Drug Info, Rights, Laws, and Discussion
I would have been better, yes. Dumbass. Think about it.
But like I said, the wreck probably would not have happened at all had my friend been driving the speed limit. The speed limit was less than 70 on that road anyway.
Did you even think about that post before you wrote it?
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
It is an option.
The day in america that they fine me for disabling an electronic device in a car that I own, is the day that I start looking for a revolution to aid. Seriously, that would be an absolutely attrocious (sp?) infringement on one's rights.
They already allow prosecution for disabling or working around pollution control devices on your car, or CSS in your computer. Why oh why do you think this would be any different?
This system is irrelevant, it will bring no benefit or change to the speed of cars on the UK's roads.
The current state of the UK's transport system means that the roads are unable to cope with the current volume of traffic. Nobody goes more than 50mph, even on the motorways, and every car journey you make involves at least several queues in traffic of some sort.
This is particularly acute in London and the south eastern area of England where I live. I wish it was actually possible to exceed the speed limit, I really do. There's nothing more ironic than sitting on the M25 (London orbital motorway) in 5mph traffic whilst a variable-speed gantry up overhead reads "(40)". I wish!
And don't even get me started on public transport. Despite car journeys being long and horrifically expensive, they are still many times more preferable than braving the rail network.
You'd think in a country with such a dense population it would be the easiest thing in the world to implement a decent, cheap transport system. But noooooooooooooo. And now they want to enforce this bag of shit onto us. The peasants will revolt and not accept any cake!
Stuii!
Wow, you have mad cow disease? And you said "us", does that mean that your friends or family have it as well?
In any case, you have my condolenses.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
Actually, EZPass doesn't ticket based on speed between checkpoints. They tried it and the public outcry was so great it was dropped. They will ticket if you go faster than 5 mph through a tollbooth (not all, express ezpass lanes allow 65 mph in Delaware). The main reason for the speed restriction is that toll takers are morons, and they had several accidents where a tolltaker stepped into the path of a 35 mph car. Ed
Oh well, if anybody's going to read this submission made two days late when noone bothers anymore, here's a beautiful quotation that sheds some light on the difference between US and Germany:
:-)
From: Timberwoof
Newsgroups: ba.motorcycles
Subject: Re: Splitting lanes in the UK, it's different over there!
Organization: Infernosoft
References:
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 18:11:27 -0700
Message-ID:
In article , xxvaf@valinor.barrnet.net
(Vince Fuller) wrote:
> And, of course, on the autobahn, everybody (and I mean everybody - I saw
> no exceptions to the rule) immediately pulls to the right lane if you
> overtake them in the left - apparently there are very strong sanctions
> if you don't yield to faster traffic.
The US and Germany have two fundamentaly different approaches to
driving...
In Germany, you have the right (in some places) to go as fast as
conditions and your car will allow. In the US you have the right to
drive in whatever lane you want.
In Germany, you pass on the left and return immediately to the rightmost
available lane. In the US, you pass anywhere you want.
In Germany, people will get out of your way to let you onto the
Autobahn. In the US, it's every citizen's solemn duty to prevent others
from using the Interstate.
In Germany, you flash your lights to indicate that you're a fast
Mercedes and slow little Opes should wait a moment. In the US you flash
your lights if you want to get shot.
In Germany you take driver training courses for about a year in all
kinds of weather conditions, and you get your license after a thorough
driving test. In the US, you can renew your license in any kind of
weather.
In Germany, driving is a viable alternative means of transportation to
the mostly excellent public trains and buses. In most places in the US,
there is no viable alternative to owning your own vehicle.
In Germany they build the Autobahn around towns and villages. In the US,
the build the Interstate anywhere they want, and towns spring up around
them.
In Germany, people tend to live pretty close to their local grocery
stores, so a shopping trip means you can have a nice walk, too. In the
US, frequently the only way to get to the Safeway is by driving there.
In Germany they build Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, and VW. In the US
they build Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Ford.
> If only the training requirements for getting a license here were as
> strict as they are over there, life would be great.
Good God, do you realize what that would mean for the economy? Maybe 70%
fewer drivers buying gasoline and cars. Good God, do you realize what
that would mean for the traffic conditions?
--
Timberwoof: BMW R1100GS rider, ice hockey goalie, Macintosh user:
Not your *ordinary* noncomformist.
woofyinfernosoftcom; http://www.infernosoft.com
After they get these in place, they'll have a means whereas patrol cars can stop your car remotely in any instance.
Patrol cars can already stop your car in any instance. What the hell do you plan to do if you see a police siren behind you, floor it and hope they'll decide not to pursue?
The Government on the other hand has no competitors, at least in these days of "consensus politics" in the UK. Opposition parties may go on about freedom, but only until they win an election.
freedom, n. Allowing people you don't like to do things you disapprove of.
Speed limits exist for a reason. I have never been in a wreck when I was driving, but as a passenger I have been ejected from a car and another time my friend tried to avoid an animal in the road, overcorrected and sent us into a guardrail at 80mph. I can speak first hand of the pain caused by wrecks that would not have happened had my friends been driving the speed limit.
My question to you is, why were you in the car with someone who was endangering your life? You have only yourself to blame.
The issue here is not whether going to fast is bad (we already know that), and not whether speed limits should be changed (that's a whole other argument), but the nasty implications of this.
The potential for a black market is obvious, and there may be people already investigating this. The privacy implications are also preposterous. This technology allows cops to get around a few things in the constitution, if they try hard enough. (Maybe not technically, but it'll effectively be guilty until proven innocent.)
Bah.
-----
Can you imagine how much more dull F1 racing would become with electronic drivers aids if this was one of them?
There's hardly much overtaking now. Think what it will be like at Silverstone going into the first corner. All the cars will start braking at exactly the same point.
Of course, starting an F1 race in which all cars got the same qualification time will be interesting.
Beware - most CART cars use UK-sourced electronics and chassis.
I've never beem stopped for going 75mph on a deserted motorway. You must just be unlucky.
And speed limiters "break", you know...
Yes. You should. Or call an ambulance. Mind you, ambulances are only allowed to travel at the speed limit, anyway.
What makes you think it will be safe to exceed the speed limit, just because your wife is in the passenger/back seat, crying out in pain and distracting you?
Politas
More to the point, when I'm coming to an intersection at night time, I can see your headlights, and know that the distance you are at is safe for me to pull out. If you're driving at 30-60km/h over the limit, my calculation will be wrong, and an accident might be caused.
You may say that the accident is my fault in this case, and the law may even back you up. But if we're both dead, what difference does that make?
Politas
If I had known he would endager my life I would not have been in the car with him. I'm not stupid. The two wrecks were with two different drivers... geez
I can understand why some people are fearful of this technology. Those who don't like it just because it could prevent them from driving irresponsibly can kiss my ass.
Those like you -- that actually have a resonable point -- deserve to be heard. Being a computer person, I realize the fears, but I think it could be implemented safely.
As for skirting the constitution, I think it should prevent your car from exceeding the speed limit at all without first requesting a police escort for your emergency -- if you cannot speed, you cannot be guilty, therefore there is no constitutional crisis. People are simply safer.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
Sorry but that's not true - provided you can show good reason for it you will not be charged for speeding - in Australia (very similar laws to the UK) the police are required to ask you if you had a reason for speeding, if you can show just cause they cannot ticket you. The other answer is to do what I do and go motorbike riding with cops - frequently double the speed limit (where conditions and sense allows it) and no danger of being ticketed.
.sig
Where's the forest? And what are all these trees doing here?
Actuall he means registered for use in Japan. They have a blanket 180kph speed limiter. They also have a limit of 206kW applied to engines - doesn't stop them from making some hugely powerful and highly torqued cars - try driving a nissan skyline GTR or GTS before you claim magical abilityies for your Chev.
.sig
it has something to do with the drivers becoming too lazy to adapt the speed to the driving environment. they will instead tend to drive at the max speed that the system will allow. this situation is as dangerous as a car that is not limited whose speeding driver adapts to the driving situation.
Have you actually visited the UK to find out what it is like?
For those that don't know, the BNP are the UK equivalent of the KKK.
Except they don't bother with the religon stuff they just like murdering black people.
"You can have a car of any colour, as long as it is white"
interestingly enough, trucks in Japan have three green lights on the front which light up as they speed up. They dont have any light for when they exceed their max allowed speed but that's only the next step, right?
Of course, these lights are really useful when you're stopped at the bottom of a steep hill and look into your rear view mirror to see a truck with all three green lights lit up roaring down towards you...
Unless things have changed recently, the money from speeding fines goes to the courts in the UK, not to the police.
DILBERT: But what about my poem?
I saw the word `uk` and searched for `socialism`. I knew i wouldnt be disappointed. All i need now is a reason for why americans think the uk is some sort of socialist nirvana/hell. Anyone help me out?
Just wait till you start seeing the "ModChip.com" ads reading "4 wire mod chips for cars!!".
"So you'd rather go through extra hassle with the courts?? Wow you must have nothing to do..." I'd rather go to court if/when I have a real medical emergency if that means keeping YOU from speeding, therefore endangering the lives of others who pretty much didn't sign up for it.
It's exactly this kind of attitude that's destroying our control of our lives. You have decided that some large, easily influenced government body knows how fast you are capable of driving safely than you do. Instead of crippling my car, wouldn't it be easier for them to research ways of detecting people who are driving erratically or recklessly? Isn't that a better solution than just assuming everybody everywhere will want to drive dangerously, then removing an important part of the control of their car to be safe? Good lord, it's just ridiculous.
Steven N. Severinghaus
Nothing in the article would indicate that this system would be capable of actually tracking you. My read is that it has a map of areas of limited speed and uses GPS to determine if you're in one. Given the way the Brits are headed, though, I'm sure the tracking version will be 2.0.
I wonder how long it will take someone to reverse-engineer the protocol and build a transmitter that can send out forged speed limits. Turning the speed limit down to 5MPH (8KM/H) on a major highway at the height of rush hour would be a great piece of 'hactivism' to show what a totally brain-dead scheme this is. [ Of course, it would be an even better hack if you could force people to speed up when they are driving 40 in a 55 zone :-) ] I'm sure there are some more creative hacks that could be done as well...
Of course, anyone who has more than a half-dozen brain cells capable of working in unison would disable the damn thing as soon as they drove it home from the dealership. The US Army loves to put speed governers in it's vehicles to keep gung-ho young soldiers from driving around like total lunatics. So of course the young gung-ho soldiers waste no time in taking them out as soon as the CO's back is turned.
It is a basic premise of computer security that you cannot secure a system you do not have physical control over. You put one of these things in a hacker's car, and they are going have it pulled apart and under the 'scope before the paint is dry.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
If you know your position from a single point, all you need to know for the rest of the trip is direction and velocity. Get out a map. Put 2 points on the map. Draw a line straight from one point to another, then a crooked line from one to the other. Using either line, are you unsure of the final position?
I think my biggest problem with this sort of system is that the government can now officially know "exactly" where everybody is, every moment of everyday. Granted, for those nit-pickers out there, that people a) don't live in their cars and b) other people use your car occasionally, but that can be made to be a small problem.(ie. track a person's routine habits/stops)
The first scary thought that comes to my mind is "who gets to see this kind of information?" Once the government has been able to justify the expense and the intrusion into people's privacy, how long before some wise-ass finance minister gets the idea the government could sell this data to some marketing company (or worse perhaps a private investigation firm).
The second scary though is what happens when the police get their hands on the data? I am currently a local network admin for a large Canadian Policing organization *cough*mounties*cough*, and though I don't think the people here would do "bad" things with the data (it would actually be a big bonus to those members doing legit surveylance), but the possibilities *ARE* there...
Don't get me wrong, there are some really cool things that could be done with this data, especially if you add a few little user buttons:
1) Engineers know EXACTLY how many cars go along a certain road.
2) Emergency Vehicle response time could go down- they know exactly where to go...
3) Road Side assistance for that flat tire just got better and faster
4) Traffic Reports/Traffic Jam avoidance.
etc
I just don't know if this is something the government should be involved in... do the pros outweigh the cons?
Is this just one step closer to 1984 or a natural evolution of "customer care"?
Neil.............
I used to have a cool sig.
It is very tempting to speed. A car that sticks to a safe limit seems like a great idea to me. I live in a small country and I don't see it as a 'god given right' that I am allowed to drive my car anywhere I like. My only worry with this scheme is that if we allow the car to take more control is that the driver is more likely to pay less attention and therefore cause more accidents.
I can't believe someone hasn't gotten rid of this practice. I don't exactly see why the registrant of the license plate deserves a ticket for loaning his/her car to a friend, a spouse, a child, a sibling, etc.
Although, I suppose they do the same thing with parking tickets. However, parking tickets don't build up points on your license which jack up your insurance and can potentially get your license suspended. Can you imagine getting your license suspended because of all the speeding tickets your son got driving your car?
Or whomever? Like your Russian mistress, Nadia? :)
When I was in the UK a couple years ago, I talked with a few people about the speeding cameras, and how in the US, opposition from citizens was really slowing/discouraging their deployment. This concept was completely foreign (go figure) to them. It seems like they view the government as a controlling body that they can't effectively oppose.
They're going to think "Hell, why should we build our cars to xyz specifications when they're never going to be allowed or able to go anywhere above abc specifications.
As soon as this happens, the engine in your car will turn into a hamster, and you'll have record times for acceleration, and figures like "0 to 100km/h in 45 seconds!" will be commonplace, simply because the manufacturers tell their engineers to save money by only designing to go to 105 km/h, not anywhere higher.
And the worst part of this is that brakes will go to crap too, because the companies will know what sort of speeds you're going at. Bad Brakes is Bad Brakes, you know.
In short, this opens up a can of worms that manufacturers will abuse to make manufacturing cheaper and our safety as bad if not worse than ever.
How long would it take for someone to hack it and install a linux on that device?
"Instead of crippling my car, wouldn't it be easier for them to research ways of detecting people who are driving erratically or recklessly?" No, everyone has a certain responce time. The faster you drive, the less maneuvering you can do during that time. If you think you have an incredible reaction time, I guess they can fire up some test and increase the limit for you.
A government that does not trust its citizens is a tyrannical government. The UK is not a democracy but a police state worst then East Germany.
They can bloody well make the damn autos drive themselves so people can do something more interesting. Driving is enough of drive without taking what out what little makes it at all bearable.
Is it just me, or does the lucidity of /. posts have a direct corelation to the User# and it's proximity to the Holy Creator?
Maybe that's why I've never been modded up:)
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
This has actually been around for a while. Down south, specifically West Virginia, vehicles were required by law (referred to as The Governor's Law iirc) to have a computer installed that would cut acceleration if driven too fast.
An uncle of mine had a truck where if he went 90 mph, all of a sudden the gas pedal would be useless until the speed dropped to about 65.
I may not be entirely correct, as I can't remember all the details, but this was a few years ago. Anyone that has heard of this besides me?
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
I think this will never happen in the first place. They will get some trials done, and there will be some case somewhere where someone needed to speed, and or a life will be lost, and that will be the end of it.
But if it actually does, then look out for the old car industry. Get yourself a nice model, and hook up with the parts industry, and look out. Lots of money to be made keeping older cars on the road.
They may try to convert the older ones, but those will be easy to crack, and very costly. Who is going to pay for that?
Another problem: What about those criminals who need to speed to get away. Think that their car will have a device on it? This just makes life less for those dupes who actually buy the cars.
I might take one if they gave it to me. But regulate my OWN DAMN CAR? No thanks...
This is just wistful thinking on the part of the UK.
Blogging because I can...
You want to see axamples of this come to Seattle, Where people will come to a almost complete stop just to swtich lanes on the Freeway, I have had people tell me this happens all over, but I grew up in Arizona, spent at least 5 years driving there.. and not once did I ever see this happen, nor on many of my trips to LA. The rudest drivers I ever met are here in Seattle, and your lucky if you can get the car moving fast enough to hit the speed limit during the day
Considering how British allow their own goverment to get away with so much shit Hitler wouldn't have any problems taking it over.
Just promise another social program and everything would be cool.
I'm sure this will come in mighty handy when some guy needs to drive his pregnant wife to the hospital, or needs to catch a plane, or the like.... brilliant.
The result? The whole city of Lisbon was filled with traffic jams and nobody was able to get to work! And this was bus drivers!
Never underestimate the social benefits of criminal behavior!
Never
Will code a sig generator for food
I speed but i also drive responsibly. That is, i dont tailgate, cut people off, fly across lanes etc etc. I also don't floor it and try to go as fast as possible either.
It's people like this - who have a ridiculously inflated view of their abilities - who make systems like this necessary.
The U.S. isn't far behind in terms of number of surveillance cameras. There are thousands of such cameras in Manhattan alone.
I'm not making any statements about it being logical. I'm just saying people don't accept that type of restriction. Maybe it is just because of that lingering 'What if?' about not being able to do something. What if I was in a situation where I needed to do it?
At the same time that it seems like a safety measure, it seems dangerous. Sure, if I'm in danger from something, it may not be a good idea for me to speed to get away from it. However, I'm not sure I want to be prevented from trying. There are areas where people literally get run off the road by carjackers (Miami, for example).
For an example that sounds more reasonable: say my son falls and is bleeding badly. Should I:
a. Drive slowly to the hospital.
b. Drive quickly to the hospital.
c. See how long it takes an ambulance to find my house.
How can British stand for this constant buttfucking by their government?
Come on now--DNA fingerprinting database of all their citizens. No gun ownership. You cannot speed. You can be monitored anywhere you go.
What are you guys going to do when Hister comes to spend a few nights in Buckingham?
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Sounds simple to me. What are you waiting for?
-Nev
If the GPS unit inside each car makes it trackable, then you'd never have to worry about anyone stealing it.
Add to this a radar to sense objects and a optical device to read the lines on the road. Then we could have self driving cars! Maybe we could get one of those annoying robot cab drivers from Total Recall in it! YEAH! people can't drive anyway think that whole drunk driving problem would just go away.
Soon every mobile phone service provider in the US will be required to be able to determine a user's whereabouts. The excuse is that they need it for 911 calls. Personally, I'm willing to run the risk that I'll pass out before I can reveal my location to the operator. At least, I am when the alternatives are carrying a tracking device 24/7 or remaining in the telcom dark ages.
Of course, these companies are going to roll that shit out soon enough under the guise of features, to let push ads for the store you're walking past or tell you that Betty674 from your buddy list is in the neighborhood.
"Fuck it, he's dead"
-Dr. Octagon
How vehicle location works. It requires a secondary communications network to actually send the GPS data back to be monitored. GPS alone does not do this.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Actually, a very significant portion of the cars on the road today have speed limiters. For example, most cars from germany have limiters that cut in at 150mph, to prevent tire failure that occurs during long stretches of high speed driving. Many american cars have limiters that cut in at about 100 mph (pickup trucks) and 130 (mustangs). This is to prevent the car from exceeding its own handling abilities.
However, what no one has mentioned at all is that there is a huge market in aftermarket chips, some of which increase horsepower, all of which remove the limiters. Also, any aftermarket ignition control unit that you can buy will not obey a speed limit since it is inherently a racing oriented part.
This technology will only people that have no interest in speeding or are too stupid to disable it. I suspect this is about 10% of the population (the ten percent that plods along at 70 in the fast lane). Without going into reasons that it is economically unfeasable, I dont think anyone here in the US has anything to worry about.
move over, people are racing
Gee, is this the same Britain that created a multi-ethnic empire and assimilated culture from all over the world to their benefit?
Beyond that: I agree, this would probably be a bad idea if implemented stupidly. However, as was said very elegantly by another poster in response to the NASA brain control of a aircraft discussion, why does everyone always automatically assume that the people developing the systems mentioned here are completely incapable of thinking of all the problems that everyone here comes up with in 30 seconds. I would bet you any reasonable sum of money that the people behind this system have already thought about emergency passing, gradually handling speed limit changes between zones, weather overrides, and all of that. If they haven't, you can bet someone will before they get around to implementing it in large scale five or ten years from now. Please, recognize that slashdot readers do not have a monopoly on common sense. ;-)
That has nothing to do with my comment though (but if anyone can recall the name of the movie, I'd appreciate it... it was named after a U2 (I think) song, or maybe REM.
At one point the main character's car's built in voice synth said basically "you are going over the posted limit, $xxx has been deducted from your account".
Pretty scary huh? I don't anticipate this to actually happen, but with the technology there, it could quite easily be done.
The article mentioned mph! Don't they use the metric system in Britain? Even Canada has switched over to metric! (Or I guess it's called SI nowadays.)
We did a similar system for our freshman engineering design project, and believe it or not there are a lot of inherent dangers in not being able to exceed the speed limit.
Particularly, what if you need to accelerate beyond the limit to avoid an accident? Plus people will come to trust the regulators so much they'll tailgate people more often becuase they dont' have to worry about rear ending them, closer cars = closer calls.....
I'm an AIX Systems administrator, and yes I do cry myself to sleep at night....
Roads are fixed, so the speed limitation could be very easily done with a fixed short-range transmitter posted at the start of the restricted-speed zone. No need for a messy and unreliable road speed database that has to be carried with the car and would never be up to date. Short-range transmitters, OTOH, could be setup whenever convenient or as needed (like for work slow-zones).
Capping the speed of the car wouldn't be very wise; for example, in case of emergency and you need the speed (like if you're overtaking that big tanker while a floatful of bricks is carreening your way). A loud siren inside the car (like in Singapore) would be safer.
Finally, a better thing would be an event recorder that records the last 30 minutes or so of whatever the driver has been doing (including the speed limitation he's been going through) which would be remotely downloadable by the police, so it could ticket offenders as soon as they run accross them. And also the information would be quite valuable to investigate eventual accidents.
--
Don't enforce speed limits exactly, but limit how much you can break them by.
That doesn't seem too unreasonable to me if they choose a margin that gives some lee-way that would give the driver some power.
Of course, then if the driver were to continuously use that leeway they'd find themselves without any leeway left if they needed it in an emergency.......
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Up here in Canada, Photo Radar tickets are just fines, no points on your license.
I though West Virginia was in the North, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Now I'm not exactly fluent in European geography, but isn't the Autobahn in Germany and NOT the UK?? Or am I incorect in thinking that the UK is an island?
Just a thought.
-Andy
This is the same country that advocates 'zero' tolerance gun laws, DNA databases of its citizens if they so much as sneeze, etc...
It's not the end posistion that this device needs to know about though.
You could ziz-zag all through a city at high speeds while only traveling a total distance of a few miles after a hour, as long as the signal was obscured.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
That GPS thing is a little hinky but I'm still waiting for big Bro' to implement an auto-pilot. That way after two pitchers at the pub, I can get home without being FORCED to go home with that old chick who's always at the bar.
There are 2 *very* ill-designed exit/onramps in the Puget Sound area.
The first is the I-405 South to South 167 interchange. The idiot civil engineer who designed this piece of crap needs to be shot. The backup runs for miles and there are frequent accidents leading up to the exit. Really good idea, put an exit immediately after a blind right curve and make the merging lane approximately 100 feet.
The other is the 520 to I-5 South interchange. This combined with drivers trying to get over 5 lanes to exit at Mercer causes some of the worst driving you'll ever see. How many of these grandmas and soccer moms realize that they have a full mile (1 minute at 60mph) to slowly and safely merge?
Makes a person almost want to move...
Dancin Santa
This is certain to kill off the sports car market.
Bull. I'd rather drive a sports car than an unsporty car at or under any speed limit. Am I alone?
Sure, the first version will allow you to temporarily or permanently disable the governor.
.
The second will ask you to specify your emergency first. (for statistical purposes only, of course, right?)
The third generation will be linked to a satellite network to alert the authorities when your wife is going into labor to allow the hospital to prepare for her arrival.
The forth generation will be linked to a judicial network to check the fingerprints of the driver for those of known felons.
The fifth generation will require a permanent wireless or satellite link to the Ministry of Safety to catch cases of "Road Rage" and DUIs.
The sixth generation will have a newer version of GPS and a remotely updateable "Personal Safety Protector", so that when the law that bans all men from driving gets passed (women are much safer drivers, right, characterZer0?), your mother/gf/wife drives you everywhere.
How safe and secure and miserable we would be then
---
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
They will wnvision this... what are you a fortune teller?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Yes.
Yes, but you could use a local system like the cell-phone system when you're in the middle of a big city or surrounded by trees.
Remember the first 100 from RedMars?
--
It really depends where you are in the US. Some states don't allow these things. Having states decide some things and not the federal government is a good political advantage of the US over Britain. A state like Wyoming or somewhere isn't going to have big brother very much, but a state like New York will allow big brother to watch. A New Yorker doesn't like big brother? He can move to a different state that doesn't allow it.
They are criminals. They've disabled the limiter on their car.
I could forsee this becoming a privacy issue. "Lets get a chip in each car, pop a serial number then can be read from a setup system." The potentail is there to do bad things. Track who is going where. Blackmail, and invasion can't be far behind.
...of installing speed limiters. Even they (as clueless as they are) understand there are times when it is safer to exceed the speed limit (overtaking road trains on dual lane country roads for instance). Of course there aren't that many road trains in Britain so they can't use that excuse =).
Personally, I'd rather see breathalysers installed that won't allow the car to start if the driver's blood alcohol exceeds the legal limit. That'd be a better way to reduce the road toll.
One way to reduce the road toll is to educate. When that fails technology gets its chance.
skribe
Blog
Errrm, you're forgetting the Override button for emergencies. It's legal to speed in those cases, and I think they'd let you do that as long as you didn't hit the Override button too often.
Damn!--You're the one! Get your ass over to the slow lane and stop holding everyone up!
Controled by GPS ????
Got any Aluminum Foil? Wrap that sucker up!
Muh Hah aha ha ha!!!
i have to admit, i was thinking "what on earth could possibly go wrong with a system like this" (technologically). that's a great read. i'm wondering if it might not be more more effective to leave the capability to speed yet auto-ticket for sustained limit-breaking. i don't imagine it would be very hard to create a ruleset that says "you can speed but if you exceed this limit for more than 60 seconds in a given 24-hour period, then we ticket you".
[shrug] just a thought. i, personally, think this is a pretty good idea, if i didn't cringe at the idea of my whereabouts being known 24x7.
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Yes, I would much rather go to court. Several reasons. It costs them more money than it's worth. Most (not all -- 105 in a 65 is probably dangerous in most instances because it's usually an idiot driving :) speeding tickets are issued as a means to increase revenue to the city, county, or state.
It works because people just sigh, pay it, and get on with life. If you actually go to court, plead "not guilty," and insist on a trial, you drag the cop off the streets for a few hours (stopping him writing more speeding tickets), force the judge and prosecutors to realize you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and best, force the cop to actually prove you were speeding. Doesn't matter if you were speeding or not; make them prove you were, and never let them make you prove you weren't. This costs them way more than the ticket is worth.
Yes, there's a risk that they'll still find you guilty, but it's not an offense that can put you in jail. Take the points and pay the fine, and know you've made it a real pain in their asses.
Remember that if you're found innocent, you don't pay a cent (neither court fees nor the original ticket). You've burned up a few hours, but you've also just legally told the "system" where it can shove it.
People take tickets far too lightly. It's always disturbed me. Why sign the "guilty" line on the ticket and take the automatic plea bargain? Doesn't anyone have a problem with a system that's designed, right down to the citations issued by it, to assume you're guilty?
You can kill somebody and get a better defense (and have a better chance of an "innocent" verdict) than for some traffic infractions. It's rediculous, and it needs to stop.
Read my stuff.
Let's consider the opportunities for easier speeding when eyeball and manual speed enforcement are funded less and less while the police rely on in-car ("client-side"?) electronics more and more.
Just like other semi-illegal aftermarket "chipping" of automotive computers (fuel:air ratios, spark timing, emmissions, etc.), we're sure to see great electronic hacks to bypass the speed limiters. And since 98% of the population isn't going to bother being such an outlaw, those of us willing to risk it will probably run into far less old-style radar traps, etc.
I'm sure the aftermarket automotive tweakers are salivating at this!
Do you realize how inaccurate radar guns are? How is the cop on the side of the road supposed to know that you in your subcompact 4 lanes over was the one doing 11mph over the speed limit and not that 18 wheeler going the other way? If speed kills, why are accident and death rates still dropping after the repeal of the 55mph national speed limit? (When the NHTSA estimated that it would cause 10s of thousands of more deaths) Speed tickets are simply about revenue enhancement - unfortunately, it's not the $75 speeding ticket that nails you, it's the $1000 in insurance premiums you'll pay as you work off your "violation." Frequently the only viewpoint on speeding ever covered by the media is the government line provided by the NHTSA. For the other side of things take a look at the NMA.
King George III? I thought we still have King George II. WTF?
A few years ago in Portland, Oregon a guy was driving his truck through a flooded area and a hillside next to the road fell apart and started sliding towards the truck. His friend in the seat next to him had a camcorder and taped the hill literally chasing them for about 2 minutes. (It's one of the most amazing pieces of film I've ever seen.)
They'd be dead if they could not have broken the speed limit in this case.
Yes, that was here in Texas. An insurance company was offering to install, for free, a GPS device that would monitor where you drove, which routes, how fast, etc and adjust your rate accordingly. The selling point being, that if you drove very little or on roads with low accident probability, your rates would be reduced. I am not sure how many signed up or if it is even still being offered. Pretty much everyone I talked to about it laughed and said, "you are kidding - who would do such a stupid thing." I agree - the last thing I need is my every movement logged in some database.
**** Sworn to Fun, Loyal to None. ****
After they get these in place, they'll have a means whereas patrol cars can stop your car remotely in any instance. Will bring a new meaning to "fascist state"
They said similar stuff about traffic lights and seat belts.
skribe
Blog
OK,as someone who deals with GPS on cars for a living... This sounds like a really bad idea if
it is what people have been making of it is true:
i.e. if they are using the satellites for positioning and velocity..
Lots of things can mess up the fix you get from
GPS or GPS-like satellites- among other things,
covering up the antenna...
Seriously though, I don't just mean intentionally.
If you drive between relatively tall buildings you
see so little of the sky that such a system would
be useless, or possibly even dangerous (as your velocity "jumps" as a result of seeing different parts of the satellite constellation).
Differential GPS would help, but even that isn't
a cure-all. When you're using differential GPS you still need to see satellites!
Pseudolites would be a better solution, but then you have problems with terrorists (a similar problem exists for differential, but not so severe- you can decide to not trust the corrections of they jump too quickly). A terrorist or ignorant person picks the pseudolite up and moves it, or reporograms it, and you have a recipe for another accident.
Of course it could be argued that you could enough smarts in the computer in the car to attempt to ignore these things, but I'd say that such an intelligence already exists in the car!
Why not just use directional antennas (simple radio!) to the car to tell a governer the maximum speed and use the spedometer reading to calculate speed? Much more reliable!
I imagine cracking the system would also carry a large fine, eh?
The UK should stop screwing around with these slow baby steps to fascism and just get it over with. Establish a Ministry of Truth their citizens seem to want so much, end the waiting. A democracy is the only kind of government in which the people truly get what they deserve!
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
No.. I think it's just the higher #s were here before the trolls left the ACs and moved to accounts, so the s/n ratio is slightly higher. High numbers can be just as stupid, and frequently are :)
:)
And don't worry, I don't get modded up either.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
are the Public Safety issues introduced. The first high profile fatality following the systems introduction will spark a fierce backlash. Arbitrary speed control can prove dangerous depending on the situation, like the vehicle's speed relative to others - especially APPROACHING vehicles!! Public Safety Officials piloting these programs best have all possible contingencies excecuted.....
oh....my!
from the car-guy perspective (the automotive equivilent to the computer-geek)
This is horrible. From as early as I can remember I have wanted to be an automotive engineer. Recently I've been reconsidering, due to stuff like this. If your car is limited to a certain speed, then there must be a maximum speed, say 75mph. So companies can stop making the cars go any faster. And if you can't take those desolate back roads (limit:35) at 60, why make the suspension work well? What fun will the engineering be?
On another note, its going to make cars even less safe. No, I take that back, it will make drivers less safe. The more "safety features" they put into cars (i.e. airbags, ABS, traction control, power steering, GPS, auto-slowing when the person in front of you slows down, automatic transmissions, and dummy-everythings) the less the driver thinks he or she has to pay attention. And the less he or she does pay attention. As far as safety, I'll put my life in the hands of a guy in the '89 Dodge Colt 5-speed with power-nothing who has to drive the car himself without computers, and who realizes that he has to watch out for the moron in the SUV who thinks she can turn on a dime at 75 while she's talking on the cell phone.
(Any percieved stereotyping is purely coincidental. really.)
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
What happens when youre driving along in a 45 zone and the zone changes suddenly to 30? if its raining or there's snow on the ground, you're toast.
Why? Presumably the system would be designed to give some sort of audiable warning allowing the driver to break on their own, and then if they dom't comply, slowly break the vehicle down to the speed limit. It just plain silly to claim that it would be designed to slam on the anchors as soon as you crossed into a zone with a different speed limit.
Are they gonna have a live update of weather conditions at each and every zone as well?
Why would they need them...?
Not in the UK it doesn't, it certainly effects the advisory speed on Motorways, but not the maximum limit imposed by law...appart, of course, for the M25 which has variable speed limits, mostly due to...
...traffic conditions. However these speed limits already update the speed cameras (something I haven't seen much of in the US, so maybe you guys don't have them?) wouldn't be much bother to have them update the black box via a local radio signal. Not a major design consideration really.
How will they resolve disputes like where the speed limit sign says one thing and the Central Database says another?
Well obviously you have to obey the signs, its no defence to say that your car was letting you go faster than the posted limit, or we'd all be able to speed any time we wanted. If the central database had a slower speed than the posted limit, well tough, you file a complaint.
How will they know how many people are in your car so as to know whether you should be in the HOV lane or not?
I'm a Brit, I couldn't even tell you what an HOV lane is, although I could take a decent guess from context. Whatever they are, we don't have them.
Will the argument, "I couldn't have been speeding, the guvnor was operating normally" be a legal defense? should it be?
Unlikely, how can you know that it operating normally at the time of the incident?
Al.--
The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
There are a lot of cool looking cars that don't go all that fast. My Dodge Avenger for example...looks sporty with the spoiler and mag wheels and all, but has a shitty-ass 2.5L V6 and gets terrible pickup. The charm of a sports car is not only the look but the power.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
...because then all the people would be relying on one GPS system, if that goes out everone is screwed. Its like having everyone in the world terminal into one big computer, its not very smart.
:)
And what about people with vintage cars? I'm sure that they don't want to install the governor systems into their prize possessions.
And what about people that take out the systems from their cars, and the people that build little GPS emitters to fool the system? The list goes on...
Personally I think it is a stupid idea with too many ways to cheat the system; it won't work, it won't be implemented. Everyone go home now, nothing to see here.
-Gnight
My primary source of transportation is a motorcycle (in the good months), nowhere does it say anything about them. Most new bikes are outfitted with a small computer but for things like fuel injection. I'm sure if such a thing was put into bikes I'd be in the garage fixing it.
By the looks of it though, the UK is really got it in for speeders. The January issue "Performance Bikes" was " Get smart on the street, Beat the Fuzz and evade the speeding Crackdown." Some unmarked cars and some cameras. That is quite a bit to hand out tickets. But is it really doing any good?
I'm still confused that the US spends millions a year on safer cars. Wouldn't be smarter to make safer drivers?
AK
This is flamebait.
No one in california drives at speeds below 85 where I live (bay area). Every day on the way to work across the bay, I get up to about 100-115. Admittedly, there are slowpokes going only about 85, but they usually stay out of the way.
I have never gotten a speeding ticket or had an accident (Im in my mid 20s now). Speed doesnt kill and policing speed doesnt save lives. All you get is people braking to fool the cops every couple of minutes or so. In case you didnt notice, this is dangerous.
I think the best way to make people better drivers is to encourage people to get involved in driving schools and autocross. This will help people understand the limits of their cars and safely get out of dangerous situations without dying.
If speed limits were enforced rigidly, people would finally get up the political will to set them where they actually want them to be set. Maybe then we can travel at reasonable speeds without breaking the law.
Putting a GPS receiver and limiter into each car seems like a pretty expensive and heavy-handed approach. I think it would be better to have automated traffic cameras for enforcement. In addition, to help drivers comply, we should come up with a system of local transmitters (cheap, small, solar-powered boxes) that send information about local speed limits (and other local traffic information) to cars to be used as the cars and drivers see fit.
I thought about mentioning civil disobedience, but speeding seems like such a petty form of protest. Sort of like saying "I have no patience, therefore you should accommodate me!".
A long time ago (few years, so no links anymore, sorry), I read about a interesting-looking car that sort of did the same thing - it had built-in camerars and could read road signs... and it would follow them. Nowadays they have cars that drive by themselves anyway (prototypes, that is), so a road-sign reading car is probably not so far-fetched. The idea in this article is the same thing only executed differently. (Not that that's a bad thing, but it's just as hackable)
What happens if you need to get out of somewhere in a hurry or bad things will happen..
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
I haven't driven in the bay area much, but what I saw made it look a lot like LA, and in LA someone driving 100 sticks out really badly. You must have a really amazing route to work to let you do that safely -- or, you are that guy that everyone else hates for weaving in and out of traffic, and you're gonna kill someone eventually.
I do agree 110% about driving schools and autocross. I never really understood the limits of my car or myself until I started throwing the vehicle around a track. Fun AND educational, can't beat it.
It's because people are sheep that such measures are necessary. How many people die in your state, province or city from speeding or drunk driving? Everyone knows that speeding or driving under the influence radically increases the chances of an accident but there are still thousands that do it. What do you do? Education hasn't stopped the problem. Higher penalties haven't either. Preventing the problem altogether is something we should be examining instead of crying about civil liberties. It's awfully hard to care about having civil liberties when you're dead.
skribe
Blog
Speed up, ok:
Stuck behind a truck hualing something that looks likes it about to fall out, you'd have to speed up and pass them.
You start to cross a street and somone shoots over a hill doing 2x the speed limit, your only option is to gun it and get out of their way. Hitting your brakes only makes it worse.
I've had to speed to get past cars in other lanes so that I can change lanes. Where I live there a number of slow (old) drivers, if I dont hit the engine and get around them there is no chance of find a hole behind them to change into.
What about other cars that CANT stop. Trucks cant stop on a dime. Hitting your brakes with a truck behind you instead of gunning it and moving on will cause an even bigger accident than you tried to avoid.
FunOne
FunOne
This is an extremely unsafe thing to implement. Anything that overrides your control of your vehicle could potentially make you lose control. What happens when youre driving along in a 45 zone and the zone changes suddenly to 30? if its raining or there's snow on the ground, you're toast. What security model will they use, to prevent malicious hacking (in this case, a virus could have tragic/fatal consequences).
Are they gonna have a live update of weather conditions at each and every zone as well? after all, weather affects speed limits. how will they correct for traffic conditions (sometimes, someone going the speed limit on a highway can actually cause a rush hour traffic jam). What about night vs. day limits? (they change in many places)
How will they resolve disputes like where the speed limit sign says one thing and the Central Database says another? How will they know how many people are in your car so as to know whether you should be in the HOV lane or not?
Will the argument, "I couldn't have been speeding, the guvnor was operating normally" be a legal defense? should it be?
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
The thing is, there are cases when speeding outweighs the cost of not speeding. A good example is a dying person who is being driven to the hospital, or a pregnant woman about to give birth. In certain cases, you want to let people speed, because they have justifiable reasons for doing so. Putting a mandatory enforceable limit on how fast cars can go is bad.
Even if they think about doing this, a better idea would be to not restrict the car's speed, but use the tracking information to deliver speeding tickets without having traffic cops posted all over the place.
-Laxitive
Sometimes I wish people could drive cars near campus at all, it would sure make things easier for me. But once I get home during breaks, and the scooter goes into my closet, I definitely like using my car to get around, so it's kind of a tough decision!
I'd have to say we'd be better off with these things than without, though.
ben.
Ben Schumin :-)
No my friend. In the US, you have the right to confront your accuser. You have no accuser if you are being nabbed by a robot camera. As long as you dont say "I was speeding, but..." to the judge, you will walk for whatever reason you give. If you dont beleive me, tell me how the judge will swear in the robot as a witness against you.
Air based speeding tickets are ridiculously easy to contest in court, if you have the time to show up.
snip
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Personally, I'm not so paranoid that I'll gladly allow this type of cellphone. I would much rather have my cellphone company be able to tell where I am for whatever inane reason than be lying in a ditch somewhere in the middle of nowhere while I freeze, bleed, or be eaten alive while drifting in and out of conscienceness.
Firstly, what is the cellphone company going to do if they can locate me. They're not going to give out that info to Some Dumb Joe (tm). Have you ever even tried to get somebody else's cellphone number from the cellphone company. Last time I tried (I even told them it was an absolute emergency) they told me there was nothing they could do.
Secondly, if you were so paranoid as to be bothered by the fact that somebody might hack the signal and locate you, couldn't either (a) turn the thing off / take the battery out, or (b) not carry/own a cell phone at all??
Also, why don't people say the same thing about Chevy's NorthStar. They can track you in you car. Obviously they're able to give you directions/ unlock your doors / etc. Plus, when you get in a wreck (actually, any time the airbags deploy) they call 911 for you. Which is actually a really nice feature when you think about it.
Who cares if your cellphone told you that the store you were standing in front of was having a blue light special on fat men's uderwear. I think it'd be great if it could also find a list of coupons that are availble at the grocery store that I'm standing in. "Oh hey look, it's buy-1-get-1-free on ketchup. Maybe I should run in and grab 2 bottles for that picknic this weekend."
I'm all for it. Hell, it could even observe my driving patterns and inform me of upcoming traffic conjestion/wrecks/etc and re-route me. This would be great on the way to work. Or, I could easily check how busy my favorite restuarant is. "Hrm.. cell phone estimates almost 2 hour wait... wanna go somewhere else?"
I'm all for automation that makes life easier.
seems like UK is busy implementing the blueprint defined in '1984'. Internet Monitoring, Car GPS-based monitoring. Next - mandatory chip implants.
... that Britain is going to squelch one of the best mechanisms for removing idiot genes from the gene pool!
Although the Guardians article was seriously short on specifics (and who knows if this Guardian is fiction or non-fiction news source), we should still have enough info to punch significant holes in the operation of this thing and figure out ways to defeat it.
How about some of these:
1) Have a mechanic change the ratio on the speedometer pickup. Speedometer and governer display/sense speeds 10 to 20 [k]mph slower than actual speeds.
2) Where are the maps stored that dictate speeds and GPS coords? The system has to be designed to be updated by an idiot. A simple hack and the entire area has a speed limit of 200 [k]mph...
What are others thoughts on defeating this should other governments start reviews?
---
It is impossible for the British to become less intelligible.
Why would I be arrested for murder if I hadn't killed anyone? Seems like if I killed someone , I should be in jail. And you can be rest assured that if you're arrested, you ARE most likely going to have to prove you're actually innocent because the fact that you the cop arrested pretty squarely places the burden of proof back on you.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
... that people are sheep who will allow themselves to be lead anywhere, weather it is to a shearing or a slaughter.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
Hello:
The link to the Slashdot articles is here.
>>I think that having to punch your car above the legal speed limit to avoid a collision is a dicey prospect at best. If you're already in a risky situation, adding more speed to the mix would probably hurt at least as often as it helped. Why not learn to reflexively hit the brakes, instead?
What about for motorcycles? will they try to implement it there? I have some motorcyclist friends (Hell's Angels, all of them, so don't even try to mod me down!). They say a motorcycle's quick acceleration is it's best defense--they can get out of trouble in a _hurry_. If they don't they're dead. (These friends are still alive, BTW).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Ive heard the american EZPASS system will ticket you if you travel between tolls too quickly.
Female friend... der :)
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Oh, definitely. :)
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Yea, it's horrible when the goverment wants to take away your gGod-given right to blatantly violate traffic laws, or yoru God-given right to staying anonymous while you shoplift, mug someone, purse-snatch, or the like.
For a country that takes such pride in an obviously screwed up government (your wonderfully undemocratic two-party system, the blatantly stupid electoral process, and so on), I'm amazed at how many Americans think the Government is the source of all evil.
Try living in a place like Canada, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and so on. The government is not AGAINST you, it is FOR you, and everything it does, it does in the best interests of the people (with a few exceptions, obviously).
I would rather live in the UK and have cameras watching me and GPS stopping dangerous drivers than live in the US and have people mug me, or get killed by a drunk/dangerous driver.
Anonymity is only good if you're afraid of the people with the information. If you don't trust your government or the parties, run for office. That's what Democracy's about, right? (at least, in Democratic countries it is)
~Sentry21~
What about the Override button? They will envision situations like this! They're not stupid! Situations like this are obvious, given about a fourth of the comments have described situations like this. It might hurt new car sales, but the government would mandate retrofitting of old cars.
It sounds like a ploy to take the fun out of driving altogether. Is it a plot to move commuters to mass transit systems that may not be bound by these speed limiters?
Dancin Santa
I know people have stated it below, but I just have to put my .02c in here too.
I just want to state that speed doesn't kill, stupid, incapable and bad drivers do. By stupid and bad drivers that means those who:
A) Read books while on the freeway at 50mph(I have seen it)
B) Talk on their cellphones at 95mph in heavy traffic
C) Put their make up on while driving.
D) Man that was a killer party...but I can STILL drive mentality. I can barely walk, but I can still drive!
E) Grandma who can't see the stop light anymore. No offense to the older generation, but you scare me every time you get in your car. There should be mandatory driving tests for everyone over 65 every 2 years.
F) Many, many more...
I grew up in Germany where people drive fast (150mph), but the cars are engineered better, the drivers are used to it and the roads are built for it. In the US for the most part, the roads aren't built for it, the drivers don't know how to handle speed and don't know how to handle their cars at speed..it's just a "cool" thing to do. Yes, I speed all the time on the highway (never side roads..too many things to hit), but in 15 years of driving not one accident or ticket. Have I gotten close? Yes, but knowing my car and not freaking out saves your ass, not the speed you were going.
If conditions on the road warrent it, speed. If the biggest blizzard of the winter is coming through town..for christs sake yes you have a truck...but 60mph on the highway will get you or that other guy killed in a snowstorm! Know your car, know your limits and your fine!
Thank you!
The Rhavenn
I've had to speed to get past cars in other lanes so that I can change lanes. Where I live there a number of slow (old) drivers, if I dont hit the engine and get around them there is no chance of find a hole behind them to change into.
I don't consider changing lanes to be an emergency manouver. You should have been assessing the traffic conditions sufficently far enough in advance so that you end up inthe correct lane without having to "find a hole" in the traffic.
While I tend to agree with your conclusions, that acceleration to speeds above the limit are sometimes necessary to avoid accidents, you don't help your case by making arguements like this...
However, I would think it unlikely that the makers of the black box in question wouldn't have thought of this, it's a fairly obvious point and can easily be designed around. Driving with your speed consistently above the limit wouldn't be allowed, but briefly exceeding the limit could be allowed, perhaps with an warning from the box. Its not a totally unsurmountable design problem.
Al.--
The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
Not true. In the past few years there have been some really impressive advances in solid-state accelerometer technologies. With a few good accelerometers and a fast DSP you can achieve very accurate intertial navigation.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Why not simply require bright yellow lights on the roof of cars? Then have the computer trigger these when the cars exceed the limit? Then everybody can see how much people speed!
HOV stands for High Occupancy Vehicle.
HOVs are vehicles uch as buses, carpool vans, and yes, vehicles with two (2) people in them.
In Colorado, motorcycles also qualify as High Occupancy Vehicles, even with only one rider.
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Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
What about an emergency situation where you have to punch it to avoid a collision? They happen...so tough shit?
After they get these in place, they'll have a means whereas patrol cars can stop your car remotely in any instance. Will bring a new meaning to "fascist state"
You're not likely to want to speed in an underground parking lot...
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
My wifes pregananat. Does the slight risk of speeding justify haveing a dangerous birth? I know this is extreme, but one example of many.........
Come on !
Criminals are often stupid but not that stupid !
I always figured that something like this would come out eventually. Either make the car limit itself or make the car continuously transmit its speed (roadside receiver would pickup and local law enforcement would mail a ticket).
Governing the speed of the car by receiving signals from roadside mounted short-range transmitters would (IMHO) be somewhat more accurate (said transmitters simply sending out a scambled/variable (date/time based) that tell the cars computer what the local speed limit is).
I could see that we could use more details on how this system works. The only way that I can see it working right now would to have the cars computer have an internal map and use that with the GPS to determine where the car is and what is the speed limit. The problem with this is how to update that map for new speeds and roads (although I suppose a default speed for an unknown road would work). I wouldn't think that the local dept in charge of this would provide free map updates for people to install (and even if they did, maybe 10% could install it (and that 10% would also hack the damn thing to change all limits)).
Another point to make, how are you going to fit these governing devices into existing vechicles. Might be simple for all those point-and-scoot auto trainee cars that the braindead populace loves, but putting one of them in a car with a stick-shift and significantly smarter driver would be trouble. Then again, law enforcement has time on its hands, so maybe only new cars would have governors and silly autotrans. Older cars would eventually die out and get replaced.
Oh, well. It isn't like we haven't been asking for this. We (the general we) have been driving helter-skelter and willie-nillie far above the speed limits for along time. This is just the government and law enforements way of saying "you win, drive whatever speed you want. We'll put governors in your cars and see how fast you go." We asked for it, they are giving it to us...
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yeah, it's easy to forget the part of our tradition of democracy and due process that says injustice is excusable "if the government representative was having a really, really bad day".
What about when you go into an underground parking lot? GPS isn't likely to work down there.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
As I understand it a GPS unit works out where it is from signals it receives, not emits.
If all the mapping/speedlimit information is stored in the unit then the unit would have no reason to 'dial-out' and allow you to be tracked.
That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it isn't a requirement of using this technology (to the best of my knowledge).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Of course, in the USA the pigs would never go for a system that actually physically prohbited speeding, since they wouldn't want to give up the revenues from the tickets.
Now, a system that auto-fined anyone who was speeding is exactly the kind of thing that our home-grown jackbooted thugs would go for in a heartbeat.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
For those who don't remember, about 6 months ago the US government decided to make military-grade GPS available to civilian GPS systems. This made them much more accurate as to location, speed, etc. However they reserved the right to turn the system back down to pre-SA levels at any time, per area of the world, as National Security or government whim dictates.
Now, for all the posters who ask, what will happen if there's a building or a cloud? Will the engine cut out? I wonder about another risk; if the US decides to back off of Selective Availability, what happens to cars in motion that find themselves suddenly hundreds of meters from where they were just a moment ago, due to suddenly and purposefully inaccurate data from the birds?
Dumb computer: I'm going 500 kph! [ticket / shutdown]
Do you trust the government to notice the moment of SA shutdown and nullify the tickets? Or pay for a new car if your engine locks up?
--
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I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
In any case, you seem to have missed the point. A car is a very powerful tool, and used incorrectly can be very dangerous. I don't think a hacked-on solution based on not-too-reliable technology is ready to replace my (apparently quite good) driving instincts.
Steven N. Severinghaus
When they impelment this, how will we legally experience the pure rush of acceleration? Of blowing the doors off of some slow-driving weenie? Laughing crazily into the wind?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
[snip]
I'm so glad that the (former) American Colonies got fed up with this a long time ago and did the sensible thing.
hmmm... yeah...
Can you say DMCA or UTICA?
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
While those in the UK generally value the illusion of safety over liberty (it is an exaggeration I know, but not that great of one.), we here in the United States have this little legal principal that cannot be avoided, which is detailed in the 6th ammendment:
Notice the part that says "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." You are well within your rights to dispute a ticket, especially if the only 'proof' they have is some machine readout.
No illusion of security is worth trading your freedoms.... and make no mistake, it is just an illusion. I refuse to give up my rights, no matter how much "safer" that might make society. Would I put my life on the line to preserve the rights we hold here in the United States? Absolutely. Contrary to what some like to think, most governments that have a great deal of power over their citizens eventually degenerate into tyranny for the simple reason that greedy humans are involved; that is a variable that can never be removed from the equation.
-
The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Now, the only real reason that this idea is going to be lambasted on /. is that YOU personally want to be able to speed when you decide to do it. If you ask me, I'd rather you didn't.
They would probably argue that you should have called an ambulance, and that by speeding you were putting yourself, the injured passenger, and others at risk.
I think it would be appropriate to also link to the responses already generated on Risks:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.23.html#subj14
Lots of good comments involving previous such experiments and some of the implementation dangers by folks who generally know what they're talking about.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
You couldn't be more correct.
The point is to reduce accidents, right? This is certainly not the answer.
However, technology might have a few better answers:
- I'd like two lights on my dashboard that tell me if I'm going too fast or too slow. Red if I need to slow down, green if I need to speed up. I already use cruise control a lot but in city driving the stretches are too short for cruise.
- I'd like small cameras all around my car and a real-time "map" of the cars all around me generated on a heads-up display. I'd then be able to see not only whether there's a car in the lane next to me but also if there's a speeder two lanes away who's about to swerve into the next lane.
- I'd like the brake lights to be extra bright or flash when I'm stopping hard.
I guess it's really all about improving communication and making more information easily available to the driver. But here's a crazy idea:
- I'd like to be able to reward good drivers somehow. Perhaps there could be little devices that let me aim at a car, push a button, and add "good driver points" to that car, which would eventually lead to a cash incentive for the driver.
Use Zope!
The system uses GPS to figure out if the vehicle is in a speed limited zone.
So make a low-power GPS transmitter and fool it into thinking you're on the Autobahn.
"Every new law is a new opportunity for graft."
- From Heinlein's "Red Planet"
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wow! Blew a big ol' hole in that one. This is an article that should be sent to whatever dept is in charge of voting on this system.
I still like my system better. Short range roadside transmitters with direction control, sending out encrypted speed limit info. There would need to me millions of the damn things, but does law enforcement want to control the speed of vehicles or continue with the sporadic and braindead methods currently in place?
Its all about control. Either limit yourself and try to educate others to limit themselves or face the facts that speed limiting devices will be mandatory in future vehicles.
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>This is an extremely unsafe thing to implement. >Anything that overrides your control of your >vehicle could potentially make you lose control. >What happens when youre driving along in a 45 >zone and the zone changes suddenly to 30? if its >raining or there's snow on the ground, you're >toast. What security model will they use, to >prevent malicious hacking (in this case, a virus >could have tragic/fatal consequences). There would be an Override button if things changed significantly. Also, speed limit changes would always be gradual, so there would be time to react. >Are they gonna have a live update of weather >conditions at each and every zone as well? after >all, weather affects speed limits. It does? Maybe where you live. Anyway, there would simply be an algorithm to do it based upon precipitation maps and >how will they >correct for traffic conditions (sometimes, >someone going the speed limit on a highway can >actually cause a rush hour traffic jam). Lower the speed limit in rush hour. Simple. ?What >about night vs. day limits? (they change in many >places) Gradually lower it from 7 to 8 pm. >How will they resolve disputes like where the >speed limit sign says one thing and the Central >Database says another? How will they know how >many people are in your car so as to know >whether you should be in the HOV lane or not? The HOV lane isn't the point! Speed is! >Will the argument, "I couldn't have been >speeding, the guvnor was operating normally" be >a legal defense? should it be? Yes, assuming you weren't weaving in and out of other cars and going twice as fast as they were. Then I think it would be considered intentional.
Bull. I'd rather drive a sports car than an unsporty car at or under any speed limit. Am I alone?
no accounting for taste, but I do not like crippleware in cars. I can see it: "Officer, I tried to speed up to get out of the way, but i couldn't!"
But to think of it, I would not mind a test on commercial vehicles first, like those big rig truckers. they can be dangerous!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
No, not a trucker. But I couldn't believe that law enforcement could actually put this together and make it work.
If they did get this to work then my idea of hanging cameras on the underside of overpasses (side roads overpassing interstates, freeways, etc.) would work. The cameras capture the image of car going by, someone enters this into a database, a computer makes match-ups and issues tickets (with photos) to drivers. Someone could rack-up thousands of dollars in fines just driving to work one day...
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Shouldn't the US gov't get props or cash of some form. Are there ever again going to be payments to the developer of this widely used system?
Simply set up some high powered RF transmitters in GPS range and the entire system is DOSd. Or better yet DDOS it with multiple sources.
It only has to fail to work once.
Of course not. They're going to feed it to the government in real time. If you think that's unrealistic, look at the Digital Telephony Act and Carnivore. That could enable some interesting opportunities for an alert law-enforcement type (and I'm just scratching the surface):
- A crime is committed at a certain address. Let's interview the ten cell phone users who were nearest at the time. We'll ask, "What were you doing on 15th street last night?" and see if they can come up with an alibi that matches their GPS trail.
- Analysis of the GPS trails will yield some phone users who live in the suburbs but travel into the ghetto periodically. Obviously they're getting drugs. Let's pull them over as they're leaving the ghetto - they'll either be high or carrying drugs. Even a 10% success rate makes it very worthwhile.
- When criminals are caught, their GPS trails can be used as a reference. So if it turns out that serial killers go to the library on Fridays, drive out of town on weekends, and go to Chinese restaurants on Sundays, other phone users who share these traits could be pre-emptively monitored, arrested, or searched. At least they'd be prime suspects if another serial killer starts operating.
Please note that I haven't even touched on abuse of the capabilities by a malicious cop. I've just listed some legal, sensible steps which law enforcement would take with this technology. I also haven't brushed on the commercial possibilites.Who said anything about 2way communications? There aren't transmitters in the cars, just receivers. The gov won't know the fuck where you are. I live in Iceland, where most accident's are caused by young stupid drivers over the speed limit. I greatly appriciate this technology, and if YOU knew someone killed by a wanker driving over 100km/h you'd appreciate it too. The article over at the guardian website isn't thorought enough. And since when, you smart asses, has the police kept the income from fines? It goes straight to the treasury where the parliment uses it to buy alcohol for their partys! Not so sober regards, Hreinn Beck, Iceland
But the real question is how to deal with devices that fail. What if the device suddenly read 0 MPH as the max, and suddenly you couldn't drive the thing to the shop to get it fixed?
What happens if some one dies because they couldnt get to the hospital in time? Is there a liability somewhere since you were restrained in you ability to seek medical help.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
Also, considering your chances of survival decline exponentially with increasing speeds, driving 5 mph over the speed limit likely will mean the difference between life and death of you, the people in the other car, or your passenger(s).
seems you forgot your subjunctive construction.
what you meant to say was, "driving 5 mph over the speed limit likely would mean the difference between life and death... if one was also a careless driver who did not carefully and intelligently avoid danger in the first place through other methods".
but since you're on a roll here, why stop at the Killing-Precious-Little-Girl-With-Flowers speed of +5 the limit? would it not be safer to have everybody drive at 45? or 35? how about 10?
you feel that speeding threatens your safety. you think your feelings justify your attempt to exercise control over the actions of a Free Human Being[pat. pend.].
i feel that your slow-driving threatens both my safety and my ability to get to my job (32 miles) in less than an hour. i think my feelings justify my ability to exercise my sovereignty as a Free Human Being[pat. pend.]
i also feel that your attitude of control is as dangerous to my well-being as a raving, bomb-laden terrorist. terrorists only kill people. fascists kill entire nations.
the highway system sees you as blockage, and passes around you
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
It's good to know that the british gas taxes (that happen to be driving our gas prices through the roof). Are doing some real good by creating such a complex/expensive and intrusive system. Why in the hell are they not improving mass transit or something?
"C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Same people that gave us Mad Cow Desease... what else can you expect?
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
It has been said over and over again that the radar guns issued to traffic police are useless.
What if the car recorded the position and speed a car was going, and stored it locally, and encrypted using some kind of storage device.
Take that to court next time you have challenge a speeding ticket.
Surely the police will fight it. Just imagine what would happen to their income should they not be able to give out any more speeding tickets. The police won't stand for it, I tell you!
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I don't like the sound of this.
I mean, suppose you were on a bus that could not drop below 55mph........
---Lane
What's the point of moderating?!
I got into a minor fender bender the other day. and it was my fault some how. Anyways, I was giving the cop my information and what not and I look and I see Windows9x on his laptop. I go, "I thought you guys used a special system, not windows, How stable is it?" Officer goes "It crashes all the fucking time, why do you think I'm writting the report up on papper!" :) I chuckled and accepetd my ticket.. it was an old lady that I was involved with and I'm hoping she doesn't go to court and all is forgotten except for hte dammage on my poor 93' XJ. :(.
Pictured here
And here
-- Jason...
people talk as if reaction time were ONLY a function of your speed, which is incorrect.
the alert, intelligent driver never has to worry about having "incredible reaction time" because s/he constantly monitors the environment and understands the clues given by traffic patterns.
if you are paying attention (as i am every time i drive a vehicle), you can tell that the person on your left needs to make the far-right exit lane and is about to swerve in front of you to get there. since you already have seen this, you remove your foot from the accellerator (after checking your mirrors to ensure that no one behind you will be endangered by a slight shift in speed) and leave enough space in front of you so the person will be able to swerver AS SAFELY AS POSSIBLE.
if you cannot drive intelligently and defensively, you are far more dangerous to me than someone who is merely travelling fast.
the beauty of intelligent driving is that it can be done at all speeds. oh sure, driving 90kmh is inherently safer than driving 200kmh, but driving 35kmh is safer than 90kmh, and 5 is safer than 35. but deadly, reckless driving can (and does) occur at any of those speeds, and if your goal is to eliminate unsafe conditions, then your energy would be better spent lobbying for widespread mass-transit than trying to limit everyone to 90kmh.
there are few dangers on the earth that cannot be lessened or wholly avoided by diligent intelligence.
---
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
it's no surprise to me that the UK won the Big Brother award for number of public camera placements.
what's next on Big Brother's agenda?
golgotha
- First, you don't need to keep any GIS data in the car. The car sends its location to The System, and The System tells it how fast to go. The System is all that needs to be up-to-date. This also allows for tracking of all vehicles in real time: certainly a wet dream for many.
- Second, the car doesn't have a position, it has a velocity vector. From one point of data no, you can't tell if the car's on I-78 or CR-513, but by checking where the car was 10 seconds ago you can take a pretty good guess. And by seeing where the car is in 10 more seconds, you can tell for sure.
- Finally, this is already happening, and it works really well. In Portland, Oregon (my home) the location of each and every public bus is monitored (not sure exactly how). Each driver has a little LCD screen next to the steering wheel that displays the route time. It displays the bus's current position in 10-second increments: e.g. "40 seconds behind schedule."
There are reasons for this system not to work on a larger scale, but they're not the ones you cited (see sigquestion: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
A "bright lights limiter" that will prevent you from using your brights when someone is approaching, or is in front of you.
A "brake limiter" that will keep you from braking if you're on a slippery surface.
A "door limiter" that will keep your doors locked if you're in the car, so you don't accidentally fall out. (Actually, new VW Beetles automatically lock the doors if the key is in the ignition. My friend got locked out of her car when she had the engine running and needed her headlights for something she was doing outside of the car.)
Remember, it's for our own good. :P
-Legion
I think the people in the states take it up the ass as well, with all those anal politicians.
We all have our share of rotten apples (politicians), you know.
--
when everyone gives everything,
when everyone gives everything, then everyone everything will get
Over what time frame. Inertial navigation, even with the best fibre optic gyros, are still a long way from accurate in the long term. Dead reckoning works on the basis that the inertial navigation is good in the short to medium term, but in the long term, gyroscopic drift tends to blur the results (the error caused by the drift increases over time). Over the short term, GPS is woefully inaccurate, but once it has been running for a long enough period, this tends to reduce. The whole point of dead reckoning is to combine the two together so as to reduce to the overall errors in the position in both the short and long terms, giving better total accuracies. This of course depends on the Kalman Filter model (this is the standard practice), and how many terms is has within it. Even still, the first minute or two without of a measurement sequence will still have large errors within this. BTW, Kalman Filters also help reduce the errors in the long term due to it's updating process.
What sensible thing? Move back to the U.S. and establish the C.I.A. and F.B.I. to watch from satelites every move you make?
Stupid! It's in the british genes to bend over backwards. Big brother will only get bigger with such a party, after all the book (1984) was written by a brit.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The british are a bunch if pansies. First we whooped their ass's in the revolution (fuck calling the states the collonies, we TOOK this land from you bitch's), then we had to come save their asses from the Germans. Now they let the goverment stomp all over them. I have NO respect for any british. England is where they beta test big brother, once its perfected it will be implemented in the states.
One of the reasons that the US government turned of SA was that it wasn't working anymore. You can now buy GPS recievers that get round it by various means, normally by triangulation with GPS recievers at known fixed positions, or if in motion itself with know speed and acceleration, making multiple measurements and fitting the data within the error bars.
Al.--
The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
When you have a government like the one that is england this comes as no surprise. There is no constitution and hence no judicial review. The love to take giant shits over people's rights. Just look at their use of DNA technology.
It really comes as no surprise why those tea lovin freaks have been reduced to the stature of a third world shithole on the world power food chain.
I suggest that they stick with comedy and get a gaggle of monkeys fuckin footballs to improve their government.
And it is too damned bad that princess di died, now we are going to have to dig her up to get a piece of that action.
Once I flamed a slashdot article and there was that smell, that thick burning karma smell. It smelled like victory... some day this war is gonna end
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Instead of using GPS and an onboard database to limit speed, why not just have your car conveniently charge your credit card $200 when you exceed the speed limit? It could also watch for such infractions as illegal lane changes, broken taillights, etc.
Just cut the wire / damage / jam / shield the antenna and you're free. The only way I can think of to get around people's doing this would be to cause the car to shut down if it doesn't get a signal. Hopefully that is sufficiently unacceptable to the general population...
I don't know what it stands for, but HOV lanes are also known as "carpool lanes", "bus lanes", "more than 2 people per vehicle lanes", etc.
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
2) As a result of #1, driving cars at the speed limit actually feels obviously a safe speed (no doubts about this), and in fact sedate, and, pokey, lazy, etc.
3)As a result, the world of mouth will get out, and people will avoid buying the cars if at all possible. The used car market will get a shot in the arm.
4)And what about those fine folks with jaguars, etc.? I can see the salesman explaining how it can do zero to 60 in under 7 seconds, but the driver will never get to go faster than that. This is certain to kill off the sports car market.
The end result is that it will kill of alot of fine british industries.
It looks like Britain is being used as a test case for a controlled society. It is a very delicate balance between exercising enough control to actually improve the conditions of life, and social engineering for the benefits of those seeking to skim the cream off the top. Someone always wants some extra cream.
and of course, there are those crazy anachists on that nasty internet. Too many free thinkers there, y'know.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
They nibble away at your freedom little by little until you have none left,
and one day you wake up and wonder what the hell happened. By then it's too late.
Voters get what they deserve, nothing more.
Oh, wait, we got G.W. Oh, man...
"Speed limiters?" Here in the States, we call them "governors" (that is, they govern how fast your vehicle can go, how fast alcohol can be poured from the bottle, etc.) The introduction of these devices into England would inevitably lead to Britons getting into each other's vehicles and greeting each other with inane phrases such as "How's your guv'nah, guv'nah?" "Ah, give us a kiss, guv'nah, and let's burn some petrol up to the guv'nah, and then Jack's a doughnut, we'll be there!"
:-(
This would make the British even less intelligible than they already are.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
What happens if my wife or whomever is about to give birth? Then what do I do? Relax and enjoy the scenery, I guess.
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Ok, so thats Germany ... but, your get the idea. Think of the possiabiltys.
Your opening up Pandoras box ... don't be supprised what comes out of it ......
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Nice ad hominem attack.
However, I am not a jackass driver. I drive with both hands on the wheel, and never eat or use my cell phone while driving. I even insist on my passengers not involving me in conversation.
I take driving very seriously, unlike the stereotypical soccer mom driving her minivan in the fast lane doing 55, driving with her knee, talking on the cell phone with one hand, pumping breast milk with other, while facing the back smacking her insolent children.
People like that deserve to die horrible flaming deaths.
"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."
1 - The governing idea is not so good. As much as I dislike the majority of people who feel they can go as fast as they want anytime/anywhere they want (a whole other rant I wont go into right now), having the ability to speed in an emergency needs to be left to the individual driver.
2 - The GPS speed zone information is a good thing. However, many people mentioning it here seem to see the speed zone information being stored in a fixed device in the users car (kind of like buying Street Atlas CD and running it on your laptop in your car). Most likely the speed zone database will be centralized (not a super good idea, but should keep the information current) and continuously updated and sent to your car. It is probably an unused feature of OnStar (or used...I dont have that system) right now. This can allow the area in question to have quickly updated information sent out to all vehicles in question in the area. A school zone would register as 15-20mph in early morning and afternoon, but register as 35 the rest of the day.
3 - Getting this information to the driver should and probably will be done via heads up display, instead of todays viewscreens where the driver has to take his eyes off the road. With a HUD, the driver could see his current speed and the speed zone information right in front. Very useful for when that speed limit sign has been obscured by excessive tree growth!
4 - Back to governing. Instead of allowing some computer to hope that its getting the right signal and then limit the speed, it could notify the nearest officer on patrol. Probably in a unmarked car, the officer could approach the potential speeder (they'll know where they are at by the GPS info), match speed and see if system is reporting true then make arrest or what-have-you. Perhaps give the officer the ability (instead of arresting first time offenders) to activate the governer and bring the vehicle back down to normal speed. This could also give said individual a chance to say "Hey, the wifes giving birth here...how about an escort?"
Good stuff and needed too, since the population is only increasing and everyone just has to have a car. The situation is quite bad here in Colorado along most of the I-25 corridor, and I've seen worse on some of the California speedways too.
Anemophilous
- exploring all that which is...on his bike.
Doesn't seem to work anymore. I guess some of the suits at google found out about it. Too bad.
I can almost understand doing that on uncommon streets, but when they do it on major boulevards, I think to myself how much I'd enjoy crushing their heads in a vice when the victim of their reckless driving could be me or someone I love. So, in that case, take control of their cars and fuck them good.
At the same time, it's just plain scary that you wouldn't have full control of your vehicle. What would happen to people that hacked their cars so that it could not be affected? Would this lead to more anti-reverse engineering laws?
I think we would have a better system of justice without sacrificing personal freedoms if we just allowed citizens to use head-crushing vices on those who endanger lives. Write your congressman.
a 5 seconds "speeding window" coupled with the
speed limit - that is, you can exceed the speed
limit for 5 seconds at a time maximum. This would
allow acceleration to avoid an accidents (you'd
get a visual/audio alert during the 5 second
period, maybe with a countdown, plus only be
allowed to go 10 or 15 mph above the limit for
that period, and also have such "breaches" no
more than once every 30 seconds, to stop people
"pumping" themselves down the road, fast-slow,
as such chronic speeders would be likely to try).
Also, I think you would need an override system
too, but one that actually transmits the request
to the police - they log your request and then,
after the fact, request the reason for the
speeding. If you can't back it up with "heart
attack victim rushed to the hospital" or
"wife gone into labour", then you get fined
the same fee as a speeding ticket.
The former of these two is relatively easy to
implement, the latter is very difficult though
(the lack of an easy implementation of
the latter will probably spell the end of this
otherwise actually good idea to limit speeds).
Bunch of serfs.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I swear, some of you people would install Linux on toasters if you could.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
this is correct
A smart person would just keep the damn thing installed, but disable it. If a cop pulls you over, tell him that the device is there, and show it to him. What's he going to do, a computerized diagnostic on your car?
I swear, the Brits are getting worse and worse at passing commonsense law. That tainted beef must be starting to kick in...
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Are millions of cars really going to be sending their current positions to some massively distributed system (it could never be centralised, of course)? Sounds hugely impractical and very expensive to deploy.
Your Portland bus example is quite irrelevant here - the bus system only has to get the bus's approximate position and then calculate how many route miles are left, and thus get the time to arrival. It doesn't know or care which road the bus is on.
What if a truck is out of control coming towards me, and I have to speed up to move out of the way, what then? Oops thats right, the car would restrict my ability to speed, thus causing an accident..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
The idea is not new. Over here in The Netherlands there's a pilot in the city of Tilburg with such a project (named ISA = +/- intelligent speed adaption). Basically the same: dGPS, GSM and speed-limited areas.
;) to hit the red button to switch the thing off, letting the driver step on it.
However, the system has the possibility (for now, I think
The test should be finished by now, but I've not heard of any results.
BTW: the engineers who have developed this one work for my biggest client, so you won't hear me...
Paul
Short answer: Mad Cow Desease
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
I wish speeding would stop equaling recklessness. It is possible to go faster then the posted limit WITHOUT being an ass to everyone. I've seen plenty of people driving slowing being assholes, and even with it snowing out!
You determine from the last fix, speed and direction and you know current position.
Who missed the bits about using black-boxes in cars; then insurance companies totalling the car; taking the black-box to determine fault of the accident. Will the police demand a interface to the car's black box and then write a ticket for when you sped last month.
Fight Spammers!
I actually heard a company pitch this idea a few months ago in Silicon Valley, they enthusiastically described that in future the government could use the system to track everyone's driving, and how it could be made compulsory. I gave him a piece of my mind with respect to the privacy implications of this.
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As a Brit I have to say that the majority of posts I have read have completely missed the point.
1. The is not a transmitting device. It does not give the govt any information about where you are.
Hence Compared to the current cameras this gives you more anonymous freedom to travel.
2. It does not have to store the whole database of map data, the only point of interest is speed restrictions. These can allow massive amounts of defaulting so in a suburban area you only need to store the roads that allow different speeds to the normal 30mph.
3. Some of us care about freedom. People spout off abou their freedom to speed, what about my freedom to walk safely or for my kids to walk to school. We have a very bad record for child pedestrian deaths, anything that reduces the speed of large heavy objects travelling in close proximity to pedestrians reduces deaths and serious injuries.
4. Some other proposals will make this simpler eg a 20mph limit on the whole of inner London. Others will make it harder (fragmentation of existing 30mph urban speed limit into 20mph areas and 10mph home zones.
Dave
Whoo! don't get the rest of Europe involved in this typical british scam, these people already have BY FAR the highes density of CCTV camera's on the street and WITHOUT any privacy legislation.
And the main backers are Conservatives
This kind of shit is in the british (well, english) genes; serving and being served
Just remember the book 1984
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Anybody else get reminded of the Isaac Asimov story titled 'Sally' (IIRC), about the positronic brain motor vehicles?
It's not suprising this sort of plan would be dreamt up in the UK. This is the country that was responsible for such countries as Australia, New Zealand, USA and possibly Canada becoming settled by caucasians trying to escape the stupidities of british rule.(quick history point) Australia did not have an entirely convict past, such states as South Australia were originally settled by free settlers trying to escape the stupidities of british government
Maybe it's about time the Royal Family get itself re-involved in british politics.
For some odd reason the UK is taking the worst of US free-market capitalism (big limitations on labor unions, wild deregulation, etc.) and mixing it with the worst of socialism (big brother everywhere). That's another reason I wouldn't live there... this and the terrible food ;)
Yeah, and the infant mortality rate was about a dozen times higher than it is now. There's a reason people go to the hospital to have their children. Hint: It isn't because the TV told them to.
Because too many state and municipal governments depend of speeding tickets for revenue. In my state, Pennsylvania, the state police had some quarrel with the governor and in retaliation they refused to ticket motorists for minor speeding infractions.
What happened? In less than a week the govornor caved in because the state stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue.
If this were to be proposed in the US, everyone from the mayors of podunk towns to the govornors, senators, and representatives of every state would be outspoken opponents because the only way to make up for the lost money would be to raise taxes. Voters don't like that.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Why the hell would a bunch of house robbers chase you, and risk getting into more trouble? They will leave as quickly as possible in the other direction from where you were heading to.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
The more we come closer to a centralized control, the more we have to fear about these falling into the hands of the evil and vile.
Now imagine if there arises a new Hitler type character, and this person wishes to take over the world. What does he do first? He'd shoot down those GPS satellites.
And that would stop UK. UK would grind to a halt. The whole infrastructure would crumble. And he could just walk into the country and take it over it would be that simple.
We should never centralize things such as this. I think this issue would a bigger issue than the big brother aspect of the whole thing.
Enjoy.
Trust the source!
When will the U.K. be free for people to make their own decisions? Not depend on the government for everything?
How did that get there officer?
M0571y H@rml355.
God damnit, every time I go home from work I'm stuck in a wonderful piece of engineering that is only "legally" allowed to travel 60MPH on the straightest stretch of 14 lane highway on the planet. Rumor has it that marked police cars are forbidden from driving on the highway during rush hour(s) because even the government knows that speeding is a fundemental piece of the commute. Which is both cool, and abnoxious because you will occassionally see some guy pulled over with an unmarked White Volva Station Wagon sitting behind him, disco lights going. Cops are cool, don't get me wrong, but un-marked and low marked, revenue enhancement patrols suck ass.
This scares me. There is definate abuse looming ofer this. The government could use this to track our movements. While I don't do anything mildly entertaining or illegial, (Excpet for the cockfighting!) I don't like the idea of the ability. Speeding isn't the problem anyway! It's running lights, drunks, and a$$holes.
...my wife just went into labor, and we live in the countryside. Do we wait 30 minutes for an ambulance plus another 30 minutes to the hospital, or do I put her in the car and boogey it?
...my elderly father is having chest pains and thinks it's a heart attack. It's well known that every minute counts in cardiac arrest cases. The hospital is less than 16km/10mi from here; do I call an ambulance, or get him in the car?
...my friend has drank way too much, has passed out, and is showing signs of serious alcohol poisoning. Do I call an ambulance, or get him in the car?
I have a copy of this book, and strongly recommend every driver to borrow or buy a copy and read it cover-to-cover. It's a promising insight into what may be the future, if the right decisions are made. As far as I'm concerned, speed-limited cars are a huge leap in the wrong direction.
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The British people have a long history of politely bending over and taking it in the ass from their Government every time the Gov't wants to. Witness the RIP act, or the surveillance cameras in public places.
I'm so glad that the (former) American Colonies got fed up with this a long time ago and did the sensible thing.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
The system will probably not check your speed constantly and shut down your engine if you are 1km/h over speed limit. Say you get a warning signal for 15 seconds before the engine revs down, and that you will gain full control again when you have reached the speed limit.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
How long would it take for someone to hack it and install a linux on that device?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies!
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
than giving birth. Say you've started overtaking someone on the highway, and a car appears from the front, and you realise you need to floor it to make it past the guy you're overtaking. If you can't slow down and pull back behind the person (which is often the case as the people behind you pull up closer) then you're fucked, bigtime.
Not with your post, which makes perfect sense, but with your subject line. I don't think its a "nice concept" at all, I think its a really stupid concept. As others have pointed out, there are way too many cases where one legitimately has to break the speed limit (e.g. common one, when overtaking, and you suddenly need more speed because a car is approaching you in the opposite lane)
Suddenly, you hit an ice patch, and your engine speed goes up a couple hundred RPM, while your speedometer needle jumps as your wheels spin without effect. The car's automatic speed monitoring system kicks in, hitting the breaks. The built in GTS system also notices that you are now heading towards the edge of a cliff - a very dangerous predicament - and tries to compensate by turning the wheels in the other direction. Unfortunately for you, that is also the opposite direction of the skid, and your car goes flying through the gaurd rail. It explodes in mid air, moments after you tuck and roll on the road's shoulder. Still laying on the road, you pull out your cell phone, and punch a number. You start to speak.
"Blast it Q, the car was sabotaged!"
"Oh, James, I appoligize. I forgot to tell you about the new features that the manufacturers required to be included. I'm an old school cronie, and I was unable to reverse engineer the protocol. Next time I'll be sure to alert you to such features."
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
People except it because they have no choice. If you go to buy a car in the UK and it has this fitted are you going to bother to rip it out and void the warranty or worse break the law! It's just not worth the effort involved to do this. That's why most of these initiatives get through!
Yet another example of this latest UK government trying to control _everything_, and what's worse, we just accept it. The British public is so used to be told what to do, and so used to not being listened to, that we are in a demoralized condition, and just go with the flow.
I did actually write to my MP about the RIP bill to complain (before it was passed). Some months later, I got a reply from the MP, which also included the reply he had received from Jack Straw (principle pusher of the RIP bill, this speeding bill, and someone who truly deserves a bullet in the head). In his reply, he cited the 'dangerous criminals' and 'terrorists' who as we all know, comprise 99% of the online populace. He also cleverly avoided answering ANY of the points I had made - and that was that. Waste of time.
I'm pretty pissed off because I actually voted for this government, since the Conservative party had at the time sent the country to hell.
What a STUPID STUPID mistake.
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ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
I've actually driven the original prototype of this project. You can find more information at www.mira.co.uk/app and follow the Electronic Vehicle Speed Control link.
There is no 2 way communications. All that is received is the current position via GPS. The onboard computer then checks this against a database of position and speed limits. I imagine that this could be PGP encrypted so that the program knows that it is genuine. This information is then used to limit the speed. The prototype did this crudely by cutting the fuel supply IIRC. Obviously this wouldn't be too hard to beat, but this can all be programmed into the ECU. It would also be possible to provide a kickdown facility that let the vehicle break the speed limit for a short time to improve overtaking safety.
It is very strange to drive when you have your foot to the floor and enter a limited area - the speed drops to the limit. There are issues in scaling it up - but these can be overcome.
It's an interesting issue with regards to morality. Should we have the option of breaking the law? I'm not sure about that one. Personally I'm all for it in built up areas, say 30 & 40 mph limits, but not so much on motorways and dual carriageways.
Be kind - it's my first post!
"I suppose it is inevitable that officials would think of something like this, but I never thought people would accept it!"
Who's accepted this?
Personally, its the first I've heard of it and I have absolutely no doubt that it won't happen.
Do you yanks think we're stupid or something?
Si
The problem is that accelerometers are quite expensive. The ones used in model helicopters seem to be the cheapest for this type of application but they cost several times what a GPS reciver will.
There is already a hack for this. They are called GPS simulators. They cost about 20 grand.
One problem with building a system like this is that the S/A drift should it ever get turned back on. How will the unit adjust to the S/A drift which can offten exceed 20km/hr.
If they actually move towards a proposal to implement this, then the public debate and outcry will begin, and they'll stop. The biggest objection and the showstopper will be the thought that French motorists visiting the UK will be able to speed with impunity.
I did a study into ways to increase the accuracies of GPS recently (mine involved the use or neural networks, a friend's involved map matching) and both techniques are not all that accurate. Unless the government is wanting people to add an extra $AU1000 expense on top, then it wouldn't work. The extra expense would come from the dead reckoning system that would be needed to get any decent accuracies, especially within the "urban jungle" or areas where there is a lot of buildings/trees/other obstructions overhead. One way to overcome this is to have the GPS initialise by remaining stationary for a couple of minutes, but how many people want to run their GPS for a few minutes.
The study in itself is interesting as it only deals with a 40 mile (whats that ~70 km), which isn't all that far really. They also don't have technical details posted so I can't comment on them.
I can perhaps see governments using these on chronic speeders, much like the breathalizers used in chronic drink drivers cars, but for the general population, I don't think that could do this accurately enough yet for this to be anything more than a pipe dream.
Hi!
My firm is developing a web-based vehicle locator system which uses GPS receivers mounted in a vehicle, coupled with a GIS database. I can tell you that while this sounds technically feasible, it won't work.
A system like this requires two parts: a GPS-based locator; and a GIS (Geographic Information System). The GPS locator is relatively easy--there are commercial GPS chipsets that (depending on technology) can identify your position to +/- 3 meters. The latitute/longitude values can be mapped against a database of road segments--and that's where the problem begins.
With what speed limit data?
Even computer professionals tend to leap to unbelievable conclusions about the ability of computers. This is an excellent case: GIS data is stored in a massive database (the MapQuest.com database ships on 37 CD-ROMs). Look at any digital map--it is made up of bazillions of very short line segments. Each and every one of those segments has to be categorized by the type of road, the street numbers of buildings on the road, the lat/lon where the segment starts, the lat/lon where it ends, and lots more. But there is some surprising information that is not included in that data: weight restrictions, load restrictions (such as haz mats), and speed limits. Adding that information would be a big job--and an expensive job.
Expensive? We're talking about the government here....
Okay--so there has never been a government initiative yet that was dropped for being too expensive. That's not the only problem. Getting 37 CD-ROMs worth of data into storage on your vehicle may be a worthy challenge, but let's assume that the bright lights in government can handle that one too. (Stop snickering.) The big problem here is that geographic information changes--all the time. That new shopping center you drive past on your way to work? You may have noticed the new traffic signal--but did you notice that the shopping center driveway has a street name? Did you notice that the speed limit on the boulevard past the shopping center changed? Did you notice the housing development behind the shopping center, with a dozen new streets?
Anybody working with street-level GIS data gets a quarterly database update. (Which means we're all re-loading 37 CDs every quarter.) Streets get dug up and moved; streets get extended; streets get eliminated; streets get widened; bridges get closed. A quarter's update might include changes to millions of street segments--it is by no means trivial. And typically there is a 3 to 6 month lag between the time a street is changed or added and the time it appears in the database. In order for this system to work, every single car would have to be updated to the current speed limits--and they'd all have to be updated more or less simultaneously. Consider the spring construction schedule on your favorite interstate highway--what happens when construction starts? They'll drop the speed limit to 25 mph, and make all the computers slow all the vehicles down. What happens on the day the project ends--and only 96% of the cars have had their computers updated to show the speed limit on that road segment to be 75 mph again? Answer: 4% of your drivers die. Updating all that data to every single car--simultaneously poses a massive challenge.
And that's not all. With a GPS chipset that supports WAAG (fixed-position, ground-based GPS transmitters) we can determine your position to +/- 3 meters--but the road data frequently isn't that accurate. In the U.S., for instance, all but one commercial GIS data provider uses street data based on the U.S. Commerce Department TIGR data files. Different providers will tweak the data--fixing problems, even comparing the TIGR data to satellite photography (the difference in price between different vendors is generally due to the detail quality of their maps). But even with the best maps you can buy, vehicles sometimes still seem to appear well off the actual road. Not all the time, not most of the time, but often enough that this system won't work. Consider what happens when the onboard computer on a vehicle on I-78 in New Jersey (speed limit 65) decides that it is really on the adjacent service road (speed limit 25, just 15 meters south) and slows down....
As it happens, this level of imprecision drives me nuts. The client is continually having to remind me that GPS and GIS are about displaying information, and letting a human brain do the pattern analysis to determine what it sees. For example: suppose we have a position report that shows a vehicle at 40.638 North/74.8974 West. Is the vehicle on I-78 (speed limit 65 mph), County Route 513 (speed limit 40 mph), or Old Highway 22 (speed limit 25)? The answer is--could be any of the three. (The lat/lon--and it's real data--is an overpass.) You and I can easily answer that question based on our knowledge of other data points, and perhaps knowledge of the specific vehicle we're tracking. (We can see four other data points showing the vehicle westbound on I-78, and we know the vehicle is being driven by a Pennsylvania resident, and we know that the data points were mapped during the westbound rush hour: we can easily deduce that the vehicle is probably on I-78. But all we can do is deduce that--and all we can deduce is that the vehicle is probably on I-78. The driver may well be on the off-ramp, heading for a nearby McDonald's. We have to accept that level of imprecision, because that level of fuzziness is the best we can do.
There is an enthusiasm for technology today that sometimes can let people get carried away. This is one of those times. The developers will get a grant from the government to pursue the idea. And maybe they'll do pilot studies and tests and generate a lot of good PR. And hopefully they won't kill anybody before they realize the limits of this technology, and give it up.
Does this mean that the government is going to raise the speed limits by 5 miles? I mean although no police officer will admit it speed limits are generaly set five below whats acceptable for the area because of the inaccuracy of radar guns (can you imagine how easy it would be to go to court over a speeding ticket where you were going 26 in a 25 zone?) so does this mean that speed limits are going to increase slightly to allow for the same (acceptable) driving practices, or are we all going to have to slow down?
--aiee
a while back i heard about a systems omewhat similar being tested in texas or somewher elike that. it monitored speed and milage among other things.. but it was being tested by insurance companies to figure out who lied about average milage per year and find out who was a chronic speeder so they could raise your rates. the government doesnt have to approve something like that just the insurance companies, they could make it manditory a hell of a lot faster then the governement ever could...
Yeh, but at least we didn't get the shit kicked out of us before we responded
Maybe that will force the auto makers to stop making cars that can go a 120 mph and work on other more important aspects like security that are less efficient at selling cars. Because I see no good reason to make a car that can go over 60 mph, this is purely a marketing thing, as nobody ever goes faster than 60 mph. So if they are forced to have this thing, maybe it will get smaller engines and safers cars. Not only will it help save human lives, but it will also help protect the environnement by reducing the ammount of gaz wasted by cars. So I believe that this developpement is fundamentally good and that some peopel who are against any government intervention
Then why do I get constantly overtaken by buses and trucks if I travel at 65? Why are they _always_ blocking up the outside lanes?
I'll tell you why - little Mr Policeman is too busy extorting money from poor old Joe Bloggs for going 5mph over the limit in the middle of the night on a deserted motorway.
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
I'd be dead right now if that system was in place here, years ago.
I agree with John Murdoch's excellent post (why is his post only +3? He offered much more authoritative information than the rest of us). It sounds like this is a large burden on an imprecise system, and that GPS is so lacking in contextual information as to be dangerous. By that I mean, if it can only determine your latitude and longitude, but cannot determine your "z-order" as it may be (whether you're on the overpass or underpass), then it cannot correctly set your speed.
However. One of the systems in place in San Francisco (and it has problems, I'm not offering a perfect solution here, just a working one) is a scanning device for people who use toll bridges. As you pass the toll booth, it scans your car, sees the account id plate you've attached, and debits your account. The solution for speed limiting is to simply reverse that system: put the scanners on the cars, and attach the "plates" to the speed limit signs that already exist.
This does a number of things. First, it distributes the load -- now we have a scalable system that can be put in place community by community. Second, it preserves context -- now someone on an overpass will scan the sign that is also on that overpass. It will not be able to scan the signs on the streets underneath, and will thus enjoy much less ambiguous data.
You may wonder about the risks. Well, since the system is already working in a few places (albeit in reverse), I think the system has more promise. However, it is open to manipulation -- signs could be vandalized, etc. And you would probably want to post more signs, so that redudant signals ensure "uptime" for the speed limiting device. And you would want to revert to no limit in the absence of data. But this may be more practical, and I haven't patented the idea if anyone wants to steal it.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
There are several dangers associated with this concept
A) The devices themselves could be easily disabled, and not in an obvious fashion
B) These devices could limit speed in vehicles trying to escape from situations with non speed-limited vehicles (such as carjacking, pursuits, etc)
C) GPS Equipment is not without imperfections, what about the possibility of a wildly varying location when on a high speed road causing your vehicle's engine to cut out, leading to rear impacts. I wouldn't trust my Magellan GPS to be perfectly accurate, though the EPEs are better without Selective Availability, there are instances when it is still wildly incorrect.
D) This is the first enabling step for governments to install 2 way communications, in order to keep tabs on the locations of citizens. I would postulate that in the near future, the British Bureaucrats will say that their passive system is inadequate and that it needs central monitoring.
Keep in mind, though this is probably caused by well intentioned hyper-liberals trying to protect the masses, these types of measures are simply another example of why starting a business in Europe is so expensive...excessive regulation
--Do you fear the sign that reads "Please Check Nasal Septums at the Door?"
Your house is being robbed. You sneak out the door, jump in your car and drive away -- but the robbers spot you and give chase. You're limited to 25 mph, caught and murdered. Your family sues the city and that's the end of the GPS speed limiter.
(Hopefully someone can come up with a better scenario... perhaps you need to stomp on accelerator to avoid an accident...)
My first thought was, wow not very complicated with the upcoming UTMS mobile standart to send back where you drive to some kind of central DB, that gathers nice data where/when you drove.
I know that car rentals like Sixt use such systems in germany, if you rent an expensive (ie. Mercedes S 600) car, you are not allowed to drive to some countries in eastern europe with, if you try the engine will just stop working if you get to close to the boarder, cause GPS is build in...
Driving on an highway (Autobahn) with not much traffic, at speeds up to 250 Km/h is no problem
and AFAIK highways in germany were you are allowed to drive with this speed, or even more as fast as you can, is secure. Statistics show no evidence that there are more accidents due to having no speed limit.
Of course this is asuming you are not driving one of those cheap crap US cars.
From my personal driving expirience (~10 times around this planet) this stop and go or creeping around 90 - 120 Km/h, which is normal were I live on duty highways, is much more dangerous.
Michael
This really is excellent news. Presumably when speed limits are applied automatically the police will scale down their enforcement efforts accordingly -- they won't have the budget to pay for traffic cars because they won't be able to harvest motorists for revenue -- when that happens anyone who disables the speed control gear in their car will have free reign of the highway! Yippee!
Andy Armstrong
I'm getting mightily pissed off with these kinds of scare-stories.
I know this may come as a shock to a lot of US readers, but many countries OUTSIDE THE USA are ALSO DEMOCRACIES. This includes the UK.
There is simply no fucking way any political party wishing to stay or get in to government would be able to sustain this kind of policy.
Not to mention that the UK's second house, the House of Lords (now made up of life-service-award politicans of previous democratically elected governments- the old hereditary system went out last year), would never allow such bollocks laws through.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
You're quite right on both counts (though there is a 22 mile tunnel connecting us to [the rest of] Europe).
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
First off, the police state types have this inconvienient problem of our written Constitution and bill of rights (which they do not have in the UK).
But imagine the outrage... While the masses may be ignorant enough of the technical details of the DMCA not to get up in arms over it (at least until it becomes impossible to tape stuff), THIS would hit every Joe 6-pack. EVERYONE speeds. Why? Because most highway speed limits are unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road.
Also, I don't think the law enforcement types would like this either. One reason why speed limits are lower than they should be is that speeding tickets are an excellent form of tax revenue. This would eliminate the need for speed traps, and thus, the cops might actually have to go after REAL criminals.
But then again, this sort of thing does fit right in with a "1984" society, which we seem to be advancing towards at an alarming rate.
Only a completely mis-educated, ignorant citizenry would allow police THIS kind of control over them. Why aren't they burning things in the streets of London over this proposal, AND the odius "RIP" law (that allows any cop to demand your encryption keys at will, and mandates jail time if you refuse or reveal to anyone that they DID get your keys)?
Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Think of it this way, say a local map section was 4 square km. Your trasmitter would then transmit over a 16 square km area (numbers pulled out of my head.) They would simply use different frequencies to allow for overlap. Only 20 or so different frequencies could cover however large an area they wanted. Because the car must travel 2km before it needs the map - they wouldn't even require a high bandwith solution. Hell, each channel probably wouldn't need more then what an FM radio station gets. --- Just think, each road can be represented by a vector (and a few arcs). A 4 square km section would have under 100 roads. So you're basically sending 100 vectors with some speed info. The bandwith of one FM radio station would be overkill.
I seriously doubt there would be any two-way communications. The "map + speedlimit" data could be broadcast just like they do with the GPS data. A simple little on-board computer could do the work. This would also result in a much more reliable system - much like how radio is today.
This most definately can be done. But then I'm sure it will also be easy to disable if you have some electronics knowledge.. ;)
Willy
> "I suppose it is inevitable that officials would think of something like this, but I never
> thought people would accept it!"
This is the kind of attitude tht really pisses me off. "Oh no! Speeding is my Gog-given right!!! You can't take it away!"
Someone mentioned the need to speed in some emergencies. I agree. There are definitely times that extra speed is in order. I think cars should also have a device that will let you disable the governer, and will request a police escort for you. That way you could still get somewhere more quickly and you would hopefully be a little safer while en route. And if you were just speeding because you didn't want to bothered by a speed limit, then that cop would know when you reached you destination and there was no emergency. Then you should be given a fucking huge ticket. One that would actually teach you a lesson.
All this deferred adjudication and taking defensive driving over and over is stupid. I releases people from their responsibilities. Cars can kill quite easily. Careless, irresponsible mother-fuckers should not be allowed to drive.
The way things are now, there might as well be driver's license vending machines with cameras inside. You just stick in a $20 and out pops a license. Anyone who feels my opinions are too strong, go for a drive in Houston or Austin one day.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
Actually, they ould just use speed cameras like they have today, but properly. The problem with speed cameras is that people slow down only while they drive past the camera. They could fix this as follows. Speed cameras track who goes past at what time. Big computer gets this info. If anyone has passed between 2 cameras so fast that they must've broken the speed limit, book them. So if I drive from London to Leeds on the M1, and I average above 70 mph, I'll get caught.
That'd seem better than burdening everyone's cars with expensive, fallible hardwrae.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
There's a lot of assumption going on here... the article says nothing about the government forcing people to have these devices fitted to their cars, the government can't even force people to have imobilisers let alone this.
This story is actually old news, it was on the BBC news maybe 12 months ago, the main idea was to fit the device to fleet type vehicles and vans etc, not private vehicles. E.g. so Mr. UPS can't do 70mph past a school, just because he's late for a delivery.
Also, I believe just an alert system, rather than a control system was being planned for the commercial area, i.e. so your car would tell you on the dash board what the speed limit is in the area, but it doesn't actually force you to drive at that speed, this cuts down on signage and confusion.
Forcing a car to drive at a certain speed is actually quite dangerious, i.e. if you need a quite burst of power to get your out of trouble, or you need to make a quick get away on a T junction. I'm sure the government is more than aware of the above failings, and probably more, hence the alert system.
On a related note, there is a way to recapture at least some peace of mind (for us in the US, at least). I discovered Speetrap.com quite a while ago. It's a wonderful site. Excellent info on what kinds of speed traps to look for, what patrol cars look like, and all kinds of stuff (organized by state). Check it out before your next road-trip!
Steven N. Severinghaus
So, at the moment you lose your GPS signal, you have a known position and velocity. Add a few simple accelerometers and you can do second-order dead reckoning, at least for a short distance while you lose the satellite signal.
With this example I predict the US would never go for it like this; we'd rather let people break the law but catch them doing it (like cameras at traffic lights). But GPS in a car could report when someone was speeding, running a red light, even driving in a break-down or HOV lane!
Oh well, people will accept it because they think it doesn't affect them, only the poeple that break the law (little do they realize THEY break the law)
# debian/rules
bah, if i ever goto the UK, and if i ever get a car like this, it'll be 30 seconds until i cut that wire.
Runnin' On Empty
I will admit that speeding can be dangerous, but I'll also say that it can be safe. If you're in control of your vehicle you are a safe driver. If you're not in control of your vehicle you are unsafe, regardless of the speed. There are situations where driving below the speed limit is the right thing to do: icy roads, low visibility, heavy traffic. There are many times where driving above the speed limit is perfectly safe as well. It's all about knowing the limitations of your vehicle, the limitations of the people around you and your own limitations.
Sometimes the best way out of an otherwise dangerous situation is to speed. I've been in a situation a few times where a tractor trailer has decided they really really want to share my lane and moved in. If you're near the tail end of the trailer when this happens the smart thing to do is slow down. If you're near the front of the rig slowing down would be suicidal. The proper thing to do is step on the gas and get out of the way. The wrong, and quite possibly fatal, thing to do is to be in that lane when the truck completes its move.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Granted, the computing power to do this would be nuts, and acceptance would be a pain, but it would be possible to construct a system that allows people to determine where they want to go and has the car drive them there. If everyone is using the same system, speed limits become irrelevant, because cars could be driven at whatever speed is most efficient for the route, depending on traffic, etc.
--
-- Geof F. Morris
This law would protect my 2 children from being endangered when crossing the road to get to school in the morning. There are morons who regularly jump the vehicle queue at the crossing whilst doing a lot more than the speed limit. This would at least slow them down and give people ore time to get out of their way.
Could be worse I suppose. At least they don't have the US gun "control" situation where any moron redneck (redundant) can teach his 5 year old to use a gun. We have very few gun incidents at schools here.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Chaplain: It has not been used in this prison, yet. The governor has grave doubts about it, and I have heard that there are very serious dangers involved.
Alex: I don't care about the dangers, father. I just want to be good. I want for the rest of my life to be one act of goodness.
Chaplain: Question is, weather or not this technique really makes a man good. Goodness comes from within. Goodness is chosen, when a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man.
Alex: I don't understand about the whys and wherefores, I only know I want to be good.
Chaplain: Be patient, my son. Put your trust in the lord.
Alex: Instruct thy son and he shall refresh thee and shall give delight to thy soul.
Chaplain: Amen.
later...
Minister: How many to a cell?
Governor: Four, in this block, sir.
Minister... Cram criminals together and what do you get? Concentrated criminality. Crime in the midst of punishment.
Governor: I agree, sir. What we need are larger prisons and more money.
Minister: Not a chance, my dear sir. The government can't be concerned any longer with out-moded penalogical theories. Soon we may be needing all of out prison space for political offenders. Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a years time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment.
99 out of every 100 people injured in the U.S. transportation system are injured in motor vehicle crashes: approximately 5-6 million every year. Despite this fact, highway safety accounts for only one percent of the budget of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Motor vehicle crashes cost society more than $150 billion every year in medical, rehabilitation and long-term care costs, lost productivity, lost tax revenue, property damage and police, judicial and social service costs. The health care portion is approximately $14 billion (of which Medicare and Medicaid pay $3.7 billion or almost 30 percent).
Motor vehicle crashes remain a major public health problem. They are the leading cause of death for Americans ages one to 34 and the leading cause of injury for all age groups. The numbers are so mind numbing that fatal accidents rarely get news coverage unless it involves more than 5 people yet it is news when an aircraft just skids off a runway and no one is hurt.
Why should we have cars that can go 200mph/320 kph when the maximum speed limit is 70/120?
Why are there places where the wearing of seatbelts is not mandatory?
Why do we confiscate a hunters weapon and take their truck for poaching a deer yet if they drive drunk and hurt someone they may just get off with a fine and a temporary suspension?
If you say you hate someone you can get 7 years in jail for the hate crime yet if you drive over them and kill them when drunk you might get as much as 2 years.
I say that we have to stop the highway slaughter and this proposal to limit speed is a good start. Something also has to be done about drinking and driving. In 1994 alcohol-related deaths were 16,900 or 42 percent of total traffic fatalities. Why not use technology to not allow drunk drivers to drive? Penalties don't work.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I'm a Brit, I couldn't even tell you what an HOV lane is, although I could take a decent guess from context. Whatever they are, we don't have them.
High-Occupancy Vehicle - buses, carpools (2+ people in one car) etc. I believe they were talking about adding one to the M4, from Heathrow into the city at one point. At least one northern city has some (I think it was Leeds).
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
This is exactly why buses, coaches and trucks are banned from the outside lanes of motorways in the UK.
These vehicles are fitted with limiters that kick in at 90kph (56mph). What happens is that (this nearly happened to a friend of mine, in a bus they were driving) the bus/truck/whatever pulls out to overtake a slower vehicle, accelerates to 56 then goes no faster. Then a car behind them, still accelerating, runs up the back of them.
(using Australian speed limits here by the way)
What if another car is going at 55kph and I want to overtake, I reach 60 but am now stuck in the wrong lane very slowly overtaking.
The thing was I mis-judged that I could overtake the car easy enough, and I judged it so I would do it intime before the oncomming traffic hit me.
For crying out loud just make it beep loudly when you speed.
It's turtles all the way down.
1. If the car has 2 way communications it can use a central database for those 37 CDs of data. So map updates would not be a problem. It'll also be useful for Big Brother to keep track of your movements... So, it's a win-win in the Gov' eyes ;)
2. Cars don't normally hyperjump from one road to another, so once the current road has been located then it's NOT impossible (I didn't say easy) to figure out which road you are on. EVEN in the merge from one on/offramp to another! YES, Because regular old shitty GPS will give you accurate bearing info to less than a degree if you're moving more than about 5 mph. The bearing info is incredibly useful.
The problem I see is the amount of data which has to be stored in the car if you only rely on GPS data. But this can be solved if you extend the system by some components:
What if you have legitime reason to speed up? Say you are on your way to the hospital (no really, Constable!) or you need to speed up to over take, or to make way for ambulance, etc.
Say if you put in some margin of errors on the speed limit, eg legal limit + 5km/h, then everyone will just drive at that limit. So what is the point?
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
oh, okay. that explains why every single airplane ever manufactured has been CRASHED THE FIRST TIME OUT BY ONE OF US DUMB SLOW-REFLEX HUMANS. i'd almost forgotten that Almighty Jehovah put a 55mile/hour speed limit on synaptic activity.
Alright, how about this, genius. Fly the damn plane within 10 feet of several other planes. Why the hell do you think it makes the freaking news when one plane comes within a hundred yards of another? What is so difficult to understand about the fact that when the faster something goes the less time you have to react in controlling it?
--
You're not exactly fluent in comedy either. Maybe you didnt notice that it was a joke, and moderated as such? Currently it has a (Score:4, Funny) moderation on it! Or maybe youre not exactly fluent in reading either.
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
I'd like to start by saying that the idea of a remote controlled governor on your car that you can't turn off is ridiculous. If I want to drive 100 mph (160 kph), I should be _able_ to do so, presently at the risk of getting a traffic citation for speeding and a hefty fine. But reading this article, and many of the points people are raising about this, I think this brings up an interesting point about democracy, and laws that are not currently "universally enforceable".
Let's look at many of the arguments against this though:
1) In an emergency, I won't be able to drive fast. How can I get my spouse/child/parent to the hospital in time?!
- There are white trucks with red flashing lights, a siren and trained personnel called ambulances that handle this sort of thing. They not only are allowed to drive as fast as they want, other cars are required to clear them a path, and they are a lot better equipped to begin dealing with the emergency in transit.
* But what if I'm in a remote area?
- There's almost always some sort of "official personnel" nearby, be it a police office, or a volunteer firefighter, who has at least some training and a vehicle that would be exempt from this. And if you're too far away from any of these, you're probably not going to get to help in time anyhow.
* But what if I don't have any way to call for help?
- It think it is reasonable to assume these things could also have an "emergency" button on them, and you'd have a peace officer and a medivac helicopter there faster than you could get to help yourself.
2) The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! This invades my privacy!
- If you're so naive to believe that this is a "new" problem created by this device, go ahead. If the government is interested in where you're going and what you're doing, they probably already know. Don't break the law, and don't be obnoxiously stupid, and you'll just be a faceless number in a tax agency computer.
3) The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! They'll know I'm speeding / visiting a prostitute / buying drugs / running guns!
- GOOD. These are ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. I firmly believe that one of the major influences vehicles have had on people is their contribution to the feeling that "if it's illegal, but nobody sees me doing it, it's okay". That sign on the side of the road with the numbers on it says SPEED LIMIT or MAXIMUM SPEED, not RECOMMENDED SPEED or even REQUIRED SPEED - Yet everyone (at least in my corner of the world) regularly tacks 5-15% on to that number, and becomes irate when another driver obeys this regulation.
* Do you really believe that the speed limits posted are the maximum safe speeds we can drive at on a three lane highway without much traffic on a Saturday afternoon in this age of traction control, ABS, air bags, and a host of other safety devices, coupled with vehicles that are designed for optimal fuel efficiency between 65 and 75 MPH?
- No, I don't. Which brings me to my point:
4) IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE OR ELIMINATE LAWS WE DON'T NEED. WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO JUST IGNORE THOSE WE DON'T LIKE.
* But the government will know that I'm speeding!
- If you're driving through a school zone, good. Pay the ticket and stop going 50 in a 20 where children are running between cars to fetch the ball they lost in the street.
- If you're on a rural highway, with no traffic, no deer jumping onto the road, no intersections, and no reason for a 55 mph speed limit, fight to have the limit raised or removed. Don't just whine that the guy ahead of you was going the same speed and didn't get a ticket.
* But the government will ticket me for holding up traffic in the fast lane!
- Good. It's about time!
* But the government will know that I'm soliciting a prostitute!
- If you think that is morally acceptable, or if you don't think the government should be policing morality and/or victimless activities, change the laws, don't just break them and hope to not get caught.
* But the government will know that I'm buying crack!
- If you're selling it to small children, enjoy your cell. If you're using it for recreational use, enjoy your cell --- Or fight to make it legal for consenting adults to use drugs.
* But the government will know that I'm building a bomb!
- And I hope they do. Violence is not an action of a civilized democratic society.
* I don't want the government to know my car was at the liquor store at the same time the alarm was pressed, and then sped away shortly thereafter?
- Don't steal things. Welcome to civilization.
* But the burglar just carjacked my car to use as a getaway vehicle!
- Yes, and then the police know where it went, so they can hunt them down much faster and recover both your car and the stolen money. They're doing you a favor.
* I don't want the government to know my car was at my ex-spouse's house at the time he/she was stabbed 17 times, shot in the face, and left for dead!
- You're not supposed to kill people. Even for money. Even for love.
End of my rant. Flame away.