Smart Cars Tell You About Road Signs

Roland Piquepaille writes "There are many systems designed to help car drivers and to improve safety. In this article, New Scientist focuses on a system developed by the National ICT Australia lab (NICTA). This new driver assistance system uses three cameras, one to look at road signs ahead and two to check what the driver is looking at. The images are transmitted to a computer which decodes the road signs and the driver's reactions to them. If you're driving above speed limits, you will be alerted. Same thing if you're about to pass a stop sign without reducing speed. You still can choose to ignore the warnings, but if you're caught speeding, you'll have to tell the police officer why you refused to slow down. This system is currently being tested and appears to perform well especially in poor lighting conditions. Read more for other references about similar helping systems and to see how the road signs are analyzed."

Comments

Ummm...

[midifarm]

New cars are already way too expensive. I don't want to pay an extra $5k for junk I don't need. Ack!

Peace

Re:Ummm...

[FooAtWFU]

It's only $5,000 right now. Things will get better in a decade or so.

Re:Ummm...

[thogard]

With the way Aussies put up road signs, you need this.

In Melbourne, they tend to have one sign indicating what the next exit is so if you miss it, your out of luck. Maybe that explains so many people making a mad dash towards the exit and the resulting wrecks.

Street name signs are even worse. On three lane roads, they use small signs that you can't read until its too late to indicate and then turn.

If your on a side street you better know the major roads because there won't be any street name signs when you cross larger roads. They also insist the the sign be on the side of the pole that the road is on so it sort of points down the road. Of course that means that 25% to 50% of all street signs are hidden from some place on the intersection where people might want to be able to read the signs. Sometimes it seems that they look at an intersection to find the one spot that won't be lit up by a street light and choose that to be the location for the street name signs.

Add in lack of lane ending signs added with the habiit of ending the slow lane on the highway. When there is a lane ending sign it will be a white with words. Not the yellow diamond picture warning signs that cost less and follow the rules about sign colors.

Re:Ummm...

[Intocabile]

Who said you'll have a choice.

Re:Ummm...

[LiquidCoooled]

Yer, it should cost closer to $10,000 by then.

Re:Ummm...

[drinkypoo]

Stop me if you've heard this one, but maybe you'd be better off with in-car navigation? Sony sold a unit several years ago (by which I mean, more than 5) that read its data off a cd-rom and had its own LCD panel, and still cost less than $3,000. I haven't checked but I suspect you could do the same thing today for about $1,500. This is indeed cool technology (or at least, detecting signs is something I think a car should do eventually) but is it cost-effective?

Re:Ummm...

[thogard]

The problem is the map data isn't any good and its very expensive. The Aussie gov't wants to change about $25 per suburb per user for road data. There are about 1000 suburbs in the state of Victoria. That data isn't very high quality and will be on some unknown map datum so you can't just use it as is. Compare that to the free data you can get on any US city thats almost all on the WGS84 datum so the coordinates match what the GPS says.

Re:Ummm...

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps the solution is to assemble map data independently. Outfitting vehicles with a passenger who operates a laptop with GPS and indicates what street one is on should pretty much do it. I know there's a lot of road in Australia (although I suspect the US has significantly more, there's less open spaces, .au just has more ground to cover and mostly doesn't cover it) but I think it's pretty doable. Just use some nice fuel-efficient cars, like your 200SXs :)

Re:Ummm...

[Igmuth]

The street maps are made by your Gov't? In the US, while you can get USGS maps (good for topo usage), most street maps are made by private companies.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only $5,000 right now. Things will get better in a decade or so.

pfft ... we'll have flying cars by then

Re:Ummm...

[thogard]

Where do you think that private data comes from? Its mostly from the census department with the private company making minor changes to it or merging it with point of interest data. At least thats how it works for every company I know who is doing street level maps for the US.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

your out of luck
If your on a side street

"you're".

you better know

"you'd".

Re:Ummm...

[mOoZik]

$5000 NOW, but with economies of scale upon mass deployment, I think it will be cut to just a few hundred, if that.

Re:Ummm...

[lcsjk]

I use a GPS with relatively new maps. My GPS still has me driving in "uncharted territory" often as I go down a changed road that has not been updated on the map. Sometimes the map data is 4-5 years outdated, so using a GPS may not be a good idea except on very major roads that have not changed in years.

Re:Ummm...

[ozbird]

If you know you have to exit in the next few kilometres, what the hell are you doing out in the right hand lane?! It's called "being prepared".

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone here in therapy? Please reply--I need advice.

Re:Ummm...

[severoon]

No they won't. In 1989 my dad bought a Dodge Omni, stripped...the only option was a rear window defroster, it didn't have A/C, automatic tranny, power steering, brakes, doors, windows, nuttin'. He paid $5800.

Now look at the cheapest car money can buy, discounting the Hyundais and the Kias (we're going to keep the quality/power level approximately the same...that Omni was a car, not a lawn mower). The equivalent car now is probably the Ford Focus. Stripped, it's like $11k. Did inflation nearly halve the value of a dollar in the last 15 years? No, on the contrary, inflation has been rather low. What happened, then? Air bags and computer chips.

I'm not necessarily complaining here, though I do think that when you require all cars be made with airbags, that's not very compassionate to the lowest-earning 15% or so of society that now finds even the cheapest car to be way beyond their means. This limits their potential job opportunities to jobs that happen to be on public transportation routes, meaning that they must choose from a much more limited pool of possible employment situations than normal. Thus, the cycle perpetuates. (And besides, public tranny ain't cheap either--I live in the San Fran bay area, and I moved to a new apartment that has commuter access to SF. I was overjoyed at first...but it turns out, I never use it--it's way cheaper to drive my car and pay exhorbitant parking rates in the city. If that's true for me, and I'm fairly middle class, how do low-income families swing it?)

For most people, the cars we buy are way beyond transportation and we identify ourselves with them. We must have air or the leather seats or the sport suspension. For these people, a car is nothing short of independence, though, and we rob them of that independence when we raise the floor on cars.

Cars aren't the only place this happens either--another good example would be if the anti-cruelty people were successful in passing laws requiring that all chickens be free range, or all veggies be organice. Then there'd be a significant chunk of the population that would find they have to cut back on their grocery bills every month and buy less, or further compromise already poor eating habits. Are we willing to trade human lives for animal comfort? Certainly, there's a balance we have to strike here, but if everyone were vegan/vegetarian/organic-only/"humane"-only, food would cost a heck of a lot more.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

oklahoma is even worse, there i have honestly seen street signs that tell u that u just passed the exit u wanted to get off at

Re:Ummm...

[mcovey]

I don't want anything I use to be "smart" or smarter than me, or approaching as smart as me. I don't want a smart computer, I want a dumbass one that I can manipulate. I don't want a smart car, I want a dumbass one I can manipulate. How freaking hard is it to learn to drive yourself anyways?

Re:Ummm...

[pyrrhonist]

If you know you have to exit in the next few kilometres, what the hell are you doing out in the right hand lane?! It's called "being prepared".

You actually expect people to get over that early?

Sheesh, I don't get over until the last 400 meters (or when I see the quarter-mile sign, since I live in the U.S.). This assists other commuters by forcing them to slow down suddenly and spill their morning coffee down the front of themselves, thus resulting in burns in very sensitive places, which helps them stay awake at the Friday morning status meeting. Everyone knows how boring those are, so, really, I'm doing everyone a great service. On Monday, I try extra hard to do my duty, and close the gap to about 100 meters.

I'm a Masshole and I'm proud. It is my God-given right to cut you off. Long live the Commonwealth!

Re:Ummm...

[astar]

I googled and found an inflation calculator and for what is worth a $5800 cost in 1985 is equivalent to a 2003 $10000 cost, sort of close to $11K. Might be fun to play with, but I also claim the government figures this is based on are suspect, but that is a different rant.

My conclusion is that parent poster is underestimating the effects of inflation.

Re:Ummm...

[aussie_a]

I don't want anything I use to be "smart" or smarter than me, or approaching as smart as me.

It's just too easy...

Seriously though, why do you have a problem with stuff you use being smarter then you or nearly as smart as you? Are you that insecure?

How freaking hard is it to learn to drive yourself anyways?

"You know how it is, it's quite easy to accidently speed"
"What stop sign? I was too busy watching that jack-ass in front of me."
"I got lost. I forgot which road I'm suppose to turn down, hey give me a break, I've never been here before."
"What's the speed limit again?"

All those are close approximations to actual quotes I've heard from numerous drivers. This technology or other technology helps in making sure those situations don't happen. If everyone was such a perfect driver as yourself must be, there obviously wouldn't be any speeding cameras, people wouldn't get booked for going through a stop sign, etc. But seeings how not everyone is as perfect as you it does happen on a regular basis. This technology helps curb that.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

One sign? Um. No. I'm from Melbourne, and I travel along the South Eastern arterial (aka the "Monash Freeway") on a regular basis. The pattern is simple: 1 km before the exit, you see the sign (eg: "Warrigal Road, exit 1 km"). About 4-500 metres before the exit, you see another sign: "Warrigal Road, exit left lane". Then the exit itself has a sign: "Warrigal Road EXIT".

Street name signs could be improved, yes. What I typically do when I'm going somewhere I haven't been before is I look up the street directory, pinpoint where I'm going and how I'm getting there, and the streets prior to my turnoff. (Eg: if I'm turning off at Smith St, I might note that the sequence will be Adam St, Jones St, and Martha St, followed by Smith St.) That way, I zoom past Adam and Jones Streets at speed, slowing down as I pass Martha Street, and make my turn at Smith Street.

It's all about planning.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on. Australia's roads are among the most signposted in the world. Try driving in Japan, where you're lucky if residential streets even have a name, let alone a sign.

Maybe it's just because you're from Victoria, where the state government has sold all of its assets - and thus can't afford signs any more.

Re:Ummm...

[nitrocloud]

PLEASE don't say that you are a city cop.

Re:Ummm...

[SEWilco]

In Melbourne, they tend to have one sign indicating what the next exit is so if you miss it, your out of luck

walkabout

Re:Ummm...

[SEWilco]

"you're".

He's speaking Australian, not English.

Re:Ummm...

[kgbspy]

Didn't the first Melway street directory come about from a jaded old mapmaker driving around the streets of Melbourne in his Morris Minor in the late 60s making measurements and marking the whole thing down? I could be slightly wrong on those details, but I'm fairly sure that all the updates have been based on further (private) topographical surveying by Ausway since then. Of course, I could be way off the mark...

Re:Ummm...

[general_re]

I'm not necessarily complaining here, though I do think that when you require all cars be made with airbags, that's not very compassionate to the lowest-earning 15% or so of society that now finds even the cheapest car to be way beyond their means.

The major problem with your theory is that it's empirically false* - cars may indeed be getting slightly more expensive in real terms, but more people have them than before, which puts to the lie the idea that cars are being priced out of reach for more and more people. And you're cherry-picking the data by excluding the lowest end of the current new car market. Other than that, it's a wonderful idea ;)

Aside from the Hyundais and Kias that you ignored, don't forget that there's a vibrant secondary market for used cars. The first car I bought, a few years after your dad's purchase, cost me a whopping $800, or about 10% of what he spent. Was it as nice as his? Probably not. Did it last as long as his? Probably not, but it got me back and forth to my job and enabled me to earn the money to buy something better. Which is just the sort of thing the working poor can do also.

* You can get the big picture from the entire paper here.

Re:Ummm...

[maxpublic]

Which is just the sort of thing the working poor can do also.

The working poor don't have any money to save. According to our own government, the majority of them need assistance just to cover basic expenses, like food, rent, and heat in the winter.

What you're talking about is the working lower class.

Max

Re:Ummm...

[severoon]

OH NO YOU DI'INT! <rolls up sleeves> :-)

You're right to be suspicious of those numbers from westegg. I checked an authoritative source before I even posted (I should've included it, I guess I forgot the /. crowd is inherently skeptical :-) ): Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (search for the "inflation calculator" link).

According to the BLS, $5800 [1989] is $8414.68 [2002] (when I priced Focuses at $11K). This year, the 2005 Foci (sorry, had to) go for a stone-stripped base price of $13,090, which is $8565.44 [1989]. That's a difference of $2765.44 [1989] or $4226.22 [2004].

So the Focus is about $4200 more (today's dollars) than the equivalent car in 1989. I know for a fact that this isn't far off the mark, because if you look at home much it costs per car to computer chip the engine, meet more stringent bumper protection guidelines, add airbags, and do other things more or less mandated now by law or practically mandated by insurance companies (costs more in premiums to not have the feature than pay for it up front), it adds up to about $3800 for parts and labor. That leaves about $400 in profit for the car companies (which is a much higher margin than they make on the rest of the car because it doesn't account for R&D for incorporating these new features into their products and factory upgrades, etc).

The upshot is, what I'm saying is true. All this stuff costs money, and all this stuff limits low-income families from owning cars. It's true that the used car market is still there, but airbags and other mandated features don't make these cars last any longer or continue at any higher quality. (That's not to say they're not higher quality, just that they would have been higher quality anyway, and the used cars would have been that much cheaper.) But the used car market is a fickle market to try and gauge to understand the effects on low-income families--this is because used cars are not under warranty, and therefore they can't be counted as reliable transportation...necessary to, say, keep from losing a job.

Besides, if you look at the actual numbers, you'll find that in actuality, used cars aren't drastically cheaper than new cars on a consistent basis. "Consistent" is the watchword in that last sentence--we all know someone or other who's gotten a million miles out of a car with all original parts and only standard maintenance, but that's not the usual experience. If you amortize all of the cost of up-trended maintenance costs and sudden, large purchases (like when a tranny gets smoked--and these are the hardest on low-income families because they can't make a sudden investment in anything, regardless of what the upside is), you'll see that new, warrantied cars are indeed more expensive, but not *nearly* as much as you probably thought. (Considering a brand new $25k 2005 model against a 2002 model and a 1997 model, both of which were equivalently priced when new, you'll find the difference in total cost of ownership about $45/month and $60/month respectively if the "average" amount of stuff goes wrong with the used, non-warrantied cars. And if you think the extended warranty is a good deal...well, let's just say I have a bridge you might be interested in. So you can have a brand new 2005 Chrysler minivan for $360/month, or a used 8-year old for about $300/month--and this monthly fee will be unpredictably collected at that.)

Also, you'll see that many of the benefits of all this new-fangled technology we're paying for actually makes used cars more expensive to maintain in the long run. Used to be you could go to the auto parts store and throw a new distributor on your car. Used to be you could change your own engine coolant. Now with cars being closed systems, you have to pay a mechanic to do much of this long-term work, pumping up the cost of keeping these older cars.

Re:Ummm...

[severoon]

Gee, what a surprise! You mean that people became more affluent in the San Francisco Bay area over the course of the digital age, right up through the .com boom? I am shocked. Anyway, what you're saying isn't generally false for the country-at-large (though your choice of dates and locality is far more favorable to your point than the average US numbers)...it's true, people nowadays have more luxury items, including cars, than in the 1950s. Standard of living has gone up if you consider everyone. We now have dishwashers and microwaves and color TVs, and yes, even the trend in cars has followed this same trajectory generally speaking...that is, unless you consider the bottom 15% of the socioeconomic scale with respect to cars since about 1990, where the motion is decidedly retrograde.

Now, if we get back into the conversation we were actually having, which is limited to a particular item (automobiles) over a particular limited time range (from about 1990 on, when airbags and alarms and computer chipped engines and all sorts of other stuff started getting built into every single car), you'll see what I'm saying is true.

The only point you made in this post that is, on its surface, reasonable and relevant is your reference to the used car market. But, if you read my response to a previous poster, you'll see that that doesn't really hold up to analysis either.

A similar retrograde motion happened with TVs when every TV was mandated to have a V-chip added, costs spiked slightly, and no one noticed except the most impoverished. This car trend, though, is like this upward swing in TV prices on steroids because it's been a sustained action over several years adding significant cost.

(Do click the link I included above to my other post, it addresses much.)

Re:Ummm...

[ReidMaynard]

Again is this such a large problem that new laws are needed requiring yet more technology being forced on the general (driving) public, in every passanger car?

I think the answer is no.

Sounds like another solution looking for a problem.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

The melways is a private mapping company and they make their own maps. They only cover two cities now and there are lots of places they miss and the outer stuff is often bought from the councils.

Re:Ummm...

[general_re]

The working poor don't have any money to save.

It's always fun when someone tells you you can't do what you went and did. I bought my $800 car to get myself back and forth to my $6.50 an hour job, my $250 a month apartment, my college classes for which I borrowed $30,000 to go to a state university, and to the grocery store where I fed myself, my wife, and my son on less than $50 a week. Don't tell me about how the "working poor" live - I was the working poor, almost certainly unlike you.

Re:Ummm...

[zsau]

In Melbourne, they tend to have one sign indicating what the next exit is so if you miss it, your out of luck.

They have two: One generally a kilometre in front, one at the exit. They're both large enough that if you can't see them in time to be in the left lane, you shouldn't be driving. And I'm serious here. They're massive. Gigantic. And anyway, if you know you want to get out soon, what the heck are you doing in the right lane? (Australians drive on the left, so they exit freeways from the left.)

On three lane roads, they use small signs that you can't read until its too late to indicate and then turn.

I don't get that problem, but in general, I would've thought you knew which side of the road you wanted to be on. But then, I use Linux so maybe I'm abnormal like that :)

If your on a side street you better know the major roads because there won't be any street name signs when you cross larger roads.

Is this abnormal? I know nothing but Melbourne, but it did bug me before I knew the names of the major roads :) This was, of course, before I could reach the pedals.

I don't get your rant in your last paragraph.

Re:Ummm...

[nial-in-a-box]

Good point... as this stuff gets smarter, we get dumber. Why do machines that are inherently dangerous need to continue to get "safer?" They can never be safe enough to prevent all casaulties, but if the human operators took a greater interest in being safe it could be done. This is just like the people in the Chicago area whining about how unsafe the Metra commuter trains are because some idiots weren't paying attention and got hit. Of course there is an element of danger, but you have been sufficiently warned and if you can't handle it you need to be off the road. Think about false alarms and flashing lights in cars. Those won't cause any more accidents, will they? I mean what dozing off or drunk driver could possibly misinterpret such indicators? Think.

Re:Ummm...

[general_re]

Anyway, what you're saying isn't generally false for the country-at-large (though your choice of dates and locality is far more favorable to your point than the average US numbers)...

I'm sorry, no. In fact, car ownership in the Bay area (as a whole) is slightly lower than in the rest of the country - in San Francisco itself, it's much lower than in the country as a whole, no doubt due to urban congestion as well as a well-developed mass-transit system. I would have been better off looking at national data to make my case rather than looking at your back yard - it so happened that data to support me came from your neck of the woods as well.

...even the trend in cars has followed this same trajectory generally speaking...that is, unless you consider the bottom 15% of the socioeconomic scale with respect to cars since about 1990, where the motion is decidedly retrograde.

I notice you can't seem to cite anything to support that - feel free to try, though.

Now, if we get back into the conversation we were actually having, which is limited to a particular item (automobiles) over a particular limited time range (from about 1990 on, when airbags and alarms and computer chipped engines and all sorts of other stuff started getting built into every single car), you'll see what I'm saying is true.

Sure....as long as you cherry-pick the contemporary market by excluding those low-end cars. I see my local Kia dealer has a brand-new Kia Rio sedan listed for $10,070, which is just about exactly what the list price ($6595) on that Omni was after you adjust it for inflation. It also has 104 HP versus the Omni's lawnmower-like 93, and gets nearly identical gas mileage. And it even has airbags and power mirrors.

Sorry, you're wrong, and no amount of assertion-without-support can cover that.

Re:Ummm...

[helmespc]

6 words for you: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL"

Re:Ummm...

[kjamez]

Which is just the sort of thing the working poor can do also.

i love the term 'working-poor' . i though i made it up myself, to describe me and the rest of us (at the time) in retail-land, but i guess not. there is something wrong with a system that sets the poverty level higher than the legal minimum wage. it seems like a conflict of interests...

Re:Ummm...

[CreatureComfort]

You obviously live in some remote part of the world where you rarely have to interact with other drivers.

Personally, I see the very real problem at least twice a day on my way to and from work. The idiot doing twice the speed limit past a line of cars that are going the speed limit. The idiot slowing down one lane of a 4 lane freeway by doing 5 miles under the speed limit, when the rest of the cars are doing 5-10 over. The idiot who pulls out to make a left turn through too small a gap. The idiot who...

And you know what's even worse? Sometimes I'm that idiot. No one can be a perfect driver all the time under every condition. With over 6.3 Million auto crashes in the U.S. each year, and over 38,000 fatalities in crashes per year (that's 14.66 fatalities per 100,000 population), I'd say it's a problem begging for an answer.

There are only three ways to fix the problem:
1) Reduce the number of vehicles on the road/vehicle miles travelled. While this is a nice eco-friendly sounding, PC and Public Transit approved message, it just won't work. Reality shows that people find personal, flexible, cheap transportation too convenient to give up. Not to mention the fact that the entire U.S. economy is based on fast, flexible individual travel, and anything that restricts it could cause the whole house of cards to collapse.
2) Increase driver training and knowledge and capability testing. This doesn't work for two reasons. First, if you restrict driving to only those who can pass a rigorous test that will disenfranchise a large part of the population (see point #1). Second, even if I can pass the test today, that doesn't mean I'm safe behind the wheel after a night at the bar, doesn't mean I'm safe driving to work at 2 a.m. in response to my beeper after only 3 hours of sleep, doesn't mean I'm safe driving to get to the meeting "I'm just barely going to make if I go a little faster than normal and try to squeak through all the Yellow lights."
3) Take the highly variable and erratic human out of the equation. If every car handled its own speed, lane changing, etc. in a well designed fail-to-safe system not only would higher speeds be easy to achieve, but traffic signal control, traffic route optimization, and parking optimization becomes a breeze.

Seriously, other than the speed freaks, the ricers, and the "therapy through driving agressive" people, I don't see why anyone is against this. The prices will come down, and the systems will become more reliable and better integrated. This probably won't be widespread until my grandchildren's time, but just think:
I would love to check with my car before leaving to see how long today's commute was going to take (getting a response that was accurate to within 2 minutes), walk out and get in, have the car take me by the fastest route safely, and with no hassles or worries about other idiot drivers, while I read the paper, talk on the phone, eat breakfast, shave, or all of these at once. Get to work and have the car drop me off at the front door, then go park itself. Pick me up at the front door when I'm ready to leave and take me home in the same manner. This would give me an extra 2-3 useful hours per day, and reduce my daily stress level by a huge margin.

A well designed system would allow for much faster travel, much shorter and more consistant trip times, and infinately safer travel than what we have now. Yes, the initial cost will increase, and it will take time for the costs to drop so that this is standard in every car, but the same was said about seat belts, and airbags, and radios, and anti-lock brakes, etc.

This system would even make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, by making sure vehicles were never weaving in the lane, vehicles were always checking for obstacles, instantaneous reaction to events, etc. this would make walking or biking to work safer and far more comfortable and enjoyable, so more people might do it.

Win-Win situation.

Re:Ummm...

[Lumpy]

(we're going to keep the quality/power level approximately the same...that Omni was a car, not a lawn mower).

Obviousally you know nothing about those cars.

I have a Kia Sephia, it will kick the living crap out of a Dodge Omni and can easily do 100mph. I kept up with a smartass kid in a VW Jetta on the highway matching his acceleration easily. His friends were razzing him pretty bad that a $6000.00 Kia Sephia was keeping up with his $19,000.00 Jetta to the point that when I arrived at my destination they pulled up and asked me what mods I made to the car, the catcalls the driver was getting after I said, "It's stock" were great.

Why dont you actually TRY one of those lawnmowers?

Re:Ummm...

[jswhiting]

The idiot slowing down one lane of a 4 lane freeway by doing 5 miles under the speed limit

As long as he isn't in a passing lane, it is his right to go whatever speed he wants, as long as there is no minumum speed limit posted at which time he must at least go that fast (usually 45 or so), and its your job to deal with it, and deal with in a safe and, hopefully, courteous manner.

Driving slower than most people is a practice I engage in regularly. Slower is just plain safer and I can maintain an appropriate distance to the vehicle in front of me, which 99.99% of drivers almost never do.

The real idiots are the ones who race up behind the 55/60mph guy (me), tailgate him for a while, then whip out around and pass like a dumb jerk, when they should have just changed lanes as soon as they saw they were approaching a slower vehicle.

Re:Ummm...

[astar]

Your argument is convincing, except when you look at how BLS calculates inflation. And many of its other numbers. My "suspicion" I referenced was that inflation is underestimated and the way it is cooked is relevant to your argument. In a way, it supports your argument if you look at it cross eyed. (And BLS needs glasses)

I googled bls hedonic and got this which seems to explain what is going on. People should read it and remember it the next time they get a cost of living adjustment.

I think the parent poster will find it interesting as well. The thrust of his argument, that it is more expensive to live now than it was, even accounting for "official" inflation, is a correct argument. And it is fully true that this disportionately affects lower income people.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The idiot doing twice the speed limit past a line of cars that are going the speed limit. The idiot who pulls out to make a left turn through too small a gap... "

"even if I can pass the test today, that doesn't mean I'm safe behind the wheel after a night at the bar"

"Sometimes I'm that idiot."

"if you restrict driving to only those who can pass a rigorous test that will disenfranchise a large part of the population."

i think what you mean is that you're a shitty driver, drive drunk and don't pay attention to the road, care less about your life or others than getting somewhere quickly so you can run your rat race life into the ground as fast as possible. so the disenfranchised part of the population would be fuckwads like you. boo hoo for baby-cant-drive.

Re:Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'll thank you to stay in the slow lane and not block traffic in lane #1. You should probably always be in lane #x of an x number of lanes highway, as far to the right as possible. I'll also thank you for not slamming on your brakes as I approach you to pass the guy to the left of you who happens to be driving as slowly as you are. The right thing to do is to maintain your speed. Just as it is your right to drive 10 mph below the speed limit, it is my right to drive at the speed limit. It is not your right to limit my speed to 10 mph below the speed limit because you and another driver want to drive side by side.

Actually, the other real idiots are the ones who drive like you who think they are safe drivers by driving in lane 1 of a 4 lane freeway/expressway at 55mph in a 65mph zone, then expecting someone to pass him on the right. You and drivers like you may not be a direct cause of accidents, but you are likely to be an indirect cause of many accidents. You just happened not to get hit, because people avoid you and the idiots, so your involvement just never gets recorded except by the people who see how exactly the accidents occured. I have seen many near misses and usually, it is caused by one faster driver and one slower driver, typically hitting their brakes unnecessarily to cause the other guy to swerve out of the way. Yes, unnecessarily, because no one was in front, but he or she purposely slam on the brakes anyway. You should slow down gradually, not slam on your brakes. The other driver will notice the slowdown anyway and will eventually get out of the way. Generally, people who maintain their speed with the rest of traffic have fewer problems.

The other idiots are the ones who tailgate for over a mile an as soon as they notice that someone is about to pass them in lane #1, cut over to slow them down instead of waiting 5 more seconds to let the guy pass. You'll notice traffic tends to clump because the slow drivers will hog up all the lanes and leave a gigantic gap until the next clump. Well, actually, I guess you'll never notice this as you drive so slowly that you don't see traffic patterns. The slower drivers cause the clumping and slow down everyone else.

My three most recent accidents were all someone else's fault. One occured when I was stopped at a red light and someone hit me. Another happened when I just stopped at a stop sign and someone hit me. The third happened 7 years ago. That accident was caused by an idiot Truck Driver (Thanks a lot NAFTA) driving 15 mph in a 45 mph zone who slowed down to 5 mph at every corporate driveway, most likely lost and looking for an address. I finally reached an intersection to make my left turn when some guy hit me from behind because he was impatient and cut across the double-yellow and rear ended me as I was making a legal safe left turn. Apparently, I should watch out for people illegally crossing the double yellow and going probably 30 mph, when he hit me, in a no passing zone, with only one lane in each direction.

I had one accident 9 years ago that was my fault but only technically. It really was the fault of a driver of a new car playing with is automatic transmission. He mentioned that he was shifting his automatic transmission between D and 3 and may have accidently shifted it to neutral so he slammed on his brakes. He forced everyone behind him to slam on their brakes (at least 6 cars - I was the 5th). I was faulted for following too closely, even though I was technically about 3 mississippi's behind - I counted. It was a rainy day during rush hour and I hydroplaned at about 30 mph on the freeway with a posted limit of 65 mph. Of course, when the highway patrol showed up, he played Reagan's alzheimers patient and couldn't recall what happened, which officially made it my fault on record. If you have an automatic transmission, why are you shifting? WTF part of Automatic did you not understand? If you want to shift, then buy a manual. Don't fuck around while you drive! You are putting others

Re:Ummm...

[drinkypoo]

The vast majority of private maps are constructed using information gathered from the planning office of assorted municipalities. The street I live on is blocked off in the middle but every paper map upon which I have looked it up has it running straight through. The street didn't even run up to the barrier on both sides a year ago, it was only planned that it should do so. The private companies aren't generating that data themselves in the US any more than they are anywhere else.

Re:Ummm...

[severoon]

I did! I drove a bottom-scraper Hyundai and it was a total joke. I also drove the low-end Mazda (88 hp engine--this was a few years ago). And I inherited that Omni from my dad so I owned it for a good long while. Even after it lost its legs, that thing could run circles around these other two cars new. (It was a real pocket rocket.)

The Hyundai, I distinctly remember having to tromp the gas all the way to the floor to get a nice, smooth, reasonable takeoff. On the highway, after about 45 seconds of having my foot on the floor, we got up to about 93 mph. So I'm not exactly sure about your experiences...

Re:Ummm...

[LifesABeach]

Could the use of RFID tags be used on sign posts, and when a car passed by, the car would be able to update its cursing configuration so as to be in complience with local laws?

Another application of the RFID tags could be lane location for "auto" pilot handling...

Re:Ummm...

[maxpublic]

Don't tell me about how the "working poor" live - I was the working poor, almost certainly unlike you.

Don't presume to know me or my life, you little fuck.

Max

Re:Ummm...

[mr_e_cat]

But seeings how not everyone is as perfect as you it does happen on a regular basis

In fact you should welcome this technology. The only real danger for perfect drivers like yourself is those less perfect, whose driving might be improved.

Re:Ummm...

[general_re]

Bite me, shitbag.

Re:Ummm...

[thogard]

The 1st sign will say 1km away. Some of them on the SE Freeway are less than 600 meters from the exit. Not all the exits on the SE have two signs.

As far as major roads... if you've driven a great deal in a many different cities, it gets hard to keep them all stright. Melbourne has a problem where they like changing the road names. Some of them will change three times in a few km which is understandable if the roads wheren't stright but these are well planned roads.

In most parts of the world the "slow lane" is the rightmost lane on the highway. Acceleration lanes merge into the slow lane and sometimes in cities the acceleration lane will just continue to the next exit. The process for the old granny driver is to fly down the highway at 20mph (30kmh) and make it into the slow lane. Once there they only have to change lanes once to get to an exit. In Victoria when they want to reduce the traffic from 4 lanes to 3, they end the slow lane right after an exit so the granny driver had to merge right at about the time where everyone who waits for the last second for the exit is merging left. The result is the slow drivers now go all the way to the second middle lane so on a 4 lane road with a 100k limit you have the left two lanes moving quick (90 to 100), the next lane to the right moving very slow (often slower than 80km) and the right lane going 95 being blocked by someone that thinks they are goin 99.9 so they don't get a ticket. That system is messed up and vicroads has stats to prove it.

Re:Ummm...

[severoon]

Ok, I'll give you a concrete example then, and you can explain to me how I'm an idiot.

My wife and I decide to go into SF to see a movie at the Metreon Friday night. We can: (a) drive and park in the Mission Street Parking Garage for 3-4 hours ($8.00) or (b) each pay $3.55 for a BART ride each way (2*2*$3.55 = $14.20).

If we take the BART, we have to be sure we don't go see the late show because BART stops running around 1am. If we drive, the garage is open 24/7 so we can leave whenever we want. Assuming we stay less than 6 hours, it's cheaper than BART too.

You can travel anywhere, even on BART, 24x7.

You'd better let the people at BART know that--they seem to think that the latest BART runs is 1am on Friday and Saturday nights. (And I haven't checked recently, but last time I did, Sun-Thu nights it capped off at midnight.)

roland

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is time for slashdot to make roland an official demiurge with the power to automatically post everything he puts into his blog and thus eliminate the middleman.

Re:roland

[sploo22]

Did you notice the "department line"?

Re:roland

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is this crap? That almost looks like some guy's ass. And the repetitive Important Stuff message? Dude, if you've got something to say, let's hear it, but this is ridiculous.

Re:roland

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously the guy is trying to come out of the closet. Some people do it in different ways, that's all.

Re:roland

[MikeXpop]

Just when I thought someone forgot about roland...

Back seat driver...

[datastalker]

...my mother already does this when I drive her anywhere... do I really need the car to do it as well?

Re:Back seat driver...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up and keep your eyes on the road... ...and for the love of god change into 5th gear can't you hear the engine screaming...

Re:Back seat driver...

[knowles420]

do I really need the car to do it as well?

well, you could always use both and eliminate the less effective solution.

Re:Back seat driver...

[JonTurner]

>> ...my mother already does this when I drive her anywhere... :) Sucks being you, but you've got to look on the bright side! If you're ever stopped by the police, and she "rats you out", you can always claim prior art. Hey, I think we've solved the problem of the Underwear Gnomes...

1. Nagging Mother-In-Law +
2. Traffic Ticket +
3. Prior Art Claim with patent bureau =
4. Profit!!

Re:Back seat driver...

[Anonymous Coward]

well this will free her up to do other things. like nag you about getting a girlfriend and moving out.

What if

[trippy]

What if you have a light with green arrow telling you to go right and a sign next to it saying no right turn on red. I have pictures and a ticket for obeying a traffic signal. Unfortunately, i do not have time to drive 3 hours to fight it.

While this system could help those that just dont pay attention, its not much help when streets are mislabled.

Re:What if

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

What if you have a light with green arrow telling you to go right and a sign next to it saying no right turn on red. I have pictures and a ticket for obeying a traffic signal. Unfortunately, i do not have time to drive 3 hours to fight it.

Actually, what happens in this case is the CPU slips into a logic conundrum a la "Star Trek", smoke starts to rise from the box, and it exploads.

Re:What if

[bcattwoo]

This sounds more like a dumb cop then a problem with the road signs. If the green arrow is lit and you turn, then you are not making a right on red because you have a green light, correct? If you turned right while that arrow was red (or rather not green or yellow) then you would be making a right on red and thus disobeying the sign. I have seen plenty of intersections like that and it makes sense to me.

Re:What if

[Anonymous Coward]

The ticket is probably less than half the cost it will be to you. If you don't fight it your insurance rates will definately rise. For something as simple as a traffic signal you might end up paying $300 over three years. I recommend reconsidering if you have a choice (its a good gamble if you are right even if you lose and have to pay ~$100 in court costs).

Re:What if

[Lehk228]

no it wouldn't, it can be assumed that a dynamic indicator (light) takes precidence over a static indicator (sign)

Re:What if

[Anonymous Coward]

That means that you go ahead and turn. What did you decide to do that got you a ticket?

Re:What if

[stephanruby]

There is something about your infraction that I don't understand. Did you take the right turn on red, or not? Was the green arrow a light or was it just a sign? And assuming it was a light, how can you capture the incident in a picture? Did you take the picture just at the moment you made the turn, or did you take the picture after the green arrow light turned green? Where did this happen? In the US?

Re:What if

[skiman1979]

I think I may know what the grandparent is talking about. I live in northeast pennsylvania, usa. There is this one intersection where the main road (2 lanes) curves off to the left at the traffic light. There is also another road at this intersection that bears slightly to the right. The traffic signal consists of two red/yellow/green lights. The one on the right side has a green arrow that points diagonally up and right (indicating that you have right-of-way to bear right onto that road. This light stays green-arrow even when the red light is lit. That tells me that traffic must stop for the red light to go on the main road (left) but has right-of-way to bear right.

A cop may possibly say that this green arrow is meant to allow you to drive into an entrance that is to the right of the intersection (turn right instead of bear right. But this entrance was not always there.

Speaking of mislabeled roads, there is also another location that is 2 lane one-way. In the past, the road was always labeled where the left lane must turn left, the right lane can turn both left or right. Recently it was repainted. Now the left lane is the same, and the right lane can ONLY turn right. However, every single car that goes through there uses both lanes to turn left. Additionally, it is not very convenient to have to switch to the left lane, turn left, and immediately move over 2 lanes to turn right onto the main road when you have 2 lanes of traffic behind you.

Re:What if

[trippy]

Okay, my bad.

At this intersection, there is a right turn lane, 2 lanes going straight, and a left turn lane.

The intersection has 3 horizontal light housings hanging from a wire across the intersection headed east. One light housing is for the left turn. One light housing is for going straight only. One light housing for going straight and turning right. This one has 4 lights within the housing, the typical red, yellow, green and it has a turn arrow for right turns on red. One to two feet to the right is a no turn on red sign.

The light sequence occurs as such :
Once the lanes for going straight (east and west) turn red, all of the lights turn red including the right turn arrow. This arrow stays red for a few seconds. While the turning lanes for the north-south traffic turn left the right turn arrow turns green. When the north-south traffic stops turning and starts traveling straight through the intersection, the right turn arrow turns red.

I was turning right while the turn arrow was green. The north-south cars were turning left at this time.

As for pictures and the sequence timings of the lights, my parents took them a week later. They went through the intersection turning right a couple of times to get the photos and make sure the timing was right. They almost missed the sign since they saw the lights too.

I dont really care about the ticket since I need to take defensive driving for insurance purposes anyways (its been 3 years since i last took it and it lowers insurance). I just brought it up because how good is the software going to be if situations like this show up.

Gee..

[bigattichouse]

And in the name of the children, your car will report you and automagically deduct the fines from your bank account.. or report if you have doubled the speedlimit and need "assistance" from local law enforcement... ahh the brave new world

Re:Gee..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like in 'The Fifth Element'.

Re:Gee..

[bconway]

And yet, strangely, the fact remains that you were (hypothetically) breaking the law. When did it become acceptable to only follow the rules if you're in danger of getting caught? *groan* Personal responsibility is dead.

Re:Gee..

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

When the guy infront of you is going 80mph, and the guy behind you is going 80mph, how fast do you go to avoid a collision? Is your life worth being able to say "but the sign said speed limit 60mph!"?

Re:Gee..

[Dun Malg]

And yet, strangely, the fact remains that you were (hypothetically) breaking the law. When did it become acceptable to only follow the rules if you're in danger of getting caught? *groan* Personal responsibility is dead.

You can be written a ticket for driving the speed limit (say, 65mph) in the left lane when the speed of traffic is 85mph. Driving in traffic, like much of life, requires rational adaptation rather than slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Sometimes it's more important to be safe than to obey the law.

Re:Gee..

[Tanktalus]

What happened to innocence until proven guilty?

Oh, I see - the car is documenting the evidence. However, the problem is that I paid for the car to do that, and that data needs to be subpoenaed. There still is the concept of non-self-incrimination, too - can law enforcement subpoena your own documentation to incriminate you?

Re:Gee..

[ColaMan]

If only the person doing 80 would stop and say "Is my life worth thinking I could get away with doing 80 in a 60 zone?"

Normally they only think this in the few seconds before they and their vehicle is mangled horribly beyon repair. Straight line control is decptively easy, so everyone speeds. Having to rapidly evade a child, shredded tyre, errant cow etc at 80mph often ends up with you, or somebody else, seriously injured.

Roads are designed for the lowest common denominator of driver. Just because you think you may have supreme ability in controlling your vehicle in all conditions doesn't mean that everyone else believes the same thing.

Take a defensive driving course and see just how little control of your vehicle you actually have at 80mph in good conditions, let alone marginal ones.

Re:Gee..

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I took a road racing course and found out how much control of my vehicle I actually have at 80mph. I guess it's a matter of which type of pill you want to take.

Re:Gee..

[Anonymous Coward]

I make the guy behind me slow down or go around. If he doesn't figure out there's another lane, I'll keep slowing down. If there isn't another lane, I'll make him stop.

Re:Gee..

[karmatic]

Yes, it's called a search warrant. That's what they are for.

Re:Gee..

[bot24]

This is like that "Trusted Computing" stuff. Eventually this thing will limit your speed by directly interfacing with your car. Tickets will print out your dashboard if the car suspects that you have broken the law. You gas tank will spring a leak if you speed to much, and frequent offenders will "have an accident." Did you know that traffic laws do not give an adequet definition of how fast you can legaly drive? You may not drive faster than a "safe speed." You may be ticketed for driving 55 in a 65 zone if it is dark and raining, even if your car has super bright headlights and tank treads if you have a system ticketing you in your car.

Re:Gee..

[maxpublic]

Personal responsibility is dead.

Personal responsibility requires trust, which the government clearly isn't willing to extend to the people it supposedly serves. Better to spy on everyone, I guess.

Max

Re:Gee..

[Andy_R]

When did it become acceptable to only follow the rules if you're in danger of getting caught?

The day they started cutting speed limits purely to raise revenue from speed traps.

Re:Gee..

[Baloo Ursidae]

Depends on the state. When travelling in Oregon, there are no hard speed limits. The "LIMIT" part off the sign wasn't just a cost saving measure on the part of ODOT, it's just a posted speed. It mostly exists to advise drivers what the safe speed under normal conditions is (in western Oregon, it's typically tuned to poor visibility on wet pavement in the rain, the kind of weather that you're expected to have lights on 24/7 for). If you're exceeding the posted speed and you're passing most of traffic in the rain or any traffic on ice, you're going to have a hard time explaining why you don't deserve a speeding ticket to the judge. If you're doing 75 and everybody else is doing 70, and the posted speed is 60 and it's a totally dry day with good visibility, the state trooper or county sheriff in his air conditioned cruiser is going to sip his soda, sit on the shoulder, and wait to radar the idiot doing 90 or a large vehicle tailgating a smaller one (exception: You'll probably get a ticket for going faster than 10 under the limit if you can't move to the next lane (or failing to move to the next lane when you can) when passing a police car, wrecker, ambulance, guy changing his tire on the shoulder, or similar situation where it's likely to have someone on the freeway under the Oregon Safe Distance Law.

Re:Gee..

[FireFury03]

The big problem with strictly enforcing the law is that sometimes it's actually safer to break the law. Example - single carriageway road, 60mph limit. I want to overtake someone who's doing 50mph - do I crawl past them at 60mph (thereby staying on the wrong side of the road for ages) or do I judge that it's safer to get past them as quickly as possible at 70 or 80mph and then slow down to 60 again? IMHO it's safer to briefly ignore the speed limit and spend as little time on the wrong side of the road as possible.

Re:Gee..

[uglyduckling]

OR... do you sit begind them at 50mph until there's a place where you can safely overtake without breaking the law? Do you know the road like the back of your hand? Is there a blind exit up ahead, or sudden downhill turn followed by a sharp corner that conceals oncoming traffic? Is it really that important to make that extra 10 mph?

Re:Gee..

[skiman1979]

Isn't it also illegal to pass someone using the opposing-direction lane? If I understand you correctly, you're describing a scene where you are on a road, one lane one way, one lane the other. You cross over into oncoming traffic (there may be no cars coming at you) to pass, and move back to your lane. I see people do that all the time, but as far as I know, it's not legal in the US (at least where I live).

Re:Gee..

[FireFury03]

Its completely legal here in the UK so long as the central white line is not solid (it's usually dotted).

Re:Gee..

[skiman1979]

As far as passing in that situation being illegal in the US, I was talking about when the center line is a double solid yellow line. Of course, if the center line is a single dotted yellow line, you may pass, or a double line where your side of the line is dotted. If they are both solid, no pass. (but people still insist on doing it even around blind corners.

Re:Gee..

[goodydot]

Actually, if you drive through more than two stop signs, the controls will take over and your car will drive itself to the nearest police station for a ticket, and jail time.

Re:Gee..

[Overzeetop]

Now, you know better. They cut speed limits to conserve gasoline. They _kept_ them low because they found out they generated more revenue with the artificially low limits.

Re:Gee..

[gregmac]

OR... do you sit begind them at 50mph until there's a place where you can safely overtake without breaking the law? Do you know the road like the back of your hand?

Good point, maybe you don't know the road. You could be sitting behind them forever. Here in Ontario, there's very few places to "legally" overtake someone on two-lane highways without going in the opposing lane. I can only think of two passing lanes (where one side gets an extra lane) and I drive the small highways a lot.

Is there a blind exit up ahead, or sudden downhill turn followed by a sharp corner that conceals oncoming traffic? Is it really that important to make that extra 10 mph?

See, this is why signs and road lines exist. It is legal to pass on a dotted line. The solid line indicates that there is a downhill turn followed by a short corner up ahead, so don't pass.. or theres a hill and you can't see traffic. There's signs showing blind intersections. There's even signs telling you to slow down to a certain speed for the upcoming corner because it's sharp.

Re:Gee..

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you really liked the book 1984. To you it was a vision of paradise.

Re:Gee..

[ericspinder]

Driving in traffic, like much of life, requires rational adaptation rather than slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Sometimes it's more important to be safe than to obey the law.

So, under your 'condisional morality' if I am traveling though a Crack user infected street, I should consider smoking crack in order to be safer. Well *maybe* that's a little extreme...

Also you cannot get a speeding ticket for doing the speed limit, you must exceed the 'speed limit' in order to be issued a summons. Even then most judges will throw out a ticket for less than 10 mph over the limit.

I have been 'stuck' in 85 mph traffic (with a 55 mph speed limit), which is a little fast even for me. I doubt if any cop could even get onto the road without causing a major problem. Of course this would change when you car can report you. Even now the people using toll systems like EZPass can have their speeds calculated by the system. NJ police had started issuing tickets based on EZPass records and those actions were rejected by both the state government and EZPass itself, who both feared that using the system for law inforcement would limit it adaption by the public.

Re:Gee..

[Dun Malg]

Driving in traffic, like much of life, requires rational adaptation rather than slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Sometimes it's more important to be safe than to obey the law.

So, under your 'condisional morality' if I am traveling though a Crack user infected street, I should consider smoking crack in order to be safer. Well *maybe* that's a little extreme...

It is. Classic straw man argument. Smoking crack while driving isn't safer under any reasonable circumstances.

Also you cannot get a speeding ticket for doing the speed limit, you must exceed the 'speed limit' in order to be issued a summons.

That's true, for a speeding ticket. Impeding the flow of traffic, however, has nothing to do with posted limits, but rather your speed relative to everyone else. The fact that you were going the speed limit might win you a few points with the judge, but the fact that you were doing it in the left lane of a crowded 4-lane highway when the right lane is full of trucks also going the speed limit, that might lose you some. It's a crappy thing for a cop to cite you over, but he's well within the law if he does.

Re:Gee..

[Dun Malg]

As far as passing in that situation being illegal in the US, I was talking about when the center line is a double solid yellow line. Of course, if the center line is a single dotted yellow line, you may pass, or a double line where your side of the line is dotted. If they are both solid, no pass. (but people still insist on doing it even around blind corners.

The original situation only implied breaking the speed limit, since that's what the discussion was about. All other aspects were assumed to be within the law. It's no more rational to assume that he was suggesting passing a slow car at 80mph over the double-yellow line around a blind corner than it would be to assume he was suggesting doing it while drunk, with a painted-over windshield, and/or while driving in reverse.

Re:Gee..

[ericspinder]

Smoking crack while driving isn't safer under any reasonable circumstances.

So then, do you think that smoking crack may be 'ok' if you are not driving. Also are there any 'unreasonable circumstances' that smoking crack and driving may be combined?

Impeding the flow of traffic, however, has nothing to do with posted limits, but rather your speed relative to everyone else.

So, you think that you can get both a speeding ticket for say doing 5 mph over the limit and a 'impeding the flow of traffic' for not being 20 mph over the limit at the same time! Actually I beleive that you fail to understand exactually how 'Speed Limits' and 'Impeding the flow of traffic' are defined. I cannot quote all the lawa, but I do know that the words safe and reasonable come up alot.

Re:Gee..

[Dun Malg]

So then, do you think that smoking crack may be 'ok' if you are not driving.

Sure. I think our drug laws are absurd. If an adult wishes to smoke crack, that should be allowed. It directly hurts no one but himself, and it's not the role of government to be our mother. This is, however, a separate issue.

Also are there any 'unreasonable circumstances' that smoking crack and driving may be combined?

If a nutcase is sitting in the passenger seat with a bomb and says "smoke this crack and keep driving or I'll blow us both up", that would certainly qualify for "unreasonable circumstances" status. I only mentioned the caveat because some people like to throw out ridiculous situations (like the one above) in an effort to show that it's not ALWAYS safer to not smoke crack while driving.

So, you think that you can get both a speeding ticket for say doing 5 mph over the limit and a 'impeding the flow of traffic' for not being 20 mph over the limit at the same time!

No, I never said that. You will get one or the other, but not both. Unless they have it in for you or need to meet a quota, cops will only write a ticket if you do something potentially dangerous. To wit: Driving significantly faster than everyone else will likely get you a speeding ticket. Pulling into the left lane going 65mph when the flow of traffic is 80mph thereby causing everyone to slam on their brakes and/or swerve around you, that would get you an "impeding" ticket, regardless of the posted speed limit. Like I said (and you apparently agree), it all depends on whether or not your actions were "reasonable and prudent" (as the law puts it).

RFID

[FlipmodePlaya]

Wouldn't it be easier to use some sort of RFID to tell the cars of changes in speed limits/etc. than relying on feeble image recognition technology? Without knowing much about the subject, it seems like that would be more resistant to weather conditions as well. In either case, it seems like a much better addition to cars than black boxes and OnStar GPS tracking...

Re:RFID

[bcattwoo]

But with the RFID technology you would have to add RFID tags to all of the street signs which would probably add up quickly. With the proposed system the cost would only be shouldered by the owners of the cars using the new technology. That said your system probably would actually work better.

Re:RFID

[Have Blue]

It would cost a vast amount to add an RFID tag to every single sign that a car might potentially pass (i.e. every sign in the US), and continue to cost extra while the government is required to post both a sign and an RFID chip.

Re:RFID

[drinkypoo]

The only reason it would cost a vast amount to RFID-tag every sign is that the signs are put up by a union and putting stickers on the backs of them would probably violate some kind of exclusivity agreement. Let's face it, the cost of putting stickers on signs is pretty minimal; you do it by location and you spread it out, people (workers) do it when they have to go past a sign anyway. Do it over the course of a year or three, which is still stunningly fast for most any government entity, local or not, and it'll cost you essentially nothing.

Re:RFID

[Bigbutt]

I imagine the fun part will be running around in the middle of the night switching the tags around :-)

"Wadda you mean I was driving too fast?! The car said the limit was 65."

"Sir, you are in a residental neighborhood. Weren't you a little suspicious?"

"No officer. I was yaking with my wife and reading the newspaper and had dropped a McCoffee in my lap."

Re:RFID

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That said your system probably would actually work better.

Right up to the point when teenage boys figure out how to either clone rfids or just remove and reattach them so that they can start changing 35-MPH signd into 65-MPH signs. Since the change won't be visible to the naked eye, it won't get noticed and fixed for a long time.

Re:RFID

[flink]

Teenage boys already know how to modify limit signs - it's called a can of spray paint.

Re:RFID

[Keebler71]

Ok, for what I am about to say, I may as well be cornholing Tux, but here goes:

Why not go the next level and automaticly fine cars who exceed the speed limit. Seriously, if speed limits are set unrealisticly low, then we should raise them where appropriate - but why do we even have traffic laws if they are essentially unenforcable. The current system relies completely the flock/herd mentality. Lots of us versus few of them - you only need to drive less crazy than the next guy. The irony is that I lean freaking libertarian! And no, I don't see this stance at odds with my beliefs. I simply believe that if you are going to have statutes, freaking enforce them, and the fairest way to administer justice is to administer it evenly.

Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it also read the secret markings on the back of the signs used for tactical planning in the case of a UN invasion?

Re:Yes, but...

[Grym]

...This only stands to reason, that if a forced National I.D. and registration is in the works, where will hundreds of thousands of citizens be shuttled to be processed?

Funny, and here I was thinking reason wasn't even a distant relative to your thought process.

Not to criticize your extensive research methods, but in the process of finding all this information out, did you ever come across the fact that the United States has hundreds of millions of citizens?

-Grym

Re:Yes, but...

[celeritas_2]

I wonder how hard it would be to use spraypaint on signs to hack the camera to 'see' different things. Muhahaha

AGAIN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot editors - are you actually getting paid off by "Roland Piquepaille" for this, or just tremendously vulnerable to astroturfing?

Re:AGAIN?

[Pave Low]

It's funny. Another day, another RR story. Check this highly moderated Roland thread from yesterday, and now michael as a "everybody loves roland" in the tagline.

There has to be something going on, or at least michael just enjoys pissing people off.

Re:AGAIN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's some info about Roland and his blogging business. It's nice to see he's managed to manipulate the slashdot effect to his advantage.

Seriously, I think the Slashdot editors should really stop allowing him to submit things that link to his blog instead of the real source.

Re:AGAIN?

[ajna]

This is why you should ad-block Roland Piquepaille's journal, as detailed in my journal. I guess "detailed" is too generous. Synopsis: add a regex for Roland's blog to your ad-blocker and you'll never click on a spam-link by mistake again.

Re:AGAIN?

[MikeXpop]

They just want to make sure not to forget Roland, in case Bush reads slashdot.

Re:AGAIN?

[SchnauzerGuy]

There is no denying that Roland Piquepaille has an inordinate number of posted stories, but other than jealously (hey, I've had plenty of good rejected stories, too), I don't know why people complain.

In general, not only does RP submit fairly interesting articles (most have 100+ replies), but he also does a better than average job writing up a concise summary of said article.

Imagine you are a Slashdot editor going through the submission queue. Not only do you have to find a steady stream of News For Nerds and Stuff That Matters(tm), but you also have to find well-written submissions that aren't going to take significant work to fix spelling and grammar errors (at least I assume they try to fix those - I haven't seen much evidence so far). When you find a RP submission in the queue, there is a very good chance that you can just cut-n-paste it into a story. Slashdot editors are lazy, just like everyone else...

The only thing you can really fault RP for is the gratuitous links back to his blog. On the other hand, he does provide additional details, as promised, and generally does provide an original link in the summary.

So if you want to complain about RP, go right ahead. But his frequently accepted stories are more likely due to the quality and reliability of his submissions, rather than payola or a conspiracy.

Re:AGAIN?

[John Miles]

What difference, exactly, does it make who submits a story?

Re:AGAIN?

[freshmkr]

Note the byline above:

from the everybody-loves-roland dept.

It seems Michael is at least hearing the criticisms.

--Tom

Re:AGAIN?

[Spy Hunter]

Look people. If Roland whatsisname consistently submits interesting stories about interesting technology, which are researched on his own time and given to Slashdot for free, why should Slashdot reject every story just because they link to his blog as well as other news sources? There is not a single good reason to have a grudge against this guy. You all could do exactly the same by starting a technology blog, finding interesting stories, and posting them to Slashdot daily. So stop whining! This story is interesting and relevant to nerds like me, and I'm glad Roland used his time instead of mine to filter the news sources and bring it to me via Slashdot.

Re:AGAIN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad Roland launders his article submissions through his blogverts for _our benefit_ oh, how noble!

Re:AGAIN?

[BarryNorton]

He didn't research - the New Scientist did.

He just quoted (on his blog) an IPR infringing amount of that article and found a few pictures.

He wasn't even the first to submit this to Slashdot - I, for one, did so last week the minute the advanced mail-out went out...

Re:AGAIN?

[Spy Hunter]

If you submitted this article earlier and got rejected, then you may have a valid complaint against this Roland guy. However, whether he is violating any IPR is questionable, especially since he credits his sources, unlike many Slashdot news posts. Furthermore, finding a few pictures and hosting them to survive the Slashdot effect is *way* more than what any other article poster does, plus he provides links to primary sources and relevant research. I'd say he added a lot of interesting material to the New Scientist article, and I'm willing to bet that his submission is better than yours was because of it.

Spend it on bling bling!

[Anonymous Coward]

Imaging how much fuzzy dice you could get for 5,000.

Dude.. you could cover the whole car in fuzzy dice material for that money.

cue the whining.

[Anonymous Coward]

from the It's my right to speed and drive unsafely crowd.

hey asshat's if you could drive safely that way they would not be trying to stop and bother you.

I guarentee that 100% of you idiots that speed on the highway also speed on city and residential streets.

Re:cue the whining.

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Speeding is a victimless crime.

Re:cue the whining.

[Anonymous Coward]

..and cue the clueless, programmed sheep that think the government always knows best and that the law is always The Right Way.

Me, I prefer my freedom. I don't need big-brother looking over my shoulder, pecker-checking me wherever I go.

Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Stinking Pig]

Drive the speed limit on an American highway and you'll be given a ticket for obstructing traffic :) Seriously, the right-hand slow lane is usually a few mph above the posted limit, and the great mass of traffic is going 10-15 mph above. It's the cowboys blasting along at 20 mph above and greater who tend to get busted, particularly if they're weaving through the lanes, as it is not very practical to give everyone on the highway a ticket.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[avalys]

A better system would look at the cars you're passing, and determine whether you were moving too fast relative to the flow of traffic.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[thogard]

Having to learn to drive during the 55 days in Oklahoma when the de facto speed limit was 70, I find it odd how well the Aussies obey the speed limit on the highways. yesterday I didn't see a single car going over 105 on the 100 km/hr freeway. This road is Interstate and Autobahn quality but has nearly 100% speed limit compliance which sounds like a good thing toll you check the accident stats and find out that its 4 times deadlier than any Interstate or Autobahn and its not safer than a typical large city street. The Aussie freeways are the deadliest roads of their class in the world and as far as I know the only place that has such a high speed limit compliance. They do have speed cameras on the highways that can give everyone a ticket. They are building a camera system on the road between Melbourne and Sydney that will figure out when you leave and when you get to the state border and fine you based on the time you took.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Foddrick]

I'm an Australian and for the most part we simply can't afford to speed. The speed cameras are very prevalant, and I could easily drive 60km on the highway, driving at 120 kph and lose my licence because of them. And in some states they actually double the fines and loss of points on your licence during certain holiday periods. So on the wrong day of the week driving 30 kph over the limit could cost you 8 points (we have 12 points on our licence) and $600 ! Speed limits are just very well enforced here !

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Silvrmane]

People say things like this, but the fact is, you can and will get a ticket for exceeding the speed limit. I got one in Wyoming yesterday, for going 9 miles over the limit. I am a careful and courteous driver, and practice excellent lane discipline. (Translation - the left lane is ONLY for passing). But yeap, I got a ticket for doing what people routinely say is a "gimme" - cops do not have to cut you any leeway at all about the speed limit.

Since I do not live in Wyoming, I had to pay a $90 "bond" to the officer. All I had on me was $100, so I was forced to follow him back up the interstate to get change. Personally, I'd have rather he just give me a ticket for going 10 miles over the limit and take the extra $10. He stole my time instead of my money. But I digress.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Frogbert]

True fact:
Due to the marvel of beurocracy it is possible to repeatedly get caught speeding in Australia whilst never actually losing points.

The trick is to write a cheque that is around $2 over the cost of your actual fine. Your bill will be cleared and they will send you back a nice note saying that you've overpaid and here is your $2 in cheque form. Never cash this cheque.

If you don't cash the cheque your points are never processed because the account is outstanding, however the fine has been paid so your doing nothing wrong.

That or you could go get a Northern Territory license with no points.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[davisk]

Or just drive in the Northern Territory with no speed limits. (Open highway only, so roughly 1200km's of road with no speed limit)

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Stinking Pig]

in Wyoming, it is feasible to give everyone on the road a speeding ticket.

Different matter here: http://www.westcoastroads.com/california/images801 /i-880_sb_exit_031_01.jpg

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[mattjb0010]

That's true in the US (where I did have the pleasure of driving recently) but here in Australia if you do more than about 5km/h over the limit you'll have your licence plate snapped by a speed camera and you'll get a nice fine :) When my American friends came out they were a little shocked to see speed cameras everywhere (hanging from freeway overpasses, at traffic lights).

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[fafalone]

Speed doesn't kill, speed differentials kill. If everyone drove the same speed, that's what would cut down on speed related accidents... the problem is the speed limits on highways are set way too slow. We need a system like the autobahn, where there's fast lanes and slow lanes. And on big sections, lanes without a limit. The entire concept of a single speed limit is just pandering to the lowest common denominator. You're going to sit here and tell me it's unsafe for me to go 100mph with my 20/20 vision, quick reaction time, and sports car with superior handling and braking,; but the elderly person going 70mph with shit vision and shit reaction time in a shitbox car is a safe driver? Not only do speed limits need to be higher, the people who are actually doing something dangerous need to be pulled over. SPEED IS NOT INHERENTLY DANGEROUS.

Anyway, serious points over.

The people doing 20 over get in my way on the interstate. If you're doing double digits, get out of my way. If you're on Alligator Alley (100 miles of straight interstate 75 in the everglades, with fenced sides so nothing can even wander onto the road), just don't be in the left lane. 20 over? I go 75 over the 70mph speed limit (yes, 145). I'd love to see the looks on peoples faces as they're crawling along at 70 and I pass at 75mph relative to them, but I must stay focused on the road.
In any case, I laugh at all the people pulled over as I drive on with my radar detector and scanner. Sure I've gotten 2 tickets (0 warnings) in the past 5 years of driving (zero accidents, zero instances of losing control of the car), but i always do at LEAST 20 over traffic allowing, and to be quite honest it's still slow in light traffic.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[droyad]

Yeh, that's true, but what about those nasty jumping bonnet denters? Cleaning a roo, (or cow) out of the bull bar is not pretty.

Oh and the axles arn't going to be too good either on those roads.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[gnu-generation-one]

"...as it is not very practical to give everyone on the highway a ticket."

The british government might have some solutions to sell you, involving digital cameras, radar, and numberplate-recognition...

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[morie]

The "traject control" system (delta x/delta t = v) is already operational in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. They are planning on using it everywhere around here. Damn.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[morie]

however, as your speed increases, so does the speed differential between you and that tree next to the road etc.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[carou]

Also with cars coming on to the road. The slip road needs to be long enough for a vehicle to accelerate up to the speed of the lanes - if the road speed is much greater than the nominal speed limit, then the slip road probably wasn't built long enough. Vehicles pulling out onto the road will be moving at significantly less than the speed of other traffic, increasing the speed differential and the severity of potential accidents.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[kjamez]

i'd disagree with that. granted in places like nevada there is little chance of being pulled over speeding, but we have speed traps everywhere. entire towns whose income is based near exclusively on pulling people over with unfair fines for doing 5mph over. and [unfortunately] people don't seem to use the passing lane for passing, it's rather just a different perspective on the road, or because maybe the car in front of you is obstructing your view [of our purple mountains, and whatnot...] . some states (oregon) has max speed 65, and even only on the 5 outside of major cities, and the 84 when get into the more rural areas, but idaho, colorado, utah, etc is 75 ... 65 is an unreasonable speed to ask people to drive, when their s2000 does 140. 65 is slow. the speed limits should just be set at 'maintain traffic' ... it's safest that way.

and for all the cameras and whatnot they have in england, last time i drove there (i admittingly forgot the passing lane right to left conversion...) and found myself doing 100mph 'with traffic' ... i was surprised. but our troopers are camoflauged, and hide. british police cars are orange and yellow and sit up on little hills off the A's.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[skiman1979]

Also, as you are coming down an entrance ramp, quickly accellaerating to merge in with the insanely fast interstate drivers, the differential speed between you and the person stopped at the merge point waiting for an opening to enter the interstate also increases.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[ParamonKreel]

You got suckered for being out of state. They know you'll just pay the fine.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[ParamonKreel]

People seriously need to learn how to merge. Brakes don't help when you're merging, especially on an interstate. However, people seem to think they do.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[skiman1979]

Brakes don't help when you're merging

Exactly. There are 2 consecutive entrances onto an interstate where I live that are both well known for the high rate of accidents. Local authorities were actually thinking of putting a stop sign in if the accidents didn't decrease. A large part of the problem is the people who insist on stopping at the end of the ramp before merging. Stop signs would only make this worse.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[radish]

I recently moved to the US from the UK and the whole "slow merging" thing is just bizarre. In the UK, almost all onramps are downhill (the intersection is above the level of the highway) and you use that ramp (which is usually at least 100 yards long) to get up to speed. If you're merging at less that 60 you're too slow. I usually am 70 or so when I get to the end of the ramp, depending on traffic conditions of course.
But here I see people literally trying to merge at 5mph! It's crazy. It causes chaos as people already on the highway brake to avoid hitting these idiots.

Re:Can it be adjusted for de facto speed limits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brakes can help if you know how to use them.

You must have encountered at least one of those people who just can't stand to have someone merge in front of them. They'll roll down the highway at some comfortable cruising speed, but when they see someone trying to merge they put the pedal on the floor.

Step 1: Put your own gas pedal on the floor to get them thinking they have to compete with you.

Step 2: Significant acceleration leads to large opening behind the person.

Step 3: Hit the brakes a little and take advantage of said opening (see step 2).

Step 4: Use gas pedal again, if required, to negate slowdown from using brakes in step 3.

Step 5: I'm not sure about step 5.

Step 6: Profit!!!

Easiest, most elegant solution?

[lukewarmfusion]

My first impression here is that this isn't the easiest way to accomplish things.

Three cameras?

Wouldn't it be easier to add RFID (or something along those lines) to the street signs and then simply allow the car to read those? Consider the cost of adding this camera-based system to just one car. Multiply that by the number of cars that end up with it, and see how far that would go toward adding chips to street signs.

I'm pretty sure I read something about this kind of project here on Slashdot.

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[gl4ss]

* Consider the cost of adding this camera-based system to just one car*

in mass mode.. maybe 1k bucks.

and the "add chips to street signs" would be nice, but it also needs the goverments and other agencies to make a decision and then roll out the system (most probably gradually.. taking a zillion years basically). ..or they could slap few cameras that would probably come quite cheap when done in numbers.

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[EvanED]

I'm not sure most people would agree that $1K is "quite cheap". Even on the cost of, say, a $25K car, that's quite a bit...

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[TheGavster]

The key here is that you don't add anything to the existing infrastructure. The brand new signs in Boston work just as well with the system as the signs put up in the 50's in West Bumfuck. Smart driving systems need to drive like people, taking input from visual cues, to be truely useful on all roads (signage is usually good enough that you don't need assistance in places where its replaced often enough the RFID tags could appear quickly)

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

then one sign without the RFID tag makes teh system bunk

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is, whose money is it going to upgrade the current state of the art? If you are going to upgrade street signs, government will be paying. That will not work out in our lifetime. In contrast, the cost of the proposed system will be born by consumers who have the money to spend on this kind of feature. Doing it on a car-by-car basis also allows for gradual adoption. While it's not the elegant solution, it is the feasible one.

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[PhrostyMcByte]

In a perfect world that might be a great idea, but think of all the crap kids would do - drop an RFID tag in the middle of a street and fsck up traffic for everyone, no effort required.

Re:Easiest, most elegant solution?

[mgblst]

Yes, of course. It would be easier to go to every single road sign in the US and add an RFID to it. This would be much easier that simply adding THREE whole cameras to only the cars that are interested in this system.

The voices....

[Anonymous Coward]

Officer: You were doing 100 in a 50. Do you have anything to say for yourself?

Speeder: The voices in my head. I was trying to get away from the voices...the voices...make it stop.

Car: I see that you are stopped on the side of the highway. Do you want me to call the highway patrol and alert them?

Speeder: Ahhhhhhhhh!

Re:The voices....

[roman_mir]

The cop: Oh, shit, this is contageous, I can hear them too now. The horrible horrible voices.

Shoots the driver and then himself.

Re:The voices....

[togtog]

I wish someone would mod you down.

So I could have the pleasure of modding you back up.

But this blows that chance.

So good luck that someone else doesn't misunderstand and mod you down.

Because that would be bad.

For kittens.

For everyone.

Re:The voices....

[alexburke]

KITT always seemed to refer to its driver by name:

Officer: You were doing 100 in a 50. Do you have anything to say for yourself?

Speeder: The voices in my head. I was trying to get away from the voices...the voices...make it stop.

Car: Michael, I see that you are stopped on the side of the highway. Do you want me to call the highway patrol and alert them?

Speeder: Ahhhhhhhhh!

what the driver is looking at

[Anonymous Coward]

- cell phone
- tv
- booger

Ummm...Lead foot.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't want to pay an extra $5k for junk I don't need. "

Don't worry. Next years cars will not have brakes.

Re:Ummm...Lead foot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, all cars have brakes, and are needed to control the vehicle. Yet I seem to drive just fine without expensive electronic gadgets.

dangerous

[vijayiyer]

What happens when we all have road range when we hear "Warning. Warning. You are traveling at 63mph in a 60mph zone" over and over again? I know I don't drive as safely in a fit of rage.

Re:dangerous

[tetranitrate]

What happens when we all have road range when we hear "Warning. Warning. You are traveling at 63mph in a 60mph zone" over and over again

A speakerectomy will work just as good then as it does now.

Re:dangerous

[paradizelost]

You won't need to worry about that, the car will know the speed limit and not allow you to exceed it. :-)

Re:dangerous

[bastardsquadmuzz]

63mph is perfectly legal in a 60mph zone, at least in England. There is a 10% leeway to allow for reading the speedo or something, so the true limits are eg. 33mph, 55mph, 66mph, etc.

Complacent

[NickisGod.com]

The only concern I have with systems like these, are they make people too complacent. I love upgrades and advances moreso than most of the next guys, but what happens when you start relying on this system out of habit, then end up driving your sisters car (without said advances) cross country for her for one reason or another?

--I will admit though, it is pretty easy to acclimate to a different vehicle after a few miles anyway. (eg my mx-3 Mazda than driving the company van)

Re:Complacent

[aussie_a]

I have a lower-tech version of the speed-limit alerter and I find I drive a LOT more carefully when not in my car. This is because I'm much more conscious of the fact I don't have an alerter then I would normally be.

Smart tags, SmartDrive, and now Smart Cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait, I thought this was a Microsoft article. D'oh!

Re:Smart tags, SmartDrive, and now Smart Cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait, I thought this was a Microsoft article. D'oh!

That'd be the SmartToll on the Information Superhighway...

Re:Smart tags, SmartDrive, and now Smart Cars!

[ScrewMaster]

Any vehicle that is controlled by a Microsoft operating system would be better termed a "four-wheeled rolling deathbox".

This is just the beginning...

[bursch-X]

The next step will be to get rid of those drivers. They're the ones always screwing up anyway, what better solution than to eliminate the biggest cause of error in driving?

Let's just build cars that drive themselves and everybody start walking to work again. Problem solved.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[korbin_dallas]

Hmm, interesting.

Why not make cars fragile on purpose? Instead of armoring the things all over to the point where people feel 'safe' all the time and blythely bumbling along crashing into stuff.

Make people who have 2 accidents ride a motorcycle!

Not only would it save gas (I get 54mpg) and reduce pollution, but maybe would be an eye opener for stupid drivers in their cages.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[iphayd]

Actually, if we have cars that drive themselves, they can be coordinated centrally to time themselves to virtually eliminate street lights and traffic jams.

Imagine the cars on the road impromptu trains, with many cars drafting each other. With humans eliminated from the system, the safe gap between cars can be shortened greatly. I would gladly give up driving to a _great_ AI to know _exactly_ when I have to leave the house to get to my destination.

Problem is, I wouldn't trust the AI until it has been tested _years_ in the field. Maybe driving freight on a specialized set of lanes.

Other problem is, that to have a true system like this, non-AI controlled cars cannot be on the road, as they will add randomness to the central control.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[TheGreek]

With humans eliminated from the system, the safe gap between cars can be shortened greatly.

Until winter. Or it rains.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[LiquidCoooled]

I think the best way to confirming the AI will be to place the entire AI system - sensors, processing and logging equipment into all vehicles and compare their calculated actions with the actual humans actions.

The system of augmented assistance in the article appears at first glance like the safest possible way to assist a driver. I would be willing to accept any similar aids which make mine and other road users journeys safer.

Once the AI is up to scratch, it could (from a technical standpoint) coexist quite naturally with human players. Afterall we join in with other botmatches currently.

However, the largest single problem will come with the incomprehensable decision between hitting a pedestrian, or certain death veering into head on traffic.

Will the software account for the numbers and ages of the people in the car? Does it know what its hitting? How did it end up in this situation in the first place?

These are the kind of questions which will prevent rollout, and would still be a problem even with dedicated lanes or other pedestrian/vehicular flow control.

If we could make the AI perform to the same skill level as the best drivers in the world, it still wouldn't be rolled out because having something to blame rather than an unavoidable accident will make the motor firms bankrupt.

Hang on, just re-reading something you said, how about have the cars joining these impromptued trains rolling along the main roads, but the head of every train is not AI controlled, but infact still has a human driver at the helm?

The AI is simply to manage entering/leaving the train at respective junctions.

That removes the majority of the problems from the AI/trust standpoint.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[attam]

non-AI controlled cars cannot be on the road, as they will add randomness to the central control.

if that is the case, what you are describing is less like a bunch of cars and more like a bus that has individual compartments for each passenger and knows when and where to pick everyone up. dont see why you need your own car if you arent driving it anyways.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[sploo22]

Bad road conditions should cause no problem. All the cars can be coordinated to decelerate slowly, smoothly and exactly in sync to avoid skidding.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[groomed]

Other problem is, that to have a true system like this, non-AI controlled cars cannot be on the road, as they will add randomness to the central control.

Aye, comrade.

Geez.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[uberdave]

Other problem is, that to have a true system like this, non-AI controlled cars cannot be on the road, as they will add randomness to the central control.

Actually, you wouldn't need to ban non-AI cars. If the AI couldn't cope with something as random, but relatively predictable as human drivers, it shouldn't be on the road in the first place.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[iphayd]

Are you implying that this is communism of our roads?

I see it as a necessary extension to make our roads faster, yet safer.

I would much rather have one of these "car trains" moving 100 MPH to get me to work in a fraction of time, while I am casually enjoying my breakfast vs. today sitting for log periods in time in traffic, possibly snarfing down a breakfast burrito while waiting at a stop light.

That is the vision I am trying to explain. It has nothing to do with communism other than possibly sharing battery power with the people around us.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this thing -- it's like water, but not.

I think they call it ice.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[groomed]

It's an expression of the technototalitarianism that makes it impossible to take nerds seriously.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[NeMon'ess]

I'm going to presume you despise CCTV cameras on the highways too. What if the number of highway patrols tripled? Just three times as many cars and officers ticketing speeders? Would you still object?

Re:This is just the beginning...

[groomed]

You don't get it.

When confronted with messy real world problems, the typical nerd's reaction is to withdraw into a closed system fantasy and project that onto the real world.

"If only all email was digitally signed, we would no longer have spam!"

"If only all websites followed W3C specs, we would no longer need Internet Explorer!"

"If only all cars and roads and laws are changed, we would no longer have traffic jams!"

The totalitarian impulse does not manifest itself in a desire for increased government meddling, as you seem to think and certainly suggest, but in the desire to eradicate whatever system is currently in use, and replace it with something totally new, utopian, and "perfect".

Re:This is just the beginning...

[pjt33]

Central control is a Bad Idea TM - you have a single point of failure. Much more sensible to distribute the workload among the cars - after all, humans drive based on local rather than global information. Of course, you still have the problem that if a computer fails you need to switch to manual control, and the human driver won't be alert if they don't expect to need to be.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[Edie O'Teditor]

... relatively predictable as human drivers

You've never been to the Arc de Triomphe, have you?

Re:This is just the beginning...

[Hognoxious]

the human driver won't be alert if they don't expect to need to be.

[Angus Deayton Voice] So, no change there then.[/ADV]

Re:This is just the beginning...

[Anonymous Coward]

With humans eliminated from the system, the safe gap between cars can be shortened greatly.

you obviousally do not drive in traffic.

3 feet is the "safety Zone" typically used today.

I.E. if you can see the taillights of the driver in front of you, then you are too far away and need to close in.

I really wish it was legal to make the rear bumper cause maximum damage to the car behind.. like 2 3" diameter pipes that are 2 feet long that will pierce and core out to giant holes in the radiator of the tailgater.

but then I like the idea of simply spraying paint remover rearward.

Re:This is just the beginning...

[Rotund Prickpull]

The next step will be to get rid of those drivers. They're the ones always screwing up anyway

It does warn you if you try to install a non-MS-certified one, so you've only yourself to blame really.

at first, i thought this was a good idea...

[knowles420]

but there's the whole matter of giving people yet another reason to not pay attention to the road.

Re:at first, i thought this was a good idea...

[pjt33]

I'd find it useful - there are some signs in my home town, particularly on corners, that I never see because I'm looking at the road. I just know they're there and adjust my speed automatically - but when I was learning the local road layout it would have been very helpful to have the car tell me about them.

dangerous-Road Ring.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What happens when we all have road range when we hear "Warning. Warning. You are traveling at 63mph in a 60mph zone" over and over again?"

I believe you'll be covering a greater distance with a headache.

The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state!

[Anton Anatopopov]

Why should I have to explain anything to a police officer? If I choose to exceed the posted speed limit, sure I deserve to have the book thrown at me. But the idea that I can be forced to "explain myself" to the state seems absurd, and ludicrous.

I thought our country was founded on the ideals of freedom, and liberty, not Communistic ideas like having to 'explain oneself' to law enforcement.

I expect this system would have been declared unconstitutional before 9/11 but these days, almost anything that restricts our freedoms is seen as a 'good thing' and helping us to win the 'war on (some kinds of) terrorism'.

In related headlines

[antimatt]

Smart drivers drive for the conditions anyway.

Smarter cars will help, sure. The problem is: the 'bad drivers' will start to rely on the car to do the thinking for them. I don't exactly want to share the road with these people.

Re:In related headlines

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think you have a point. IIRC, the added safety features that get put into cars eventually have the effect of people driving more aggressively.

Smart Cars Tell You About Road Signs

[stratjakt]

and, Stupid Cars tell you about the Extended Warranty

Back seat [poster]

[Anonymous Coward]

" ...my mother already does this when I drive her anywhere... do I really need the car to do it as well?"

Son! What did I tell you about talking to strangers?

in the future...

[Lifix]

If the car knows when you are going over the speed limit... how long will it be until your car gives you a ticket for speeding? I predict that in the future, cars that give tickets to their drivers will be available to low income families (at special rates) and to regular folk that come packaged with a nice tax break somewhere.

Your car just gave you a three hundred dollar ticket... /discuss

Re:in the future...

[korbin_dallas]

Well seeing as how the monetary awards to the local police ball are 'revenue' enhancers...as a 'invitee', I would prefer the car NOT allow me to speed.

No speed == no ticket.

Bets on the number of days before the local govs file to have this technology junked?

Re:in the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your car just gave you a three hundred dollar ticket... /discuss

I probably won't break the law next time.

Re:in the future...

[Unregistered]

Yet another reason why i drive a classic.

Re:in the future...

[kjamez]

by that time it will all be automated and we won't actually have to drive anymore at all. at least not on highways. really, we could do it now if we set higher standards for vehicles on major highways already. have you ever been behind a tractor? i didn't think it was leagal, but it is. (not on MAJOR highways, but state rte's and whatnot here in tennessee ... )

Great!

[aeroegnr]

Now we can get Viagra spam when we drive by billboards!

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[ScrewMaster]

You don't have to explain yourself to the police officer. But if you don't, you will get arrested and then find yourself having to explain yourself to a judge. If that doesn't work for you, you'll then find yourself in prison trying to explain yourself to a large, horny black man named "Bubba". So, while I certainly agree with your sentiments, in practice it's probably better to just talk to the cop.

Ralph Spoilsport had one of these

[ZoneGray]

For those old enough to remember Firesign Theater, yet immature enough to read /. (which apparently includes me):

"Antelope Freewway, 1/2 mile"

"Antelope Freewway, 1/4 mile"

"Antelope Freewway, 1/8 mile"

"Antelope Freewway, 1/16 mile"

"Antelope Freewway, 1/32 mile"

etc...

Re:Ralph Spoilsport had one of these

[dotslasher_sri]

"Antelope meat -1/32 mile"

Re:Ralph Spoilsport had one of these

[cmacb]

Beat me to it...but I'll add, that if you listen carfully they get at least as far as 1/256, but it's so far in the background it's hard to make out. This bit I supposed predicted such a system as described in the article, or even GPS systems we use today. Sometimes I really wonder if at least one of the Firesign Theater crew had access to a time machine. They could have had a second career as SF authors I'd say.

Re:Ralph Spoilsport had one of these

[LordByronStyrofoam]

.... If you lived here, you'd be home by now.

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[stratjakt]

Except this is a prototype system in an Australian lab, and has nothing to do with the USA at all.

They can't even outlaw radar detectors or police scanners here. Relax, dork.

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[martinX]

I was doing 120 km/h in a 100 kmm/h zone near the Sunshine Coast and a cop pulled me over. When he asked me why I was doing 120, I said "Mate, it's a beautiful day, great and straight road and I was just speeding." He gave me the ticket and I thanked him for doing a great job.

I think he nearly arrested me for excessive happiness :-)

...And a Forth Camera to Taunt You

[Mulletproof]

3 Cameras? how about just imbedding a small transmitter into the sign itself and a simple reciever in the car? The reciever gets within 300ft of a sign and picks up a coded transmission, basically indicating "stopsignahead". I guess you would have to rig a constant power source for the sign, but it can't be anymore complicated/expensive then 2 cameras tied into a PC dedicated soley to object recognition while one tracks where you're looking. This just has over-engineered written all over it, frankly.

Re:...And a Forth Camera to Taunt You

[stratjakt]

Until you pull into a 6 way roundabout with about 40 signs within the reciever's "radius", some stops, some yields, etc..

Re:...And a Forth Camera to Taunt You

[Mulletproof]

Well, there is that. I was hoping for some unique coding ID to each transmitter (and hopefull some manner of filtering) Of course, I could just see object recognition hardware simply melting down in the same senario :p

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[Crazy Ukrainian]

What if the cop IS a large horny black man named Bubba?

don't want us to speed?

[jspectre]

jeeze. now our cars are going to nag us about our speed? what's next? why doesn't the car just phone in the ticket to the police?

if the government really didn't want us to speed they could just put governors in everyone's car and be done with it. why all these silly games, black boxes in cars, cars to recgonize signs, gps trackers?

fact of it all is, townships, counties even states NEED us to go above the "speed limit" else they wouldn't get to levy those hefty fines. governments make HUGE profits off of speeding tickets and it's big business.

maybe we need some sort of organized strike. have everyone agree NOT to speed one day out of the year. wonder how much money would be lost and how much those governments would be mad. and the poor police, they'd have to sit around eating doughnuts all day. :-(

Re:don't want us to speed?

[drinkypoo]

The point, I think, is that a system like this won't stop someone from speeding, but it will make it easier to bust them. If someone disables the system, it can be seen as admission of guilt since you don't need to disable it unless it's hassling you often, meaning you're speeding often. It's definitely not to stop people from speeding.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone did stop speeding for a significantly long period of time, say three years, to compare accidents and fatalities. I don't think it would make a very big difference; It's true that vehicles are harder to control and more deadly at higher velocities but people who can't drive can't drive at any speed. You can usually tell you who they are because they don't signal and they can't park, either.

Re:don't want us to speed?

[TiggsPanther]

Actually I'd say "nagging" is a better option that either a governor or immediately contacting the police.

I don't exactly like the idea myself, and I think it's addressing the wrong part of the problem in the wrong way. But something which ultimately leaves the decision up to the driver is better than the alternatives.

There have been dicussions here on Slashdot before about such speed limiters. And (usual /. silliness notwithstanding) a lot of good points are brought up as to why there are defintiely times when if you're in control of your vehivcle you need to be in control of your vehicle. And such a speed limiter could easily cut in whilst you're trying to overtake, or quickly move away from an unexpected obstacle.

This is exactly why a "You Are Speeding" alert would be the lesser of the evils. Sure it'll get very annoying very fast if you're constantly informed of your "excessive" speed, but I still think it's better than having the final speed decisions being out of your hands.
Plus (as was also brought up in the linked discussion) there's too much scope for error. Underpasses, overpasses, a misreading saying you're on the parallel road with half the speed limit, roadworks-related updates not hitting everyone in time. (Doing the legal 70mph and suddenly hitting a zone your car still thinks is reduced to 40mph 'cos of the weekend's resurfacing works, it wouldn't be pretty) Until a system can be accurate enough it's better to be told you're "wrong" than forced to be "right" - as the latter could be fatal if the system is the one that's wrong.

Plus there's always the chance that some people would slow down for no other reason than to get the darn thing to shut up.

I still think the real solution to traffic safety is to slightly increase the speed limits and tell people how to safely drive at higher speeds. Dropping speed limits simply won't stop the people who are reckless drivers and makes people who are comparitively safe break the law if they can't agree with the limits.
The simple fact is that these days many people want to drive faster. I'm also sure I'm not alone in wanting to drive fast safely. Now if the answer to "How do I stay safe if i want to drive fast?" is "Don't drive fast" then it's gonna get ignored. But a decent set of guidelines about how to safely drive at higher speeds (and when and where is is/isn't advisable to do so) would probably be at least somewhat more effective at reducing accidents.

Re:don't want us to speed?

[Hognoxious]

but people who can't drive can't drive at any speed. You can usually tell you who they are because they don't signal and they can't park, either.

The Belgian plates are a bit of a giveaway too.

Great!

[Nehi the Ganchark]

Just what we all need... an electronic Driver's Ed teacher!

This system will never be mandated

[Reverberant]

No way does this system ever become mandatory:

1. If the system ever does become mandatory, you'll see a major increase in stolen traffic signs. Highway departments already have enough trouble trying to replace missing/damaged signage.

2. If it's in our cars, it wil be in the cars of our elected officials. We already know that our officials don't like to drive the speed limit. This system will put more heat on them.

Re:This system will never be mandated

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course if will be mandatory in the future. The reason it will get there, though, is that it's done a little bit at a time.

If you told someone 50 years ago that all cars will be run by a computer, a black box recording your system's information, satellites tracking your car able to manipulate your systems (like unlocking your doors), required registration, taxes, insurance, government ID with, in some cases, biometric information in a government database and now roads that force your speed limit, they'd consider the asylum. But since it's done a little bit at a time, it's easier for people to "accept". Exactly like the frog in boiling water.

1) Yes, people will steal traffic signs, but even now "ignorance of the law is no excuse", holds up in "court". You think cops and judges won't bend you over because the sign wasn't there?

2) Right. And the thousands of elected officials, who are a priviledged class, will hold back the system being applied to 260+ million of the rest of us.

Some truths in what your saying, but you're a bit naive about the whole picture.

All the rage

[ylikone]

Once this becomes a standard feature in cars, I can see the future youth hacking it and customizing it to say things like "woman with child, 50 points".

Re:All the rage

[Lehk228]

how about messing with the AI image recognition, i am sure there is a way to use a white background (side of a house?) and a few black objects to make what looks to a computer like a speed limit sign saying 25 mph, then everyones cars would bitch at them untill they passed another speed sign, which could well be a rather long time.

maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[SuperBanana]

You still can choose to ignore the warnings, but if you're caught speeding, you'll have to tell the police officer why you refused to slow down

And maybe he/she will have to explain why they use speed "enforcement" as a means of generating revenue and a means of generating an excuse to search people's cars.

MA did a survey of traffic stops and found overwhelmingly black drivers were stopped, searched, and issued tickets more than white drivers. White women had the absolute lowest rates as well. There was one notable exception- the MA state police were almost dead even for all races, genders, and age groups. Town police departments were the worst "offenders".

Speed enforcement is just an excuse for getting into your wallet, and your car. It's extremely selectively enforced; the cops don't pull over everyone(next time you're on the road, look down at your speedo. Notice the car in front of you and behind you and all around you- they're all doing the same speed), they only pull over who they want to. It's extremely abused and results in gender, age, and racial profiling. It has absolutely nothing to do with safety(number one cause of highway deaths? Drunk driving).

Oh, and those laser speed guns? Guess who put them in the hands of your friendly local police officer? Geico. No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents. What a great money maker. No increased risk, but lots of increased revenue!

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[drinkypoo]

Police absolutely pull over women to hit on them. I just had a cop tell me the other week that he's done it and one of his coworkers does it on a regular basis. They don't ticket them, of course. No information on how many dates it results in. That's pretty fucking sleazy though, right up there with getting a chick drunk so you can fuck her (which only counts the first time you do it to a particular woman mind you.) After all, when someone gets pulled over they're in a vulnerable mental state. And cops wonder why people hate them.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Driving a Red 1996 Eclipse GSX (I'm not a "ricer", it was a graduation gift from my family) and being 19 years old, I gotta tell you that the cops aren't as bad in Berkshire county. I didn't notice a cop sitting in a road-side break area until I was right on top of him doing 85 in a 50... He dropped me a wave and I waved back.

Not complaining that I don't get tickets, just saying that the police aren't as bad as the rep they get.

Just my personal experiance, though.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Anonymous Coward]

all doing the same speed), they only pull over who they want to. It's extremely abused and results in gender, age, and racial profiling. It has absolutely nothing to do with safety(number one cause of highway deaths? Drunk driving).

Your so full of crap your eyes are brown.
Speeding has caused more accidents/deaths than the even the lets be conservative here the 5-7% of the people that drive drunk. I have no scientific way of coming up with that number but if a guy was going 95 in a 75 mph zone and just happened to be drunk what would the statistics say was cause of accident?
I would bet a weeks pay that you would say yea the a**hole was drunk and that's why there was an accident not that he was doing +20 over the speed limit.
We can thank Ann Landers/Dear Abby for this fscking travesty.
If you ever get stranded along the side of the road 99.5% of the people that would take the time to stop are willing to help you; but we should worry bout the .5% of bad guys out there and refuse the help offered just because we might get hurt.
Hell I might get hit by lightning when it rains but is that going to stop my employer from saying you can take a day off because your too scared to come into work?

Lets lets common sense* dictate what we do not the damn media.

*How come common sense isn't common?

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Anonymous Coward]

MA did a survey of traffic stops and found overwhelmingly black drivers were stopped, searched, and issued tickets more than white drivers.

They also steal more VCRs than anyone else. Your point?

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Dhalka226]

And maybe he/she will have to explain why they use speed "enforcement" as a means of generating revenue and a means of generating an excuse to search people's cars.

Mmm... not quite. Being pulled over is not an excuse to have your car searched. Suspicious activity while you're being ticketed, however, may be, and of course anything in plain sight is fair game. Any scent of alcohol or indication of drug use may be grounds for a sobriety test as well. Then again, if we're complaining that cops are taking drunks and druggies off the roads, I simply don't have a lot of sympathy about it.

As far as generating revenue, sure, they do. And that (especially combined with "quotas") might well be an excuse to pull you over. But you know, you're also breaking the law and they're enforcing it and I find it somewhat ironic trying to take the high road about it. But you know, on the other hand, those tickets DO get a message across. Illinois just made not having your seatbelt on a ticketable offense. (For clarity, it has been illegal for quite some time, but they never used to be able to pull you over FOR it, only write you an additional ticket when they had you anyway; now that is enough cause.) On the way back from college for the weekend, my dad and I both got nailed for no seatbelts. My dad has never worn a seatbelt in his life, but damned if he doesn't have it on every time he gets on that highway now. Am I happy about paying the fine? Hell no. But I'm wearing my seatbelt. No, it's not perfect; no, it hasn't changed his behavior on every road, but it helped.

Likewise, I have friends who have gotten speeding tickets and it's amazing what good, curteous drivers they become for a few weeks. Again, not permenant, but it's something.

Speed enforcement is just an excuse for getting into your wallet, and your car. It's extremely selectively enforced; the cops don't pull over everyone(next time you're on the road, look down at your speedo. Notice the car in front of you and behind you and all around you- they're all doing the same speed)

I'll have you know I don't wear a speedo on the road!

But seriously, enforcement is an "excuse" to get into your wallet? Buddy, it's the law, and while there are plenty of bad laws around (*cough*Patriot Act!*cough*), I'm not going to fault the police for enforcing them. If you have a problem with the law, take it up with your legislaters, not the cops.

As far as "they're all doing the same speed," that's a poor excuse/example for a number of reasons. For starters, if you're just going as fast as the traffic around you your chances of getting pulled over for it are lessened, for a number of reasons. It's the guys blowing by the people taking liberty with their "freebie" 10 miles over who get nailed the most. And the second reason I can explain with an old cop joke:

A man was speeding down the highway, feeling secure in a gaggle of cars all traveling at the same speed. However, as they passed a speed trap, he got nailed with an infrared speed detector and was pulled over.

The officer handed him the citation, received his signature and was about to walk away when the man asked, "Officer, I know I was speeding, but I don't think it's fair - there were plenty of other cars around me who were going just as fast, so why did *I* get the ticket?"

"Ever go fishing?" the policeman suddenly asked the man.

"Ummm, yeah..." the startled man replied.

The officer grinned and added, "Ever catch *all* the fish?"

No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents.

NO evidence? If nothing else it cuts down your available time to react without causing an accident and I think that would be a fair example. But even if you're right that

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[0x0d0a]

Nicely put.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[0x0d0a]

There are also soldiers who rape women. Do you blame all soldiers for this?

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[drinkypoo]

Every group should be self-policing. That includes the military. I do blame all soldiers, yes, except in certain narrow situations where no one is in a position to stop those guys. Obviously, I don't feel that they should all be punished for it, but I do feel it's their responsibility to stop their fellow soldiers from raping people.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Frogbert]

number one cause of highway deaths? Drunk driving

Yes because the police should only focus on one specific aspect of a much greater problem before moving on to the smaller ones.

Much like they lock away all of the murderers before they get on to the rapists.

despite no evidence speeding causes accidents

Are you serious? Hammering along at 20 over in a school zone is going to cause accidents. A driver doing 200kph has a much higher chance of crashing their car if not just from the simple physics of it.

link

If you double your speed your stopping distance is squared. Going just 10 km slower is going to take many meters off your stopping distance should something happen in front of you.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[rmohr02]

Oh, and those laser speed guns? Guess who put them in the hands of your friendly local police officer? Geico. No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents. What a great money maker. No increased risk, but lots of increased revenue!

I see that it is beneficial to Geico to have cops writing tickets, but it's not like Geico is manufacturing the radar guns themselves.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Unregistered]

MA did a survey of traffic stops and found overwhelmingly black drivers were stopped, searched, and issued tickets more than white drivers. White women had the absolute lowest rates as well. There was one notable exception- the MA state police were almost dead even for all races, genders, and age groups. Town police departments were the worst "offenders".

Black guys do tend to drive faster, and old white women tend to drive slow as shit cause they're "scared." So don't always believe profiling stories.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Tim C]

Every group should be self-policing. That includes the military.

So *that's* what the military police is for!

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Rich0]

...there is DEFINITE evidence that if you DO get in an accident speed will play greatly into the amount of damage. Geico, as an insurance company, wants you to avoid accidents. But failing that, they'd much rather pay for some chipped paint than a car wrapped three times around a tree. Not to mention the damage to the people IN the cars, liability, etc etc etc. So no. I don't see it as a conflict of interest. I see it as them trying to get you to do what you legally should be doing in the first place.

Why not just set the national highway speed limit at 10mph then, and we'll never have another accident?

If I wanted to be certain of not getting in an accident I wouldn't own a car or leave my house, and I'd just erect a concrete wall on the road-facing portion of my property. However, that would make it a little hard to get to work, wouldn't it?

When 90% of the population breaks a law, there is something wrong with the law. Obviously most people think that the increased risk at the higher speed is perfectly reasonable to accept, so why not change the law? If somebody wants to stay in the right lane and drive slower, that is of course their right.

Now, if an insurance company wants to offer a discount for driving slowly, that is fine - it would be of course subject to the free market. However, such an insurer would be under pressure to up the limit in order to keep its customers satisfied - lest they switch insurance providers. The net result would be an efficient compromise between speed and safety. Instead, the insurers get limits placed on speed - that way there is no free market competition. You can't drive faster if you're willing to pay more for insurance - the law takes away that option entirely.

Personally, my feeling is that the technology exists to automate cars entirely. You should just enter a destination, and it will take you there. That makes all accidents manufacturer liability cases, and that is the end of it (failure to maintain wouldn't be an issue - the car would refuse to drive if it were out of inspection). I suppose this is the opposite of a free-market solution. Even better would be if you just owned a transportation module, which would be a passenger compartment which could be mated to a car, bus, or train - the computer would just pick the most logical combination of all three to get you from point a to b without having to get out of your seat. Alas, I am now daydreaming...

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[kjamez]

After all, when someone gets pulled over they're in a vulnerable mental state. And cops wonder why people hate them.

i'd say it has more to do with the fear they provoke than the slazyness of their actions. i'm not a 'criminal' but when i get pulled over my heart races and hands shake when i am giving my id ... i know my rights, and i'm not going to jail for anything, but just their mere presence is enough to make me feel less safe.

i fully believe in profiling too. i've not been pulled over once since i've been driving a more 'novelty' car (austin mini sprite) ... that and it doesn't go over 75 anyway.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[kjamez]

"Ummm, yeah..." the startled man replied.

The officer grinned and added, "Ever catch *all* the fish?"

i've always thought it dumb of three or four troopers to sit together and do a trap. if they were smart they space each other out about 2 miles, and report to the next one. the driver will feel the trooper is far enough behind him to resume speeding ...

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[goodydot]

You bring up some interesting points. The argument has been made that speeding laws don't work as a deterrent because they don't apply to most people (thus the fishing analogy) and those that DO get caught are right back to their old habits in a matter of a few weeks, just as you said. Also, it is UNSAFE to travel at a speed other than the speed other cars are travelling. I'm a big individualist in all things except driving...the car doing 'different' things is the danger. For example, which is more dangerous on the road, that car moving the same speed as 100 other cars, or the one car in the fast lane moving at 15 mph less than surrounding traffic?

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, I drive a lowered Nissan 240SX and I get pulled over frequently. It's only half-painted right now; it'll be interesting to see how often I get pulled over when I finish painting it. The odds are up in the air as to whether it will be more, or less.

Re:maybe the cop can do some explaining too

[Dhalka226]

Why not just set the national highway speed limit at 10mph then, and we'll never have another accident?

Why not overreact?

Seriously, all I said was that as an entity that has to pay when you fuck up, Geico has an interest in you driving the speed limit. It wasn't a value judgment, and it certainly wasn't something that you should take as far as to say "set the national highway speed limit at 10mph."

When 90% of the population breaks a law, there is something wrong with the law.

The world isn't that cut and dry. People not liking a law doesn't, itself, mean that it is bad. But we'll get to the good/bad argument in a second.

Obviously most people think that the increased risk at the higher speed is perfectly reasonable to accept, so why not change the law?

That is a much more pertinant question, since most of my initial argument was based on it being the law.

I might agree with you. I don't agree with the seatbelt law I mentioned in my previous post because it's a personal choice. I'm old enough to make legal decisions, old enough to be drafted... I should be old enough to decide if the risk of not putting my seatbelt on is one I'm willing to take. (I might agree with a law that requires you to buckle up your kids, however.)

But driving is a slightly different story. If I crash without a seatbelt on and I die, that was my decision and apparently a bad one. Oopsie, guess I paid for it. But accidents are not always one car. That means that my choosing to speed (or to support removing or increasing speed limits) affects not only me, a choice I would consider myself able to make--but also the people in the vehicle that I hit. I shouldn't be able to decide for them whether or not speeding is an acceptable risk, and my increased speed may well mean the difference between them walking away or being carried away on a stretcher. And as somebody else said, it's really more dangerous to be the odd-ball driver who's going too fast or too slow for the traffic around you. Abolishing limits and in effect allowing every driver to drive whatever pace they wanted to would likely increase accidents.

If all I had to decide is "am I okay with the risk?" then I would fully support being able to legally drive as fast as I want. But when other people and other lives start entering the picture, we've got a different picture, and frankly I'm not sure where I would come down on the issue. I guess I'd like to see some hard data on it first.

Personally, my feeling is that the technology exists to automate cars entirely.

That is probably coming one day. Me, I'm still waiting for my Star Trek-style transporters. Now that would be sweet.

Probably just doing this to get funding...

[Goonie]

I knew Nick Barnes when he was a postgraduate at the University of Melbourne and I was an undergrad, and a mate of mine is going to NICTA to become his PhD student. He's been involved in Melbourne University's Robocup team at times, amongst other projects.

Deep down in his heart of hearts, I'm sure Nick knows perfectly well that trying to use computer vision to read road signs is at best a temporary hack for a legacy system. However, it's a nice application to show to wowser politicians to get them to fund his real interest - computer vision algorithms.

It's the same reason why a lot of American scientists take money from the armed forces; they're neutral at best about the application, but it's a great way to get funding.

Re:Probably just doing this to get funding...

[stratjakt]

Nick Barnes is also Your Company's Computer Guy.

Luckily I now get spam for traffic camera aversion

[bergeron76]

Instead of spraying it on my license plate, I could just spray it on the street signs on my route home to prevent this new "advance" in technology.

The cameras won't be able to decode the signs (it's IR paint or something to that effect) and thus the system would be averted.

Disclaimer: I'm [obviously] kidding here.

Impossible signs

[fhic]

I wonder what the system will do when it encounters signs with logical impossibilities? I've driven through an intersection in NYC that had opposite-facing "one way" signs on the same utility pole, along with a "no entry" sign at the entrance to the only other way out. Eventually I figured out which one was wrong, or I guess I'd still be there. Somehow I doubt that this system would come up with the same answer I did.

snow?

[Jardine]

I wonder how well this system works in a snowstorm. Or even after a snowstorm when there's clumps of snow on the sign. I expect it can't read things better than a human in those conditions.

Re:snow?

[Dhalka226]

It's a good question. But then again, I don't think the system has to necessarily be worse at it than a human. In those situations, what does the human do (assuming they don't KNOW what sign it is)? They look at shape, color, things like that.

Why can't a camera and a piece of software try to do that too? Even if they're looking at databased images for comparison, I still think they might be able to hit a fair level of success matching.

Re:snow?

[Dun Malg]

I wonder how well this system works in a snowstorm. Or even after a snowstorm when there's clumps of snow on the sign. I expect it can't read things better than a human in those conditions.

Heh. And how well will it deal with a sign that used to say "SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH", but some wise-guy has "adjusted" it with a marks-a-lot to say "85 MPH"?

Re:snow?

[Jardine]

Heh. And how well will it deal with a sign that used to say "SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH", but some wise-guy has "adjusted" it with a marks-a-lot to say "85 MPH"?

There's a sign like that on my street. It's supposed to say 40km/h (about 25 miles/hour) but everytime the sign is replaced, someone removes the "k" so it says 40m/h. It doesn't really matter unless some guy going 40 miles/hour runs over a kid and tries to use it in their trial.

Re:snow?

[annesdata]

There aren't too many snow storms in Australia! :-)

On the rare occasions when it does snow outside the Snowy Mountains district it's such a bloody panic that roads are often closed anyway.

Re:snow?

[gnu-generation-one]

"I wonder how well this system works in a snowstorm. Or even after a snowstorm when there's clumps of snow on the sign"

False negatives? Bah, how useless are they. What you want is some false positives, i.e. holding up a piece of card with "30" written on it, and laughing as everyone's cars auto-brake, sound alarms, or email the insurance-company

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading this news item...man, this is the part when I get out and walk.

sing after me:

[Ralph Spoilsport]

"How Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You're Not Anywhere At All???"

bump bump bump...

Why... IT"S A TROPICAL PARADISE!

RS

Re:sing after me:

[Scutter]

Im going to the pyramid with the ever-widening hole in it.

Offtopic.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is totally random. Please mod Offtopic. This story has nothing to do with explaining yourself to the state.

Read before modding, guys.

Re:Offtopic.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it worked. On /. anything about modding other stuff up or down gets modded up or down also, I just don't bother, I wait for the Meta-Moderators to do their job.

Re:Offtopic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except waiting for metamoderation doesn't stop the flamewar that this troll caused. Although I do find it quite ironic that someone wasted their points on the grandparent rather than modding the great-grandparent down. *sigh*

Radar Detectors as Automated Signs

[Iphtashu Fitz]

I forget what it's called but all the Escort radar detectors I've had for the past 10 years or so have had a feature that's supposed to pick up special radar signals and display warning messages like "road work ahead", "fog ahead", "accident", etc. The system requires police, road crews, etc. to have radar transmitters on their vehicles that send out specially encoded signals that the detectors pick up & convert into these pre-defined messages. Despite having seen this feature built into radar detectors for years I have NEVER seen it actually put to use anywhere. Has anybody ever seen whatever this is called actually in use?

Re:Radar Detectors as Automated Signs

[Jubedgy]

been a part of marine nav for years...kinda. Special buoys called RACON bouys emit morse-coded pulses when they detect incoming radar signatures so on your screen you'll see fairly thick dots and dashes. Really makes finding where you are in strange places fairly easy.

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[ScrewMaster]

Hm. I hadn't thought of that.

RFID in the road

[jerometremblay]

Actually, the plan is to include RFID chips in the road itself ,and in the tire. Once mass-produced to the level required, such devices are extremely inexpensive.

The obvious short term advantage of reading the signs is that they are already deployed all around.

Wow

[celeritas_2]

Dumbest application of technology....ever. I have to say I think this technology would do nothing except make cars more expensive and roads less safe. A good driver can see a damn sign with their own two eyes so they don't need this. A bad driver who pays little attention to the road will be made worse because he will depend on the system instead of (gasp) looking at signs. When the system fails as it most certainly will, the good driver will only notice a wallet deficit, the bad driver won't see a sign he wasn't looking for and will run a stop sign and kill someone, then blame the system. Not a good idea. When it works it's useless, when it doesn't it's deadly. How about car mfg. pay 5000 to pay for driver education instead of stupid technology eh?

Re:Wow

[catenos]

A bad driver who pays little attention to the road will be made worse because he will depend on the system instead of (gasp) looking at signs. When the system fails [...]

Good point! And before anyone thinks that's theoretical: It already happens with parking sensors (which signal the distance to obstacles; some BMW do it by beeping, the interval of which decreases with the distance to the obstacle, until it gets one long beep when one has passed the safety distance).

While serious crashes are seldom with parking, the seriousness of incidents increased, when people who got used to such a parking aid (even up to the point where they don't look back at all), drive with full motion into whatever there is, when the aid fails and simply keeps silent.

There are some interesting questions:
- Does the working system really decrease accidents or is it just some kind of comfort? (For the case of parking aids: In 10 years, I never bumped another car, but I agree it makes avoiding collisions less troublesome)
- If it decreases collisions, is the benefit greater than the increase of collisions with failing systems? (When such a system fails, the probability for an accident increases a lot compared to the case without such a system.)
- If it still decreases collisions, what if you factor in the damage? (The accidents with failing systems are worse in average than those without such a system.)

That's not meant to speak against helping system in general. Just that the user interface should have the possibility of failure in mind. The usuability problem of both systems is that they have an unsafe default, so to speak: a failure of the system behaves like the safe case (for the parking aid: silence indicating a safe distance to any obstacle), instead of one that indicates some form of danger and therefore asks for increased attention of the user.

For example, in the case of a parking sensor, if you develop a method to signal to the user that the system is working properly while he depends on it, he will instantly notice the lack of such a signal. (Since I am not in the business of designing automotive user interfaces, I won't spoil my argument by providing a bad example/suggestion for such a method).

Re:Wow

[White Roses]

Agreed. Beyond that, I'd rather have a car notice when another *car* is coming at them. We have those lovely (northbound|turn lane|southbound) lanes which have a different use depending on the time of day (0600-0900 is one way, 1600-1800 is the other, and everything in between is left turns). There are, literally, signs over the lane, about 3 per block (one is never out of sight one that is legible - based on DL sight tests I presume), stating when to use it and when to stay out of it. Yet, every single day, when I am driving home at 1630 (not even 1602 or something), there is someone about to pull in to that lane, into oncoming traffic (and don't get me started about the No Left Turn signs at the major intersections for the same time period - those go ignored all the time as well). I have my lights on, and I use my horn liberally, and still these Darwin award contenders pull in to oncoming traffic! How f*&^ing stupid can these drivers be? Even if you didn't see the signs (impossible), or can't read them (more plausible - we're close to Mexico), if you see cars coming towards you, you just don't pull in to that lane. Unless you're a lobotomized idiot or a semi-trained chimpanzee.

Skip the sign readers, let's try crash avoidance tech, or just plain better, required driver training first.

Ah, the march of technology . . . .

[theparanoidcynic]

Soon, if (err, when) I'm speeding my car will, most helpfully, notice this fact and print out a $90 ticket for me to sign.

Actually, I'd take that one to court. If only to see them try to get my car on the whitness stand . . . . .

Re:Ah, the march of technology . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge dismisses the case due to lack of evidence, but in the meantime charges the car with contempt of court for not showing up.

Then, for the next 90 days, the car is impounded and you get to _walk_ everywhere.

Good idea.

New Uses for the Camera

[postbigbang]

I want the cameras to: 1) watch for good looking women in abbreviated clothing matching specific geometric characteristics, like 37-22-36 2) look out for old men in hats driving, so that I can avoid their 22mph self-imposed speed limit and the third camera 3) needs to look for twits that try to turn automobiles into snitches. Long may they rot in a lower level of h-e-double-touthpick

Re:New Uses for the Camera

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only in cars, but in bathrooms too. I want to know if Bart the burger boy washed his hands, or if he used drugs in the stall. Public Safety is paramount! In order to ensure citizen compliance, er...public safety, there needs to more cameras everywhere in order to monitor people for non-conforming activity. In the name of Homeland Security, I demand it!!!

Re:New Uses for the Camera

[Hognoxious]

In the name of Homeland Security, I demand it!!!

In Soviet Russia, department of homeland security demands YOU!!!!!

Actually, that was probably true.

Wait a second.

[Anonymous Coward]

It assumes that I don't *know* I'm going over the speed limit. These systems aren't 'assisting' the driver. They are giving the driver less to do.

You want to assist the driver? Put an array of sensors on the vehicle and put a small HUD display in the car which shows objects (cars) around the car.

Put two vibrating motors in the backrest. When you turn on your turn signal vibrate when there is an object in the drivers blind spot.\

If this is a 'package' I won't get it. If it comes installed, I will find the sensors that run it and cut the wires. It's just one more chime that I don't want to hear. The only one I've heard of that is a good idea is the one from volvo that decides if the driver is falling asleep and wakes them up.

Great

[illumina us]

Great. Now I can only beed *between* the speed limit signs.

Re:What if - I' not sure what if.

[lcsjk]

I'm not sure if what you think you said is not really what you did not mean to say. Would you say it again, and this time use the preview?

not just in the US

[Trepidity]

Japan has a very nice and very expensive system of multilane freeways throughout the country, completely with hundreds of tunnels to keep grades reasonable and turns wide. They pay for the construction partly with extremely high tolls (on the order of $0.30-$0.50/mile, so a journey between, say, Tokyo and Hamamatsu costs over $50). And what do they do with this very nice system you have to pay a lot of money for the privilege of driving on? They have the speed limit uniformly at 80 kph. That's 48 mph.

Now the Japanese tend to be law-abiding folks, but you don't ever see anyone going 48 mph on those highways.

GOURANGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait!

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now everyone will know what it's like to have a wife.

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[Crazy Ukrainian]

Or, what if YOU'RE a large horny black man? Could you then get out of prison via an insanity plea because you were explaining things to yourself too much?

Only if you get that far. This is dangerous.

[twitter]

This looks like a big distraction and distractions are dangerous. I want idiot lights go go off if my car is having mechanical problems, not when I go over the speed limit or some other dumb thing like that. Suppose I am approaching a stop sign and I don't see it. I'm going to be looking at my dash for what's beeping if this stupid thing is installed. What happens to the kid running after the ball while I'm looking at my dash because the nag alarm fired at 25MPH when I thought the speed limit was 30? What happens to me when I don't see the truck ahead slowing down because I was going 57 MPH?

People will quickly learn that petty and false alarms in an automobile are a bad idea if this ever gets out of the lab. The insurance companies will demand that they be disabled and no longer installed within a week of testing.

Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm blind as a bat and cant see the signs myself.. I could use this

Computer vision for a carputer project

[LinuxHam]

I'm about to move ahead on my carputer project and have thought about building an in-car video e-card function with one of those pencil-sized video cameras used by so many reality shows (think Blind Date). I've also wondered about what I would like to be able to do by pointing the camera out the front windshield. A 5-minute TiVO-like buffer comes to mind for times when I witness car accidents. Finding computer vision applications is something else, and I often wonder how difficult it would be to analyze a frame and look for a specific pattern (i.e. one of the standardized US speed limit signs).

I've also considered a GPS-based screensaver that automatically hides the display with XMMS visualizations once I exceed a certain speed (30mph or so). If anyone remembers F15 Strike Eagle on the C64, I would display a big red on black flashing OVERSPEED every time I exceed 100mph.

because he uses it to drive traffic to his site...

[Anonymous Coward]

He links his stories to his blog, which then links to the real site for the real story. Since Roland submitted them, he "launders" the clicks. If someone else were to submit them, he/she likely would link directory to the story which has the actual info instead of to Roland's site.

Er, why look at the person's eyes?

[realdpk]

What I've always thought would be cool would be a system that reads the signs, and then lights up something behind the speedometer at the speed you're supposed to be going (only when you pass the sign, tho, so it doesn't keep showing you 55 when you turn off the highway 3 miles later. ;)

Bad, Bad, Bad Idea

[lcsjk]

What if a sign is down or missing or obscured by some tree limb? What if the cameras fail to decode properly? Drivers will start to depend on the system and tend to miss things like the dog or child entering the roadway. If a driver is depending on some external device to "see" anything for himself, he or she will become dangerous.

We have much better technology than depending on cameras. For instance, a vehicle sensor embedded in the roadway could turn on a strobe visible to the driver and at the same time send both RF and light (IR-data) to the auto's onboard sensors to tell whether the upcoming event is stop sign, speed limit sign or traffic light.

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[Dhalka226]

Dude, you're taking it too seriously. The "explain yourself" thing really has nothing to do with it. It was more of a joke that you won't have the excuse that "I didn't know I was speeding" with something like this running.

You don't have to "explain yourself" at all. Just shut up, say you were speeding, take the ticket and deal with it. No explaining necessary. If you want to FIGHT it, you have a chance to explain in court. Your RIGHT, not your OBLIGATION.

Great idea if...

[writermike]

I like the idea. I like it more if you can give it a familiar voice like, say, your Dad when he taught you how to drive.

"stop... stop .... STOP!!! Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?"

Re:Only if you get that far. This is dangerous.

[aussie_a]

[Big rant about it being distracting]

This is all a big rant about nothing. Guess what, my car has a manual alarm that I can set to go off when I reach a speed. For example if it's 25mph I set it to 25 and it'll tell me when i go over 25 with a beep which I can ignore. Your assertion that such a thing would cause accidents is ridiculous and by the sound of it. Born from ignorance.

Michael + Roland: Conspiracy?

[istewart]

Could there be a slashdot crosspost conspiracy involving michael and Roland Piquepaille? Are there payoffs involved? Why don't we just give up and read Roland's blog in the first place? These are hard questions, and the Slashdot community demands answers.

Re:Only if you get that far. This is dangerous.

[Anonymous Coward]

I visited the site in your SIG, and i didn't see anything about the chicks there...

car should remember the speed limit

[kumachan]

In places like New Zealand we can have a range of speed limits (50,60,70,80,100km/h), and some roads vary as you move through dense areas into less dense. It would be nice to have the car remember what the speed limit was. I have driven along the road, stopped at a place for a few hours, and when returning to the road couldn't remember what the speed limit for the current section was.

Re:car should remember the speed limit

[dinther]

Indeed GPS is a far simpler way to reference speed information for a road. New Zealand roads have some pretty challenging layouts and not all dangerous bends have speed signs. An onboard database can contain far more detail about the speed curve recommended for a certain bend. Rather than distracting audible or visible signals I propose a force feedback on the accelerator pedal. Mind you this is NOT cruise control but an accelerator pedal that nudges you foot back up until you have decelerated to the database recommended speed. Tried a computer model based on this where a forcefeedback joystick acts like the accelerator pedal and it works!

Moderation has spoken

[div_B]

Seriously, the moderation system, while imperfect, is designed to display comments according to their humour, usefulness, or degree of truth (as decided by a sample of the total /. population). Posts expressing disgust at RP's modus operandi are, more often than not, modded right up to 4 or 5, while those that seek to defend him are modded right down as trolls or flamebait. Clearly the general feeling amongst the community is that his methods are distasteful and unwanted here. What more is it going to take?

Re:Moderation has spoken

[Anonymous Coward]

What more is it going to take?

A script to force everything in this thread to (-1, Offtopic) and a silent removal of moderator privileges from any account that moderates any post in the thread up.

Re:Moderation has spoken

[Tim C]

What more is it going to take?

Editors that care about what the site's readership thinks.

This site is theirs, to do with as they wish; the fact that you and I happen to read it is immaterial to them. Get used to it; we don't matter.

Re:Moderation has spoken

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, the moderation system, while imperfect, is designed to display comments according to their humour, usefulness, or degree of truth (as decided by a sample of the total /. population).

Or which the editors decide to mod with their unlimited mod points. (Not that they shouldn't, but you're misrepresenting the situation as it is currently).

Re:Moderation has spoken

[Edie O'Teditor]

A script to force everything in this thread to (-1, Offtopic) and a silent removal of moderator privileges from any account that moderates any post in the thread up.

Ridiculous, whatever will you suggest next? Telephones that work without wires? Automobiles that can shift gears themselves?

Re:Only if you get that far. This is dangerous.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably the kind of people who hit the brakes in traffic when they exceeded the speed limit by 1mph. If so, I hate you.

one more thing bugging ?

[l3v1]

Mmmkay, so now I have a black box that records that I go over speed limits when the road is emtpy or when I feel like doing so, and we also have an intelligent box alerting every time I do so. That means I buy a car with all these and I will have to spend an afternoon disabling some multi-thousand $ worth of extra equipment that I'll never would've bought in the first place. Nice :)

perform well especially in poor lighting conditions

Umm, great achievement. Now we have a road sign alerting system that is tuned for poor lighting conditions. That wouldn't be bad, e.g. when driving on unknown territory at night. But does that "especially" imply that it performs poorer at normal lighting conditions ? :) Well if it performed very well in daylight and much better at dawn&dusk, I'd say alright, but I doubt it does so.

Anyway, if every just other such box would be reported here, we'd see nothing else.

snopes

[Anonymous Coward]

actually if you have the patience to search snopes.com you might find out that's not true.

Get a grip...

[Goonie]

Try driving in Germany some time; most people drive at 100mph-plus on the autobahns. You soon learn that 60mph (or whatever the highway speed limit in your jurisdiction is) is not some magic number above which a car turns from a safe device into an imminent disaster area.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

All the vehicles would have to be in a similiar level of maintainence, which isn't going to happen, and with the sue happy nature of American society, it would have to be a mighty brave company that released the first product.

what if traffic laws and traffic signs dont match

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Netherlands there are a lot of crossings in which the signs contradict Dutch traffic law.
If you want to go right by car, there is no rule in the dutch traffic law which gives you a higher priority than normal ongoing traffic.
Still they managed to get the drivers to think that bicyclist are an exception to that rule by putting signs that contradict traffic rules (and actually create a strong deadlock in which I have been often as a byciclist).
Law of the strongest dictate that byciclist should stop. Until you kill one and get in court, then you find out that you should have known better.
If you want to do safe biking: go to france, ignore holland.

No tolerance on the speed cameras...

[Goonie]

The reason why Australians don't speed on freeways is very simple. There are likely to be speed cameras on them, and there is zero tolerance given - if you do 105 on a 100 freeway, you'll get a ticket, and if you do it often enough you'll lose your license.

Of course, Australia is empty enough that there are plenty of roads where you're unlikely to meet other traffic, let alone police... let's just say I don't take the freeway when I go to visit my parents.

I don't know where you get your danger statistics on Australia's freeways, though. Could you point me to a reference?

Re:No tolerance on the speed cameras...

[thogard]

You have to dig though vic roads web site. They don't break out the different classes of roads because it looks better if they don't so SE Freeway is in the same general stats as the freeway west of Ballarat.

That's one way

[m1chael]

to make an overly complex system. I mean, how good is artifical vision these days? GPS would suffice. Simple stupid.

oooh ooh I got an Idea

[beavmetal]

how about cars that automatically email you a ticket when you break the traffic laws.

Or how about all you slow wanks on your cell phones, eating breakfast, reading your email, etc just get in the right lane and outta my way.

Personally, I regularly hit 100+MPH on my daily commute here. Soundtrack by ludikris -- move beiotch, get out the way!

Re:The USA is fast becoming a Fascist police state

[blibloblu]

Surprise! there is a world around the US, case you didn't notice. And if prople in Australia propose a new system, it has nothing to do with the US being a fascist state (except if you think the CIA is behind all that, to restrict your freedom and increase taxes).

Speed Discrepancy

[podwich]

So what happens when your car (incorrectly) indicates a 55 mph speed limit and the sign indicates a 45 mph speed limit? When the cop pulls you over for 55 in a 45 do you get a ticket for speeding, improperly maintained equipment, or both?

Re:Luckily I now get spam for traffic camera avers

[freakmn]

You're thinking out of the wrong end here. It would be much more efficient to spray over the sensor once than every sign you pass. Easy fix!

Smart cars eh?

[Celt]

These is it? http://www.thesmart.co.uk/

I'm amazed I haven't seen more "In soviet russia" jokes in all the replys :)

Twitter: Life and times of a petulant cock-gobbler

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter, you're a petulant cock-gobbling sycophant to Linux Torvaldyos! Quit taking DP from ESR and RMS's feculent cocks and why don't you try to stop sucking quite so much? Get out of your parents' basement and see the real world - maybe then you'll see how pathetic you sound, with your neverending stream of bullshit about how Microsoft is stalking you. Wasn't it you who said that Microsoft believes your insane ranting is actually a threat to them, so they PAY PEOPLE to reply to you on Slashdot? No sir, I don't get any money. I do it for the love. Someone has to go up against your paranoid whining. So get back in your cage and shut the fuck up already.

Expensive ?

[Mr Europe]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to tag the signs with bar code and use a fast reader in the car ?

Vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

In the outback of Austrailia and in rural/desert
United States, country boys like to take their guns
and shoot up road signs. This sometimes makes the signs unreadable
to a human, let alone a machine. What about stickers and graffiti.

Nevermind false alarms, and errornous data. If any
data from this system is going to be used in court,
I hope they are going to check the signs themselves, and
any maintanence records on them.

The best safety feature for a car...

[peterpi]

... would be a great big nail coming out of the steering wheel and no seatbelts.

Suddenly everybody would drive very carefully!

My overview of the future....

[R1ch4rd]

A smart car will make a dummer driver. You will need a lot of will power to be as attentive as in a normal car once you get comfortable with the smart car. ( See Spooner's manual driving in I,Robot ).
The AI for the smart car must be VERY ROBUST and well TESTED, I know there isn't such a thing as a bugless program so I'll be very weary about putting my life in the hands of a computer.
The whole car computing must be unhackable or deaths may occour when the next worm hits the network.
Most drivers tend to break ( or drive at the edge of ) the law and I don't think we are ready to give that freedom up unless the system will allow us to move much faster, but a loooong time will pass until an automatic system will prouve safe.
The best option I see is to integrate 1 by 1 features in the car that will enhance our driveing performance while increasing safety. For example:
-- first have all cars have GPS navigation integrated with road signs and traffic data, so its easier to find the best road to wherever you wanna go;
-- add a smart emergency breaking system which will avoid a colision under all circumstances ( or choose the best outcome for all humans involved ); I know this is almost impossible but if it manages to stop asleep and drunk drivers, it's quite an improvement;
-- add a follow the leader option for highway driving;
-- add a follow the road markings for highway driving;
After we are comfortable with all these and it works properly add automous driving.

A system to visally read road signs, is just a bad joke that, hopefully, will never be introduced.

------
May the Code be with You.

GPS instead of camera or RFID

[darkcookie]

Hi,

here in germany a high percentage of new cars are equipped with GPS. Wouldn't it be the most easiest and reliable solution to have a database of traffic signs on DVD, together with an update over GPRS or UMTS telephony?

Best regards,
darkcookie

Application for RFID?

[blerg]

I had a similar thought about it a few years back. But instead of using image recognition to acheive the results (which is going to be difficult because of different signs being used from state to state/county to county most of the time. What about using something along the lines of RFID tags to identify signs? As they drive along the RFID could then decifer the codes and then warn about dangers etc.

Of course it could also inform you of your bad choice in clothing, but life is full of ups and downs.

Pulling cars over the British way.

[Inda]

My Dad got out of the Police business nearly 20 years ago. He has so many interesting stories to tell...

He and his police partner used to have quotas each night. Maybe it was 30 cars a night, maybe it was 50. They used to play "Car Snooker" to make sure they hit the mark.

For those who don't know the rules of snooker: after potting a red ball you must pot a coloured ball. Then a red ball, then a colour and so on.

My Dad would start the game going by pulling over a red car, asking the twenty questions, issueing tickets etc. If he had reason to issue a ticket he would get the chance to pull over a coloured car next. The numbers on the licence plate were jotted down. The person with the lowest score at the end of the night would buy the sandwitches and tea.

There were other games they played with people. I hate the police.

-----

Recently he went to a police reunion. Before driving home one of the top police officers he'd done his time with told him to "put your invitation in you windscreen and you wont get done for drink driving on the way home". My dad had been on OJ all night... He was speechless.

Driving Fatigue Measurements

[wi5p]

Given that the face tracking system (the two cameras facing you) can tell if you are falling asleep, (The system was originally designed for driver fatigue studies - looking for things like blink frequency/duration and head-nodding), I would have thought that the potential to save lives would be quite high - especially for those people who work on the roads for a living. (HGV drivers, bus drivers, travelling salesmen, etc...) - I could imagine (in the distant future), a similar device replacing the cardboard-disk tachographs found in HGVs. (How much more effective would it be to prevent someone from driving when they were actually tired, rather than according to a fixed number of hours-on-the-road and so on?) BTW - I have to admit to some bias, as I work for one of SeeingMachine's distributors. (SeeingMachines is the Australian company behind the FaceLAB system - go check them out, the technology is pretty cool - Machine Vision, finally coming of age!)

Re:Only if you get that far. This is dangerous.

[twitter]

my car has a manual alarm that I can set to go off when I reach a speed. For example if it's 25mph I set it to 25 and it'll tell me when i go over 25 with a beep which I can ignore. Your assertion that such a thing would cause accidents is ridiculous and by the sound of it. Born from ignorance.

There's a big difference between one beep you expect and many you do not. If you want your car to nag you, by all means buy the kit for yourself.

Cruise Control

[crow]

I would love to have this technology as an optional interface to my cruise control. I should be able to tell the car to maintain the speed limit (plus a constant, perhaps).

This is classic "Solution looking for a problem"

[JoeStreet]

there is a danger that sign detection could become annoying

No kidding! Just the thought of such a system is annoying. This system totally ignores the fact that most people drive on the same roads day after day. I never look at road signs during my daily commute. What's the point; they never change. I certainly don't need or want an idiot system reading me the same damn signs everyday. I know I speed and all the drivers around me know they are speeding too.

He predicts that working systems will have overrides or variable sensitivity

Like an OFF switch?

$7,00 cars form China

[peter303]

China is about to directly enter the US car market with low end vehicles as little as $7,000. There is some controversary about close imitation of US manufacturers, but that is a side-issue.

Technology can't cure everything

[Ced_Ex]

That's the basic problem, it is near impossible for technology to solve a human behaviour problem. If we just simply stopped issuing driver's licenses like they were Chiclets, and concentrated on adequate testing and training; then we wouldn't have to think up all these high priced gadgetry which would be ignored by the masses anyway!

There are a lot of stupid people out there, and the bottom line is technology can't save them all.

We are going to have to sacrifice the stupid for the greater good of humanity!

Driver Aided Sight?? YAWN!

[matthewcraig]

This is a system that aids people who have trouble looking out car windows?? Wake me up when the car can react to street signs by slowing to speed limit or making a complete stop at the light. Otherwise, no thanks -- I can see just fine.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

The electronic nagging wife.

Re:because he uses it to drive traffic to his site

[Rotund Prickpull]

You are all jealous. Yah boo sucks to you all!

I41

[Rotund Prickpull]

I for one welcome our intelligent automotive overlords.

Antelope Freeway

[jefu]

"Hmmm, I think I'll take the antelope Freeway."

a bit later...

"The sun is going down."
"No no, you're confused, the horizon is moving up."

Ah, the Firesign Theater....

Read more history

[CharlesClarkson]

"With over 6.3 Million auto crashes in the U.S. each year, and over 38,000 [dot.gov] fatalities in crashes per year (that's 14.66 fatalities per 100,000 population), I'd say it's a problem begging for an answer.

Perhaps you need to do better research. Most traffic safety experts agree that deaths per millions of miles traveled is the best statistic to find trends in auto (and road) safety. Take a look at the link you provided and you'll find the Fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled steadily decreases over time. Where's the problem you are referring to?

There are only three ways to fix the problem:
1) Reduce the number of vehicles on the road/vehicle miles traveled.[snip]
2) Increase driver training and knowledge and capability testing.[snip]
3) Take the highly variable and erratic human out of the equation.[snip]

4) Let the market continue to improve traffic safety without your guiding hand making it better for all of us. Don't artificially drive the price up of today's safer vehicles trapping people in their older less safe vehicles. Don't kill your neighbors because you meant well.

Seriously, other than the speed freaks, the ricers, and the "therapy through driving agressive" people, I don't see why anyone is against this.

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

Your argument is reminiscent of an author of a book named Unsafe at Any Speed. That author also could not see why government should not be used to force everyone to use safety belts. He pointed out the problem of deaths on our roads. Soon safety belts were mandatory in all automobiles.

The following decade saw Fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled rise for the first time since such statistics were gathered. They had been falling since the first Model A rolled off the assembly line. For another decade they were flat. Then the statistics again started to fall.

Why did active restraint systems not save lives?

The authors of the legislation forgot (or didn't know) how economics works. If you increase the cost of producing a product you will increase the price of selling it. Increased price will decrease demand. Lower demand means less people are buying newer models. Which means more of the older unsafe vehicles remain on the road -- killing people.

The government didn't have engineers with a fifty year track record of making cars safer. Those engineers worked for car companies and received far higher pay than government engineers. The law doomed all passengers of new vehicles to rely on "safe" cars regulated by inexperienced government engineers instead of those with reliable proven track records.

With minimum safety standards there is less incentive to actually build safer cars. All a car manufacturer needs to do is meet the minimum requirement to reduce costs or, more likely, apply that talent to other areas. In the unregulated marketplace one manufacturer might add a new safety feature to a luxury model. If it catches on it may extend the option to other models. If that catches on, it may include that feature as standard. As other makers see that feature works for their competitors they add it to their vehicles. Safety grows through innovation and demand, not regulation.

If the market demands safety, it will be added into newer models as price and demand allows. Law makers and advocates of consumer safety laws circumvent that process. When the market is free, customers are free to choose their own safety features.

Much cheaper

[ibaboon]

If they used RFID tags insted of an elaborite camera system

Re:Much cheaper

[ibaboon]

sorry about the spelling