Slashdot Mirror
Britain to Pilot GPS Speed Governors
Rich0 writes "In a new twist on traffic speed enforcement, The Times is reporting that Britain is piloting a new device which will use GPS to actively prevent speeding. The device will initially be offered in conjunction with discounts to the London congestion surcharge." From the article: "A study commissioned by London's transport planners has recommended that motorists who install it should be rewarded with a discount on the congestion charge, which tomorrow rises to £8 a day. The trial Skodas were fitted with a black box containing a digital map identifying the speed limits of every stretch of road in Leeds. A satellite positioning system tracked the cars' locations. "
Seems pretty obvious.
Also, they'd have to _pay me_ to be in a beta test of a system that locks your brakes/cuts out the accelerator. I'd be dead if that system messed up on the higway.
In response to the earlier Slashdot article which argues that innovation has slowed down...there is now a risk of Skodas exceeding the speed limit. I'd call that progress.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Considering how many mouth breathers seem to think that the roads are for playing GTA and not getting from point A to Point B, I'd love to see this here. I follow the speed limits to the letter becasue I've NEVER seen an unreasonable speed limit anywhere in my travels. (I've driven in almost every state except, Hawaii and Alaska) Sorry folks, but the roads are for people like me to get safely from one place to another. If you want to speed, go find a race track and have at it. If you want to get your testosterone rush on, then play GTA. Otherwise, mind the speed limit.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
What if for some reason you need to get somewhere in a hurry? I know I wouldn't give a shit about speed limits in such a situation, especially since no one obeys them anyway.
Maybe it's different in Britain though. I imagine there is less road there.
Considering I can barely reach half the speed limit on my daily drive through London, I don't see any problem with a system like this :|
in police cars.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen police in the US get away with speeding because they're the police. For some reason, I can't imagine it being much different elsewhere around the world since government corruption doesn't know geographic boundaries.
They'll come up with excuses like people trying to track law enforcement or something like that and that's why they won't be on the grid.
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Plus, everyone's seen school buses with their regulators, going 60mph on the highway. No one wants to be like them/
So what will happen if your GPS doesn't work? Maybe someone uses one of the commercially available GPS jammers, or homemade ones: http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=60&a=13
Will they not give you the congestion charge discount? Will they slow down the car until the GPS signal is re-acquired?
Who says the GPS device needs to be going the same speed as my car? How are they going to ensure that I didn't leave my GPS device in my garage while I take out my minivan for a street race? I predict that later GPS will replace human police in the seeking of speed limit violators. Go too fast, and the GPS connects to a violation reporting server and uploads your tracking number and the type of violation (exceeding speed limit for area, failing to stop at a stop light, etc.) Of course, I am sure there will be ways to crack it, but what if insurance companies start using GPS data to calculate your risk factor based on where you park your car (in front of a pub, at Wal-Mart). Don't take me too seriously though, I have a tin foil cap embedded in my skull. ;-)
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still think you're free? fear fear fear, they'll whack you over the head with it over and over, give away your power, let the state protect you, it's children. the prison without walls is still a prison. sheep, slaves, call it whatever. this is bullshit, and the sad thing is that people will probably take it lying down. back to sleep sheep, we'll install more televisions and strobe lights and what-not to keep you entranced... oh look tom cruise, football. wakeup ppz
It seems worthwhile to point out that after RTFA, the pilot was held in Leeds; the scheme is now being tested in London. For those who don't know, Leeds is about 200 miles from London.
This could cause a lot of deadly accidents if it kicks in when you're trying to quickly move out of the way of an oncoming vehicle or you're passing someone. I hope whoever came up with it is personally liable for any wrongful death cases.
Anyone else find it funny they're considering offering a discount on a fee they just happen to be raising? Why can't they be honest and admit it's a fee not to use this.
If you thought congestion was bad before, what if it accidnetly limits you to 40kph in a 100kph zone?
How hard would it be to disable/turn the device off?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
What does one have to do with the other? Anyone who can speed in Central London during congestion charge is pretty fortunate.
I really don't like this sort of thing. can we lose the attitude that driving past the speed limit is the be all and end all of road safety. There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous".
....and is getting closer and closer all the time. *removes tinfoil hat* wait, put it back on, it's not safe!!
A report on a driver convicted for doing 30 in an adjacent 20mph zone due to the resolution of GPS being reduced with the outbreak of another war. A police spokesperson said "GPS, like biometric ID, is known to be infallible - that's why we use them to catch the terrorists and prostitute traffickers." The driver is due to be sentenced next week.
This is actually a lot fairer than speed cameras.
Many people I know have been caught speeding in the UK on roads which very little warning about that correct speed limit. At least this system informs you that you are exceeding the speed limit. Speed cameras are often placed downhill where it is very easy to exceed the speed limit and be fined.
If the UK government really do care about road safety than then can implement these systems such as this so that we can't speed, instead of just using speeding fines as another stealth tax.
The trial Skodas were fitted with a black box containing a digital map identifying the speed limits of every stretch of road in Leeds. A satellite positioning system tracked the cars' locations.
:)
Skodas? They can barely get to the speed limit, let alone exceed it
If it can't find the GPS signal (which often happens in urban areas) what then? Can I speed unrestricted? Then I would just wrap the GPS receiver in aluminum foil.
What if the system slows me down just as I'm passing another vehicle, and causes a crash?
It is dangerous to restrict driver control of the vehicle. If you have a problem with bad drivers (the UK is not the only place with this problem), improve your driver testing/training, and start handing out bigger fines.
Keep handing out bigger fines until drivers start obeying the law.
Should this become widespread, the hacking potential of broadcasting bogus GPS info becomes enormous! Slow down all the lusers using this system.
The logistics of updating every car whenever the govt changes the speed limit on a road is staggering.
This joke may need to be explained to us Yanks. ;)
The same thing has been tested elsewhere in pilot studies. One of the largest trials is the project "ISA - Intelligent Speed Adaptation", partly run by Lund University.
More info at http://www.tft.lth.se/research/ISA.htm
From the page:
"Research and development on the concept of Intelligent Speed Adaptation is going on both regarding speed limits and dynamically changing limits due to the prevailing conditions (e.g. adverse road-, or weather conditions). The system investigated is based on the Active accelerator pedal. "
The active accelerator pedal makes it possible to go over the speed limit, but you have to press harder on it, so that you dont speed by mistake. AFAIK the trials are a sucess, the problem is the cost of the equipment, and the cost to keep the devices updated with the correct speed limits.
Even more info at:http://www.isa.vv.se/index.en.htm
Are we planning on getting some of the revenue from the tickets?
Just wondering.
Sure is interesting to see how many people hate the US -- but they don't mind using our stuff.
We'll all be going much more slowly once all the oil runs out. Those of us who haven't starved to death in the ensuing famine and political upheavals.
Bitching about intrusive government limiting the speed of your luxury vehicle will seem utterly petty by around 2015-2020.
And besides, they invent a device called a "governor" and then expect the government NOT to put it on every vehicle? Who couldn't see this coming??
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Although I regularly exceed the speed limit I would have one of these (if it worked as advertised).
I still don't udnerstand why cars capable of over 100 miles an hour are available for sale.
I can't write a P2P application because someone might swap music but I can sell a 200mph car that will probably kill someone. (an avg. 10 years of car life per road death)
twisted
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Dude, that's stupid. There's a little something called "flow of traffic." You're blocking traffic if you're going 55. Sure, it may be the law to go at the speed limit (55 around where I live), and you _can_ get a ticket for going with the flow of traffic if you exceed the speed limit, but that does _not_ mean you don't have a responsibility to be mindful of the environment around you and your fellow drivers.
This isn't about making the roads safer, folks - if they wanted to do that, they'd restrict car speed limits, like the Japanese do - nope, this is about collection of government revenue.
Face it.
In the paper this morning, they said that the device would have an override in case it was necessary to speed to stay safe. But I don't think that's a saving grace.
I think the most fearful part of this is that some drivers on the road will not be in total control of their vehicles. If you submit even some control to digital signals and outside influence, you add mechanical error to the already large scope of human error. Meaning to promote safety, it is adding a new dimension of things-to-go-wrong.
In addition to the countless video cameras watching every moment of daily life, starting today, GPS units will be implanted in every infant born prior to handing the child over to the mother.
This is considered important in the fight agains crime as it will allow police to instantly know who was at a crime scene at any given moment. Scotland Yard said that the GPS units do not infringe on citizens' rights as the data will only be used for tracking down criminals. The average citizen who does not break the law has nothing to worry about.
How soon does it start???
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You were in the blind spot of a big truck and it tried to merge into your lane. You could speed up to pass them, or break, and hope you slow down enough that the tail of the truck gets past you quick enough.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Oh Merry England, what aspects of your citizens lives *won't* you monitor? You so silly.
In Soviet Russia you govern GPS.
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So rich Londoners can speed if they want. It's not that different from the untracked version, where rich speeders can just pay the fine. Although in New York, buying back a license after scoring lots of "moving violation" points can be expensive, not to mention the increased insurance rates. But, if you've got the money, you can drive as fast as you want.
--
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You can't speed in central London, the average speed during the day is 3 mph. I have a better idea, how about charging people more for going to slowly, that would certainly make things more interesting. Put in additional penalties for not passing a traffic light within 2 seconds of it turning yellow, make 70% of the roads bus lanes and heres a really novel one: limit the amount of traffic entering the charge zone by keeping relevant traffic lights red until enough cars have exited the zone - kind of like a car-park full light.
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Folks- speed doesn't kill, and this is something few people (especially the "won't someone please think of the children" types) fail to understand. They point to statistics where "police site speed was a factor". It's not the speeding itself- it is usually a lack of judgement (very often obliterated by drugs, including alcohol) or experience, or going too fast for conditions. It is compounded by a driving public that has, for the most part, absolutely no idea (much less experience) at controlling a vehicle near its limits, or regaining control of an out-of-control vehicle.
An example- a high school kid in my town got a Mistubishi Eclipse when he passed his driving test. Two friends in the car, he's doing sixty down a local road. That's pretty damn fast, and yes, too fast for a country road with limited visibility. How did he crash? His friend at the last second yelled "turn here!", and the guy tried to do a 90 degree turn. At 60mph. Instead of just keeping on the road. Speed didn't cause the crash- stupidity and lack of experience with what the car was (and was NOT) capable of did. A huge number of accidents are caused by people being very reactionary, like risking taking a short space to turn, instead of waiting 5-10 seconds for a much longer one.
It is similar to the lack of distinction between "accidents" and "collisions". If an asteroid hits your car and you crash, that's an accident. Pretty much everything else is driver error.
Most people don't have the foggiest idea of how to control their vehicle. The simplest concepts, such as weight transfer, basic cornering technique, or friction circles (which describe the capabilities of a tire) - aren't taught or tested at all. Most people also have a "I put gas in it and oil, that's all I should have to do" mindset to car maintenance. When I'm talking to someone about car maintenance and I ask how old their brake fluid is, they a)can't remember and b)ask why. Brake fluid is like a dessicant- it absorbs water from the atmosphere. When it does, its boiling point drops substantially (brake fluid should be changed at a minimum of every 2 years, and that means flushing, not just siphoning out the reservoir).
Improving driver education would be a huge step in the right direction. Teach people what maintenance is required typically, and teach them HOW TO CONTROL a vehicle!
Please help metamoderate.
Yes, I'd think myself fortunate to have a helicopter too!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
But those cops aren't. Their sirens aren't on, they're just cruising down the road, patroling. You did know that cops aren't legally allowed to break the speed limit when they aren't responding to a call or enforcing the law, right? I've seen tons of cops breaking the speed limit when they had no good reason to. Their sirens were off, they just wanted to go say... 10-15 over the speed limit since it was faster and easier.
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I'm a pizza delivery driver. The faster I can get to somebody's house, the sooner I can make my next delivery. The more deliveries I make, the more money I make. A discount of $4/month (on a a fee which doesn't apply to me, being in US), would cost me nearly $100/month in productivity (speeding, running red lights at 2am when there isn't another car in sight, etc.)
Instead of trying to remove driver control, a better idea would be to just track the vehicle and send applicable fines.
A vehicle could have under-engine/cockpit RFID transponder that would be read by road sensors. The vehicle RFID would transmit the vehicle ID as well as that of the driver (driver would have logon to vehicle to start/drive it). The vehicle passing over sensors would be recorded on central systems and the vehicle speed calculated and recorded. Regular audits on the central system records would produce speeding violations and tickets/fines would be printed and sent to the responsible driver (or vehicle owner).
If you change the laws so that the fines are based on a fixed amount plus a percentage of the driver/vehicle-owner gross income then people might start believing the speed limit is the maximum, not minimum, allowed speed.
Passing another vehicle on the road is perfect example. You have to accelerate to pass the car that is in front of you. A legal move.
A car that decides to cross a road at a moment you are going through that road. In certain circumstances, the car could t-bone into you if the driver "assumes" you will continue to go faster. To avoid this, you speed up to miss him from hitting you from the side.
While probably very rare, if you are at a railroad crossing with about four tracks, and the speed limit there is 15 (I've seen areas with 5-10MPH signs near train tracks) and the gates start closing in on you, you can't accelerate to get out.
One time, a police officer sort of gave me "permission" to speed. It was an area where the highway forked, and traffic on the right side was at a standstill, and I was the only one of the left. Over the PA he gave me a "go ahead" to go faster than so he could get through to the other fork. There was no shoulder for me to turn off onto, so this was the only option of him to get by.
I'm sure there are a lot more examples where speeding is necessary on the road. Its the careless speeding that needs to be enforced. People that go 100+ on a highway of average 65-70 MPH drivers.
What the device should do, is somehow gather the average speed of cars in the area, and limit speed to the average so there are no careless speeders.
"A study commissioned by London's transport planners has recommended that motorists who install it should be rewarded with a discount on the congestion charge, which tomorrow rises to £8 a day.
.01 for the first 8 albums, the next 200 for regular price. This would be a discount with obligation, a price rise to discourage dissent
Gotta love that. What good is a "discount" when the price rise offsets the benefit. There is a difference between a "discount" and "lack of surchage", as there is a difference betwwen "free" and "free, with committment". Remember Columbia House,
Discount my ass.
Anyway, imposing a system like this is another exmaple of govt. overstepping its bounds and creating blanket legislation. There will always be emergencies that the GPS unit could not account for. Unless there is a manual override, this may be more dangerous then good.
There will be people who say that to protect "my kids", everyone should be required to have one of these devices in their car. BS. Go to Germany and see the big long road where there is no speed limit, and there are fewer accidents per 100,000 miles then in the US.
We need driver responsibility rather then gadgetry to make our roads safer. I am a good driver, even "speeding", which, by the way, is a relative term. Don't limit my driving ability because there are bad/inconsiderate drivers on the road.
Guess I'll just have to move to the Isle Of Man and take my motorbike with me
If you try to build something idiot proof, someone builds a better idiot.
YUCK!
Most people survive being hit by a car going 30km/h. Most people die being hit by a car going 50km/h.
You probably survive if you have a frontal collision at 65-70km/h in a modern car. You will probaly die in the same collision if you go 150km/h.
These are the facts, taken from accident statistics.
Speed limiting could easily be implimented at the design/manufacture stage. If the risk is so great why introduce an intrusive device for monitoring people breaking the law when they could introduce a just as intrusive device that prevents people breaking the law.
Seriously aren't we being taxed enough already. I wonder if speeding is really the menace to life that the government has recently been 'informing' everyone.
In other news the chancelor of the exchequer predicts record revenues from speeding fines...
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, you are least likely to get in an accident when travelling 5 to 10 MPH over the speed limit. This is because most other traffic is. It is the common rate of flow. Going at a different speed violates other drivers' expectations and they will guess your trajectory as compared to their incorrectly. Unless they install these on every vehicle, those with them will be at higher risk of collision.
Of course once they're installed, then people will die when they can't speed up to avoid a potential accident, or get to hospital quickly with a life threatening injury or illness.
So people die. The point is to relieve congestion. This would serve the purpose.
But help me out here. Isn't congestion people going too slow?
Now, come up with a box that forces all vehicles to go the speed limit, moderated by distance to the vehicles in front and behind, with an override controlled by something like a built in 911 (UK 999) call and you've got something.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
How are they going to police compliance though? even if they caught me on camera but my gps didn't register, there could be many valid reasons for it, gps coverage in cities is patchy enough.
As for being above the law, my cousin is a police officer. Her boss (also a police officer, obviously) was disciplined for speeding in a police car. The boss is the assistant chief constable of that police force. There must be only about 30 officers of that seniority in the whole of the UK, so it's probably safe to say that the British police are not above the law.
On the other side of this coin, a couple of weeks ago there was a newsworthy court case where a British police officer was prosecuted for speeding, and the court let him off, basically on the grounds that he needed to do what he did.
WTF?
1. It's not a tracking device. Its a one way GPS system with a map. That 'satellite positioning system' thats tracking the cars movement. Its in the car, not the sky. Tracking the car against a map is a fundamental part to make the system work.
2. What about when I need to speed to avoid an accident? Once again - WTF? Maybe if you were following at a safe distance and speed you wouldn't get into situations where speed was required to get you out of it. (There are extreem exceptions I know, but there are thousands of acciedents a day where less speed is a good thing).
3. It's a research trial. I think its great that somewhere has finally managed to implement a system that many have wondered about, finaly give a real trial. Yes, results can be manipulated and misinterpreted to a politicians viewpoint, but as long as the reseach, methodologies, and results are sound, I'm all for research.
4. People will just remove them. Well, concidering it is volentary at the moment, I guess that's the idea. If they were mandatory, removing them would be illegal. Ahh, Just like it is illegal to speed right now. Police would be given powers to check if you are breaking the law. And they could hand out fines and court dates. Just like they do with speeding today. Its an interesting system.
That seems pretty useful - it happens to me pretty often that after a while I forget what the speed limit is on the road I have been on driving for a while.
This afternoon my wife and I took a trip to a town maybe 20 miles from where we live (in a suburb west of Boston). She drove, and I havigated using out Garmin 3600, which is a cool PalmOS gadget with GPS added. It shows where you are on the map, finds routes, gas station, restaurants, and so on. It can also show you your location, heading and speed.
But GPS isn't all that accurate. This gadget routinely shows a 10-meter or so error estimate. Sometimes 30m or more. I often watched our position at a small scale as we approached turns. It showed things like: As we approached one stop light, moved to the left lane and stopped at the light, it showed us turning left, driving down the street a block or so, then turning around and coming back, passing through the intersection going the other direction. All the while, we were stopped at the light.
At times, I watched our position/speed. It would occasionally show us going from 40mph to 90mph to 10mph over the space of a few seconds. At other times it would match the spedometer very closely. Now, our car does have good acceleration; it's a Mini Cooper. But it doesn't really go from 0 to 80mph in under a second.
I can imagine if this were tied in to an automatic ticket-writing system. While we were stuck in downtown traffic, it would write us up a ticket for suddenly accelerating to 80mph for 5.7 seconds.
I can also imagine the effects of tying it into the car's controls. While sitting at a light, it would suddenly see us going 110mph, and would downshift and then go into reverse to get us back under the speed limit, causing us to "rear-end" the car behind us.
Yeah, in my experience with GPS, this all sounds like a really good idea.
(But we like the Garmin toy, really we do. Partly because it's a really useful navigation device. Partly because it makes us laugh a lot.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Yeah, you'd slow down *real* fast when you plow into the car in front of you while you're staring.
1. Raise prices
2. Give discounts to people willing to sell out their freedoms
3. ????
4. PROFIT!
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Bullshit. The speed limits havn't changed since the 50s, cars have.
How about human reaction times?
If the pilot proves that the technology works they should make these devices totally optional, but not actually have them govern the speed at all. Instead they should reward drivers for not exceeding the speed limit. So if you don't exceed the speed limit for the month you get your £8/day and if you do you get zip... or maybe make the payout on a weekly/daily basis. Anyways, with this option more people would sign up and maybe you'd end up having a greater net effect on speeding.
That's fine just as long as you stay the hell out of the left lane.
This post is absolutely NOT FUNNY! It's the truth. If you're going the speed limit you have absolutely no business in the left lane on a U.S. highway. The left lane is for passing... some of us choose to be in a constant state of passing. If someone is driving faster then you and is coming up from behind get out of their way as soon as you can safely. Even if you're doing 85 in a 70 and someone is coming up doing 100 GET OUT OF THE WAY... don't be a self-righteous prick and try to govern the road. In less civilized times you could be justifiably shot or run off the road for this type of behavior.
I have seen that GPS indicated speed is different than the speedometer (speedo reads high). So if folks actually let the gps control it...they will drive faster.
The horror.
It's not so much the speed people drive at it's the armored tanks that those Mouth Breathers as you rightly call them drive. I used to drive a nice Alfa, but when some lack-wit yuppie tried merge his POS Hummer into a lane I was in without looking. Why hasn't Detroit come up with a car that bounces when you hit it? We got air bags everywhere, if the car goes ballistic instead of crumpling accidents would be a lot easy to deal with.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
When you notice that hazard, you maybe have a fraction of a second to decide that speeding up is the only away to avoid it. The time required to remember how to override the system may exceed that fraction.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
You are assuming that
a) it's a one-lane road
b) there are no passing zones
c) there are no pull-offs where people
I understand your point, but it's quite possible to drive safely and still obey the speed limit most or all of the time--and finding ways to let the rest of traffic move past you is far safer than allowing people behind you to force you to drive faster than you/your car is comfortable going.
You have just had an accident. Seven points have been temporarily removed... You have one point left on your license. Have a good day.
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I don't think anyone expects civilian GPS to be used to measure speed. It's pretty clear that the purpose of the GPS in this system is to consult a database that shows what the speed limit is based on the longitude and latitude. The major technical hurdle would seem to be the case where two or more roads with different speed limits intersect within the margin of error; I would hope that the database showed the highest speed limit of those possible.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"Discounts" for having this in place are a *very* slippery slope. How long before your insurance is 10 times the "discount amount"?
...I drive a Red Barchetta.
There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous"
There's never an age where a child suddenly becomes an adult either... does that mean we should eliminate statutory rape laws, let 10-year-olds drive, and let cigarrette companies sell to grade-schoolers?
Laws are about reasonable compromise; there are always cases where the line seems wrong, but overall you just have to pick a reasonably good place. Likewise, something doesn't have to be the "be-all end-all of road safety" to regulate it. That's why we havea variety of traffic laws.
In case you have to get you or someone to a hospital fast, or you are being chased by a stalker or a carload of gangbangers.
'twas a joke, good sir.
So we should all drive 30km/h (18mph!) any time there's a remote chance of someone being in the road? Seriously, you must be from Europe, where the EU has brought us the EURO-NCAP crash test for pedestrian safety. As Jeremey Clarkson on Top Gear put it, "There is an order for the people I care about in this world. Number one are my children in the back seat. Number two is ME. Somewhere, towards the bottom, is the bloke stumbling out of the pub into the middle of the road in front of me."
Nowadays I see signs slapped up all over my neighborhood- "we love our children, GO SLOW", "CHILDREN PLAY ZONE"(I kid you not), and so on. If they love their kids, why can't they a)supervise them when they're outside and b)pound it into their heads that ROADS AND CARS ARE DANGEROUS? Nevermind that in a state of half a million people, the only two kids to be killed in recent memory were both cases where parents backed over their kids(in #1, kids were playing/hiding in a pile of leaves; in another, the kid made a bee-line for the garage and ran behind the father's car right as he started to back up; both were truly tragic).
You probably survive if you have a frontal collision at 65-70km/h in a modern car. You will probaly die in the same collision if you go 150km/h.
70km/hr is 40-ish MPH. 150km/h is about 91mph. It should not be shocking that survivability at almost 26 MPH over the legal highway speed limit(in the US) is not so great as 20MPH BELOW. You've doubled the speed in both cases- no shit, there's going to be a difference. Stating "you're more likely to die at a higher speed" doesn't mean speeding is the primary cause of death in motor vehicle collisions, much less that speeding should be our #1 priority in traffic safety- which it pretty much is, because it earns revenue for police departments which are badly underfunded, especially since they've been forced to train/buy equipment to 'deal with terrorism'.
The problem is that anything over 5-10% is enforced like the world is going to end, and god help you if you're over 15-20%. You can get into a fist fight and get fined less than you will for doing 75 in a 65 zone- barely 5% over the 10% legal tolerance on speedometers.
Please help metamoderate.
If everyone drove Dodge Vipers then, the speed limit could increase to 150 mph in most places?
It's not the technology of the vehicle that should determine the speed limit. It's the ability of most drivers. (Of course, if this were really true, then the speed limit should be about 10 mph slower.)
Just because cars have gotten better, doesn't mean speed limits should be higher.
Yes, they did, in 2003. I wasn't aware of the report you cited- which came out about 3-4 days ago (June 30th, 2005 to be exact).
The 2003 stats happened to fall during (I believe) a skyrocketing increase in the number of speed cameras, speeding tickets, and increased fines/penalties.
Oh- and the UK points system was recently overhauled so that it costs you more per offense, and takes more points before you loose your license. So basically, the UK government gets to collect more money off speeders before yanking their license. Cute, eh? Yeah, traffic safety is -their- #1 priority.
Please help metamoderate.
The crazies out here actually do get something right once in a while. California has a "basic speed law": go as fast as the flow of traffic, weather permitting. Go slower, you get a ticket. Go substantially faster, get a ticket. Speed limits on highways are here (and should be elsewhere) just guidelines. They only really matter in city and residential areas.
The one major problem with this that I see is that it actively slows you down. What happens if I need to go faster due to road conditions? What if going slower is actually less safe? What if I'm passing an 18-wheeler in the left lane, and suddenly he starts moving into my lane? With this system I don't have the option of accelerating to the speed I need to avoid the collision. Granted, the article did say that there's a hazard button on it. But frankly, if I'm in that kind of situation, I don't want to think about 20 different buttons to press. I just want to step on the accelerator and go 70 mph instead of 60 mph.
If you really want to stop speeding, increase the speed limit to say 90 mph on major highways, maybe 70 or 80 on minor ones. Basically, as fast as any reasonable person would attempt to travel on those roads. Personally, I wouldn't go 90 mph on any road unless it was basically straight and I had a good car. And I wouldn't break the 90 mph speed limit. Then, instead of having the police hide out with their radar guns, get them to find the people who are interfering with traffic and making problems.
Every time I see a police car, I hit the breaks automatically. Even if I'm going the speed limit. It's just a natural reaction now. That causes the car behind me to hit the breaks, and every car behind that one. This creates a hazard. If I didn't have to worry about the police, and the police stopped people who drive aggressively instead of people who stay in one lane and just go 70 instead of 60, you wouldn't have this kind of situation anymore. Also, they'd need to stop the idiots who go slower in the left lane than those the right lane is moving. But in general, instead of causing accidents they'd prevent them.
With regards to the argument made by those who appose this idea - that foolish drivers will abuse this trust - that's what the police are there for. Instead of stopping people who are just driving at their comfortable speed, they can be stopping idiots who aren't paying attention to the road or don't know how to drive well.
Sorry thanks for playing. 85 in a 70 isn't too unreasonable, but if I'm doing 85 in a 70 and you roll up on me doing 100??? You'd better be able to drop that speed fast because YOU are at 100 are a clear and present threat to everyone around you, and I will drop to the limit in front of you. 30mph over the limit? Turn in your license, asshat.
I don't know if that is an official term (probably not) but it's what I call it. Say you are stopped at a redlight, you and a line of cars. Light turns green. You can see the light change, but you can't go yet, you have to WAIT for the person in front of you to get going, and on up the line. it's nutz! People are looking at the back of the car in front of them, waiting for that car to move. You can see it happen, lead car gets going, then the next, then the next, etc., ie, the centipede effect. The result is a huge waste of time at a limited green interval just getting back up to speed, whereas if everyone looked at the light and just went, it would allow faster and more coordinated acceleration and smoother traffic flow. Drivers education would help here obviously, but it isn't taught like that.
Perhaps something like these speed governors, but timed with lights via wifi or something like that. Away from the lights you have normal throttle control, near the lights the speed sensors coordinate stopping and starting, so the line of cars could be smoother during the frustrating transition periods.
...get to the hospital quickly, this will keep me from doing so. Where I live, it is over 10 minutes faster if I jump in the car and drive off to the hospital then it is for the ambulence to respond. Or how about places like Camden, NJ, which was ranked the most dangerous city in the USA? Cops don't even stop at the stop signs and stop lights there. Heck, they don't even pull you over for blowing thru the red light either, cause you are more likely to be mugged, robbed or killed stopping at the light then you are at getting into a car accident!
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
It turns out that most older cars (and trucks) with speed limiters did nasty things to the engine or environment once you get slightly past the limit. Combine that with drivers driving with their foot all the way down and the car will be running at limit most of the time which means the limiter will kick in and out constantly.
Some people seem to think that speed limits don't hold in the left lane ... or for *them* for that matter. I recognise the agressive mentality of the compulsive left-laners already. Grow up guys!
I can see how automatic speed governors would be useful in such cases.
... but I said nothing, because I was not a speeder.
they should put a "the speed limit in the left lane is 70MPH" sign up then.
You know in Texas it is illegal to be passed in the left lane. Just one of the many things that makes me proud to be a Texan. Also, speed doesn't kill, collisions do. Please, for everyone's safety stay the hell out of the left lane while you are not passing other cars. Save your smug self-rightous attitude for slashdot.
The carrot is that having the GPS speed limiter will reduce the (recently raised) congestion charge in London. The stick is that the UK government is hell bent on introducing pay-per-mile road travel. Introducing this technology under the guise of maintaining proper speed limits allows the charging system to be implemented by default simply by adding a mobile phone to the black box. If everyone had a black box and kept to the speed limit, then speed cameras would become irrelevant - therefore no revenue - therefore a new revenue has to be found - therefore pricing roads per mile.
1) GPS in built up cities is a pain and get echoes from high buildings in built up area's
:>
2) testing on a skoda a car most claim that if it did break a speed limit would actualy frame the ticket as would increase said cars value
3) GPS is easily foooled and this will give motivation for cheap devices to enable this.
4) If I could find a spot in central London or major city in England were it was possible to stand a chance in breaking the speed limit (ie no traffic jams) I'd be lucky let alone doing it.
5) Why does the UK have so much faith in GPS when they hel[p back EUROPES own solution
6) Mobile phone base station signals offer greater accracy for trianelating postition than GPS given density in the UK and so much more reliable in bult up area's were they have to work for realtime communuications.
7) Its not a law so will be avoided by those it would help stop and when it become law it will be cercumnavigated by those that will be likely to abuse the speed limits anyhow.
8) Public transport in the UK is overloaded in alot of area's and would be best appraoch to solving the main issue instead of a side effect (ie more cars than are needed).
9) This may prove unsafe as one false echo and your car things its doing 90MPH in 30mph zone when actualy doing 27mph and you stop sharply due without warning. Needs to be carefully thought out.
10) there are more than enough camera's and speed camaera's in the UK to have one trained on every person let alone vechile so again does this mean we have bad direvers or bad software in place atm. Fix the problem directly dont dust around it I say with some let try this technology and waste more money on quango's etc etc.
The "problem" with the 18-wheeler sounds more like an excuse than a reason. How often does that occur? So often that the speed limit should be abolished?
And basically the second "problem" you sketch is *you*, the driver, behaving irregularly when confronted with a police car or a speed trap. If you simply made it a habit to keep to the spped limit you wouldn't ever need to perform the antics you describe.
The problem with traffic is that there are as many "experts" as there are drivers. Funny how every citizen with a car under his bum seems to know more about traffic management than policemen who have patrolled the roads for the past 10 years.
First off I've driven in Texas and most of you would get killed on the east coast. Secondly, you assume a great many things. In many states it is illegal to PASS on the right, not BE passed on the right. Plus a lot of states have a fun new "aggressive driving" citation, defined as 3 moving violations in one incident, so exceeding the speed limit while passing on the right and changing lanes without signaling can earn you a hefty fine and many points on your license in several places. And who said I was in the left lane, I've had plenty of idiots fly up on me while I'm over the limit in the center lane. Furthermore, while you correctly state that speed doesn't kill, you fail to note that DIFFERENCES in speed cause collisions, and if the rate of traffic is about 85 and you are doing 100, you present the risk by not following the flow of traffic.
What I would love is to have speed signs that also have wireless capabilities that update your car's system that the speed limit is say "55". Then if you exceed 55 in your car, the car reminds you that you are speeding. When you pass a sign where the speed increases or decreases, you can also get reminded as well. The speedometer could light up the acceptable speed ranges that you could travel at and beep to notify you when the speed is too high. Sort of along the same lines as when your seatbelt is not on or your headlights are still on.
Yes it might be a bit annoying, but it is better than getting speed camera fines.
A bit of technology to pass the time away while we wait for cars that can drive themselves.
This kind of system is in direct opposition to the nature of a free society, and cannot be accepted.
The fact that people are not demonstrating all over the country is enough to turn my hair white.
Just out of curiosity...would I be able to obtain one of these units for my motorcycle? And if I could would the manual overides still work for me? (No one seems to see bikes on the highway) I would love to see how they would implement this given the space limitations...
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
The road is a dangerous two lane artery that is made more dangerous by arbitrarily lowering the speed limit on it. If you ever try driving that road at 55, you'll find yourself leading a parade of very impatient people who take each and every opportunity to pass you. And in the little dips in the road just beyond those opportunities you'll find Highway Patrol cars outfitted with Radar.
A few years back Caltrans did a speed survey on Hwy 46 and found that more than 80% of traffic was traveling faster than 60 MPH. Ordinarily, that information would cause Caltrans to raise the speed limit to accomodate the traffic. But the county, knowing that their traffic revenue would drop, objected. So the speed limit remains arbitrarily low.
I love people who call me self-rightous for wanting to defend myself from the idiots I have to share the highway with, considering I will put in about 25k miles per year highway driving, and their SUVs never leave pavement. Polite behavior while driving is a good thing but still remember that if you are on a 3 lane highway and the right and center lanes are crowded the safest place for your vehicle is the unoccupied left lane. Its just logical. And if you want to insist that no one be there unless passing because it is against the law, then I insist that you also obey the law and not exceed the speed limit for the very same reason. Can't just pick what rules you want to obey.
You'd better be able to drop that speed fast because YOU are at 100 are a clear and present threat to everyone around you, and I will drop to the limit in front of you.
Did I read that right? Did you just threaten to get in front of someone going 100mph and drop to 70? If so, please don't do that, especially in Texas.
Also, where did you drive in Texas? I have lived in Houston (growing up) and Dallas(now) and I can tell you that Dallas drivers are nothing like houston drivers. If you can make it through the insane Nascaresque race that is Houston's freeway system, it would be difficult for someone to even intentionally cause you to crash.
As for not following the flow of traffic and difference of speed etc, that was the whole point of my post. Do not cause cars in the left lane to slow down for you. If you are not passing, stay out of the left lane. If you are not in the same lane the speed difference is irrelivent. Obviously it is the responsibilty of everyone on the road to avoid collisions, but if you stay out of the left lane and avoid "Drop to 70 in front of you" shenanigans you can do your part to make the roads that much safer.
And yes, in Texas it is illegal to be passed in the left lane, so don't let it happen.
If you consider the fact that the current generation of drivers seems to think that the ownership of a expensive sports car and not to mention the people who drive too fast AND the fact that oil is running out and India and China are going to really start using a lot more AND the fact that the Bushies in washington think that we don't need to get more efficient vehicles and that George senior and company effectivelly nuked any chance of making increasing the amount of fuel efficient cars on the road in the 80's and 90's, what else do you expect and resoanble ways to stop people from seeding and wasting gas....after all, the Iraq war is all about the control of oil etc.
There is no way the US will ever buy into this in a big way. The government of almost every suburb in the whole country relies heavily on speeding fines. If a box prevents people from speeding, they'll have to raise taxes. Now the money will come from non-speeders as well as speeders. Ironic, huh?
Also, someone mentioned above that roads here have reasonable speed limits posted. Nope. In my younger and stupider days, we used to go out on our motorcycles looking for an adrenaline rush. Our back of the hand speed guide was 2.5 to 3 times the posted limit. That would keep you focused on the road and out of the ditch. I don't recommend this to anyone, but it shows something interesting. At 9 times the kinetic energy dictated by the speed limit, we made all the corners and stops. That means the posted limits keeps a well-maintained vehicle at about 10% of it's maximum capability. Three times the limit is way too high to keep travel safe, but the posted limit is VERY conservative most places.
Also, speed is a secondary factor in most accidents. Most accidents happen at intersections where at least one of the cars should be stopped!!! If a driver doesn't make a mistake, cars don't hit each other. If the cars don't hit, speed is irrelevant. We spend millions of man hours trying to get drivers to slow down, but almost nothing is done to actually prevent accidents. Want proof -- how come in order to keep your license for life, you only have to prove you can drive well once? How hard would it be to make people take road tests every ten years? 99% of the bad drivers would either have to take lessons or stop driving. Good drivers would simply need to miss a half day of work every decade to take the stupid easy test.
In other words, Arnie says get the hell out of the left lane if you're driving too slow.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Well after reading TFA I was PISSED!
:) ))...
I was going to write something here about our diminishing freedoms about how police are targeting speeding as been the worst offence possible on the road when in fact its just good revenue raising...
Then I relised they aren't reporting the gps stats (they may be recording this data but ill assume FTSOTA that they aren't) they aren't automatically fining you for speeding...
Its basically just intelligent cruise control...
Keeping that in mind this technology will cause crashes and more problems rather than less...
But don't take my word for it... just lookup how much cruise control increases the chance of having and accident...
On top of that add the fact that when you need to accelerate in an emergency for some reason very few people are going to be able to find and press some button in order to turn it off to be able to accelerate our of danger...
generally cruise control devices don't engage brakes when you are in excess of the set speed because of the inherent dangers with this (the car has no way of telling if braking at the time is a bad thing e.g. black ice...( No.. not the firewall
But anyway enough of my rant while I am of the opinion this may reduce people speeding by looking at studies done it will defiantly increase the number of accidents (and really what's worse?)
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
It was Democratic lawmakers that imposed the 55 MPH federal speed limit. (in 1974)
It was Republican lawmakers that eliminated all federal speed limits. (in 1995)
Though to be fair, Democrats did at least increase speed limits to 65 MPH in some areas. (in 1987)
Personally, I wish we could get people to go at 55 MPH, since the fuel savings would be tremendous. But realistically, no law you could pass would do it.
Similarly, the only way folks in the US will move en masse to more fuel efficient vehicles will be when fuel prices increase dramatically. ($5/gallon and up)
Got a couple beers and a little time on my hands. I think it may be time for a little line by line rebuttle.
I love people who call me self-rightous for wanting to defend myself from the idiots I have to share the highway with, considering I will put in about 25k miles per year highway driving, and their SUVs never leave pavement.
and from an earlier post
You'd better be able to drop that speed fast because YOU are at 100 are a clear and present threat to everyone around you, and I will drop to the limit in front of you.
You just threatened to inturrupt the flow of traffic in the left lane in a dangerous and irresponsible manner to change their driving habbits. If you do it, you are and asshat and a danger to those around your. If you don't then you are just another self rightous prick on slashdot threatening to do harm to others but never following through.
Polite behavior while driving is a good thing but still remember that if you are on a 3 lane highway and the right and center lanes are crowded the safest place for your vehicle is the unoccupied left lane.
In such a situation, wouldn't you be passing people in the other two lanes? Also, the left lane rule is most applicable to two lane road outside of the cities. Inside most cities there are too many clowns that just don't know the rules.
And if you want to insist that no one be there unless passing because it is against the law, then I insist that you also obey the law and not exceed the speed limit for the very same reason. Can't just pick what rules you want to obey.
I consider safety to be far above the law in terms of importance. It is unsafe to get in the left lane to piss off a speeder, no matter how lawful it is. Just don't do it.
You misunderstand me completely. Most highways I travel are too small for the amount of traffic they carry as it is, so the concept of having an entire lane free for passing is idiotic when both or all other lanes are crowded, it simply doesn't happen. There really is no passing lane. Traffic spreads out evenly for the most part. But there are still these idiots who've seen "Fast and the Furious" too many times or who seem to think that because their SUV is twice the cost of your vehicle that they can fly like a bat out of hell. Whats worse is they aren't limited to the left lane, they are all over the road and very dangerous. Doesn't matter what lane you're in eventually they come flying up all over your ass and there is simply nothing you can do but try to get them to slow down, especially since they are only about one car length behind you and doing more than 65. These people are gonna kill someone on day, and yeah I will slow down in front of them, but I'm extremely careful about it, since I don't need any accidents myself. But you can't let them to force you to speed up and close the safe distance between you and the car in front of you.
No, no.
The headline should be:
Britain to Pilot GPS Speed Guv'nor
Eh, wot? Tip, tip!
What does one have to do with the other?
Ah, I see you're not thinking like a corrupt politician! That's just it; the two have nothing to do with one another. So a less than thoughtful person will think, "You can't speed in congested traffic! I'll install one of these and laugh all the way to the bank." Then the government has them under their thumb all the other times they might want to speed.
Hell, I'd wager that these things would increase congestion (and road rage) if they were in widespread use. Since all traffic is limited to a certain speed, rubber-necking bottlenecks aren't going to clear up as quickly, and so the blockage that occurs in waves is likely going to move much, much slower. How would you like to be stuck behind two people going side by side without any hope of getting past them?
Got a couple beers and a little time on my hands.
Excellent, I could join you there.
You just threatened to inturrupt the flow of traffic in the left lane in a dangerous and irresponsible manner to change their driving habbits. If you do it, you are and asshat and a danger to those around your. If you don't then you are just another self rightous prick on slashdot threatening to do harm to others but never following through.
Probably not the best way to put what I said, but I find I difficult to explain to a lot of you folks in the more spacious parts of the country that in many places the concept of a passing lane is moot since there is more traffic than they are meant to handle, and those who don't understand that are going nuts because they can't have their private speeding lane because the rest of us need it to spread out.
In such a situation, wouldn't you be passing people in the other two lanes? Also, the left lane rule is most applicable to two lane road outside of the cities. Inside most cities there are too many clowns that just don't know the rules.
Not necessarily, or perhaps very gradually, with the pace of traffic. And I agree with the cities, drive the DC beltway once or twice, you'll think Houston is a cakewalk.
I consider safety to be far above the law in terms of importance.
Agreed whole heartedly.
It is unsafe to get in the left lane to piss off a speeder, no matter how lawful it is. Just don't do it.
I will agree with you there, BUT I must reiterate that my statement was made based on me being in the lane to begin with, no matter which on, when someone flys up on me. Not me ACTIVELY changing lanes to block someone.
Lovely driving out in Texas tho btw, I'll say that, all so very spread out.
My GPS yesterday reported I was in Algeria; wrong continent.
Today it reported that I was 0.21 miles from target, oops, 2.0 miles from target, oops, 0.19 miles from target. I hope it's got a low-pass filter so that it doesn't kill the engine during those 6000MPH Kalman Filter hiccups.
bill
I can't wait until traffic comes to a screeching halt when somebody sets up a rogue transmitter that fakes GPS signals...
Oh yeah I've driven thru Houston, much be where all the easterners settled based on the traffic.
I didn' say I agreed with speed limits per se. But no where can I find in my state's vehicle code that says that people in the left lane can go as fast as they want.
These people are gonna kill someone on day, and yeah I will slow down in front of them, but I'm extremely careful about it, since I don't need any accidents myself. But you can't let them to force you to speed up and close the safe distance between you and the car in front of you.
I completely agree. I guess you weren't that jerk that cut in front of me while I was doing 90 in the passing lane between Houston and Dallas.
While working as a pizza delivery person. More pizzas delivered a night and the happier the customer is when they receive a steaming hot pizza 20 minutes after thier phone order means more money in my pocket. I ended up getting an 80 in a 40 zone = $440 ticket and 6 license points! end of that job. I also found that it is impossible for me to be a 3rd shift grocery store for 7 bucks an hour without eating off the shelves *for free* I frequently went to work broke and couldn't pay anyways. That job is out now too. both of these jobs I held because its so damn difficult to work in computers (where I was happy for 10 years doing it) anymore!
That $178 dollar ticket is not the trouble. The trouble begins when your insurance company finds out about your speeding ticket and automatically raises your insurance rates on your next renewal. Even one speeding ticket will increase your insurance rate for the next 3-4 years. Get a second speeding ticket and it will bump it up even more. Get a third ticket and most companies will drop you like a hot tomalley. Some companies will drop you on the first ticket!
Another thing, have an accident at 110mph in a German made car such as an Audi or BMW that includes all the latest safety features and you are still probably going to die. The airbags, seat belts and crumple zone impact absorption won't save you at those speeds. Plus, you will probably hit other cars and potentially kill or injure others!
The State Trooper did you a favor and saved himself some extra paper work when he clocked you at 110mph! He would have had to impound your car and arrest you then file hours of paperwork and go to court later on. Perhaps you were on a straight flat road with little to no traffic around you. If he saw you weaving around cars at that speed he probably would have taken you down and threw the book at you.
Ya, Mod me down, too.
Pardon me for saying so, but who are the asshats that moderated this paranoid bullshit up? It's off topic, offers no insight, and simply plays to the tin-foil hat tendencies of the Slashdot crowd that have led to an unfair stereotype of Slashdotters as a bunch of paranoid lunatic. At least I thought it was unfair until I saw this paranoid crap modded +5.
The Nazis systematically murdered 6 million jews and millions of others. They killed millions more in a war they started. Please explain to me, and make sure you use small words so that I can understand, how "Nazi police state" is the appropriate comparison to some dumb-fuck's idea to monitor & control car speeds.
Honestly, anyone who modded this crap up should lose their mod points for life. Posting AC for obvious reasons.
And if you want to insist that no one be there unless passing because it is against the law, then I insist that you also obey the law and not exceed the speed limit for the very same reason. Can't just pick what rules you want to obey.
Isn't that precisely what you're doing, though?
Very interesting post. If I had mod points I would mod this interesting.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
1:15 from a gas station by the strip to my place in San Clemente.
This in a stock Honda Civic DX. I was hitting the speed limiter at 115 the whole way.
I've got too much sense to do something like that again (assuming current speed laws).
Here recently, as a protest, truckers drove around our 'loop' at the posted speed one afternoon.
I hear the backup was several miles..
I really dont belive this is 'to reduce congestion'. Its more like 'get them use to even more intrusion into their lives'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They cannot place speed cameras on the downward slope of hills in Australia.
Doesn't stop the pricks putting them on the uphill slope.. on hills, for example, 1 KM long at 30 degrees. *sigh*
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I have a GPS in my car- it's the navi system that came with the car, so maybe it's far from the best system on the market, but it's pretty darn good.
In any case, it's far from perfect- especially when you go into a downtown core. Often streets going in anything but a grid (ie: a street that crosses diagnally, etc) can occasionally confuse it for a second, or it will put me on the wrong street if they are really close. It always corrects itself, but I think on anything but a freeway it's not optimal.
But lets think of this-
1. The only people that would get it are the ones who drive MONEY GRAB. You'll pay the same either way, so why even bother. They wouldn't do it if it would mean less money in the city's pocket at the end of the day.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
When you shift from Drive down to 2nd, and then 1st, what's below 1st? Nothing. Certainly not Reverse. Besides, there's no way they'll try to implement a system that will shift gears automatically. It would be way too difficult and expensive to adapt it to all different models of vehicles. I'm sure it's only capable of limiting throttle, either through the computer or with a mechanical device at the carbuerator/throttle body.
I do share your concern about the system's accuracy. Actually, I think the whole plan is way too intrusive. We've managed to make it this far without all dying in car crashes, the tradeoff is just not worth it.
There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous".
A small difference in speed makes a large difference between stopping and not stopping in time.
POKE 36879,8
I'd take one of these in a minute. It's a genieus idea.. sort of a smart cruise control. My preference would be for it to allow 5-10 over for a short burst like passing or avoiding an accident...but throttle you back after half a minute. combine with front and rear sensors to watch the cars ahead and behind, along with some "flocking" software and you could really increase saftey on the roads.
The system would work equally well or better if RFID devices were imbeded in the road and told the device in the car what the speed limit on the road was. Then there would be no need for the car's instruments to have a map of speed limits on every road in the country, data that would need constant updating. RFIDs could also give the highway location, the number of the next exit, and signal exits with gas or food. Temporary RFIDs could tell people to slow down for road work or warn of dangerous curves ahead. The list goes on. And RFID would work in mountain valleys and tunnels where GPS doesn't.
Come to think of it, why don't I patent the RFID highway signaling idea? It's far better than a lot of ideas that are getting patented. And now if anyone else tries to patent the idea, this posting constitutes "prior art."
--Mike Perry, Seattle, Untangling Tolkien
You have no concept of freedom. Your "social contract" means you dictate to others. I have a good friend like you, however I do not respect him. "Social Contract" practitionewrs usually live pretty well. They want other people's freedoms as a price to pay for their own psychological comfort. Personally I think it is perfectly safe to drive 90 or 100 mph in a new car on a clear day on the highway when there is little traffic. Yes in the USA, local police sit out and hunt human beings to get money from them. I have recevied a speeding ticket for driving on the intersate at a speed that was on the left of center point on the speedometer of my four cylinder Camry. And it cost me $200. and you support this. I suggest I am the free American and you are a collectivist that will run the USA into the ground. ~And~ I have not ever, not once had a "real" car accident. I've certainly never had an accident on the highway, and believe me, I have logged the miles for twenty years. So do me one favor, get the STATE out of my life, out of my house, out of my car and I will enjoy the raod like a capable real American.
Here in Colorado any tax increase has to be OKed by the voters. That means we have to come up with more creative methods of bringing in more revenue. Speeding tickets comprise a huge chunk of that extra revenue that keeps our state running. Eliminate that and the government of the state of Colorado would run out of money overnight!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Because "Peak Oil" is only terribly serious if you fail to realize that energy is perhaps the most fungible commodity there is. As the suplies run down the cost will run up, and this will eventually make one or more of the (presently marginal) alternatives cost effective. As they start taking up more of the demand the economies of scale will drive their price down and at the same time their growing profitability will atract more money for research on ways to improve them.
The big risk isn't running out of oil. It seeing the posibility of running out of oil as a boogyman big enough (and frightening enough) to justify killing large numbers of people over control of the last little bits before the--oh wait, I forgot. Oil wasn't the reason. It was weapons of mass distruction. Or spreading democracy. Or something like that. But my main point stands.
Running out of common sense, human kindness, and the willingness to see problems as something to solve rather than a reason to lash out and kill strangers are all much more pressing dangers than running out of oil.
--MarkusQ
No, you misrepresented yourself completely.
Most highways I travel are too small for the amount of traffic they carry as it is, so the concept of having an entire lane free for passing is idiotic when both or all other lanes are crowded, it simply doesn't happen. There really is no passing lane. Traffic spreads out evenly for the most part. But there are still these idiots who've seen "Fast and the Furious" too many times or who seem to think that because their SUV is twice the cost of your vehicle that they can fly like a bat out of hell. Whats worse is they aren't limited to the left lane, they are all over the road and very dangerous.
What I've noticed is that driving conditions seem to vary state to state. Illinois and Indiana are similar. People are generally well-behaved, and pass on the left and get back right. Unless you're near Chicago, St. Louis or Indy, there's no cost to being a good, polite driver, so people by and large are. In Ohio, there's too much traffic for the roads, so people don't get right, becaue you might get stuck there as many cars pass. In Missouri, people are just shitty drivers. Even semis linger in the passing lane in MO.
Doesn't matter what lane you're in eventually they come flying up all over your ass and there is simply nothing you can do but try to get them to slow down, especially since they are only about one car length behind you and doing more than 65.
Now this is just dumb. You endanger yourself and others just to teach the dicks a lesson. Congratulations, you're a self-righteous dumbass. I don't worry about getting out of the way of dicks like this too much, but fucking up traffic flow just to piss these guys off is inexcusable.
You're exactly right. The speed at which you are safe is entirely connected to your driving ability, your car's performance and the situation.
A week long course in car control - controlling skids, controlled acceleration, obstacle avoidance, maximum braking, as well as experience when the car is loaded, when it has bad tires etc. would completely transform most people's ability. Most people never experience this stuff until they're confronted with a dangerous situation which inevitably becomes a bad crash. When you've got people driving around 4000 pound SUVs, I think this kind of thing should be mandatory. Most people have no idea of what their car can do or how dangerous it is to others. Instead of training drivers up front, the government lazily imposes speed and these GPS bullshit restrictions to debase all of society. Hopefully someone can tell us about a few countries where they care about good driving and reward you with lighter speed limits and less policing.
So in emergencies, how do you deactive the box? Lets suppose your spouse is having a heart attack and you need to speed to the hospital, or any one of a number of complete valid reasons for exceeding posted speed 'limits'?
I suggest all of England boycott the devices and make the project a bloody failure. Don't trade your free will for a discount or you'll end up like us in the US.
When you're driving at speed, you maintain distance X from the car ahead. And, when you end up at the end of a line of cars at a stoplight, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you close to within X/20 of the car ahead. Once the light turns green, the safety margin you and everyone else sucked up to avoid stopping a few seconds sooner than you actually did takes everyone a few seconds apiece to reestablish.
For the "everyone step on it now" plan to work, everyone needs to either 1) slow down and stop the moment they see a red light waaaaaay off in the distance, or 2) the USDOT needs to deploy that autopilot system they've been testing that would make it possible for everyone to tailgate at 100 mph. I just don't want to be in that system when it goes south, see "The Gold Coast" for a sample of the result.
Back on topic, a possible near-term result of the London test will be more accidents. During periods when traffic permits, many drivers will be moving at the governed speed limit. When a situation evolves when someone needs to make a quick brake/accelerate/maneuver decision, the quickest reaction is to step on it, which won't respond. It will take drivers a while to internalize this. In the meantime, somebody's gonna get screwed.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Folks- speed doesn't kill, and this is something few people (especially the "won't someone please think of the children" types) fail to understand.
But, you've got to admit, it's bloody hard to get killed by a stationary car.
(Carbon monoxide poisoning etc. aside)
It's like the old Eddie Izzard line,
And the National Rifle Association says that, "Guns don't kill people, people do," but I think the gun helps, you know? I think it helps. I just think just standing there going, "Bang!" That's not going to kill too many people, is it? You'd have to be really dodgy on the heart to have that.
I work with GPS on a daily basis. There is a huge range in GPS units. some are very accurate, some are not. I wouldn't worry to much about Big Brother or them putting weird limits on your car via GPS.
GPS has a large error rate in anything but military grade GPS. All GPS units have what is called a "settling time" this is a period when the GPS unit must be absolutely still before it will get an accurate reading. Thats why if you have one of those onboard driving systems it will often make mistakes thinking you turned down some road even when you didn't. So basically, when your driving down the road it would only be a very very basic guess at your speed because of all the errors and changing conditions on the road.
Obviously, the better ones have less issues, but who seriously thinks that people are going to spend several hundreds of dollars for a GPS that actually can even remotely do all that would be required...
not to mention that this only gets worse when your int he city! GPS units get obstructed very often even through light trees, and short buildings!
The ONLY way any of this crack pipe dream will work is if it was combined with other devices in the car. Progressive Auto Insurance has a device they can put in the car to log how fast you're traveling at, combining that device with GPS would be the only way I could see this even remotely as being possible and only in areas where all the speed limits are identical (because of the GPS errors at speed will result in the computer often thinking you're driving down some other street then the one your on...).
Not that I would ever allow ANY device of this sort in my car, shit I've had more near accidents when traveling at the speed limit then I ever had traveling at high speeds.
Pete/Petri "damn, my chainsaw is clogged with 1's and 0's again." --clyde
Vehicle speed is like ping times. Road capacity (vehicles per hour) is like network capacity (mbps). When a site gets slashdotted, ping times go way up. During rush hour, it takes forever to drive anywhere. Same idea, basically.
As for effect of speed or speed limits on road capacity: if you want to download your mp3s faster, you don't look for an isp with better ping times. You get a higher capacity connection. Similarly, if you want to get more cars into the city per hour, you don't raise the speed limit. You add more lanes to the highway.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
In the UK neither the fine nor the insurance rise are the major concern - it's the fact you get 3 points on your license. 12 points means a driving ban. If you've held your license for under 2 years and clock up 6 points then you lose your license.
That is why over here you see so many skid marks before the (abundant) speed cameras. Not from those braking to lower their speed prior to entering the camera markings, but from those who are too busy with their eyes on their speedo to notice the guy in front's braking hard. It's commonplace for people to not be 100% sure what the speed limit is, so they'll brake to 25mph just to be sure - even in a 60mph area.
I hate to think how many accidents have actually been caused by speed cameras over here but I know I'll never find out - if you believe the government's recent BS then the only possible cause of road accidents is those dangerous child-killing criminals who do 41 in a 40... That's why they're taking all the police officers off the roads and replacing them with speed cameras. Who cares about dangerous drivers as long as they're under the speed limit eh? *sigh*
Even if you're doing 85 in a 70 and someone is coming up doing 100 GET OUT OF THE WAY... don't be a self-righteous prick and try to govern the road.
Of course the person behind you has every right to be a self-righteous prick if you don't get out of the way by sticking 2 inches behind your bumper, switching their beams to high (if at night), and finally passing you on the right and cutting back in front of you without using their blinker when they get the chance. Oh, and some then proceed to slam on their breaks in front of you.
Right?
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
I've never been much of a civil libertarian, I must admit (usually because in this part of the world, civil libertarians are generally defending the indefensible, promoting rights for criminals at the expense of their victims and so on), but this sort of thing does worry the hell out of me - simply because I enjoy driving, and it seems like just about everything is being done to suck the fun out of it. (Not that speeding in and of itself is particularly fun - 70 in a 60 zone doesn't hold a lot of thrills although say, 140 on a deserted backroad does).
There are times, as others have said, where it's actually necessary to exceed the speed limit to get yourself out of a sticky situation. Generally these occasions are because of misjudgements - either yours, or somebody elses. Saying that you shouldn't misjudge things when driving is easy, but then, nobody intentionally misjudges anything - that's why they're misjudgements.
A better solution could be to cut you off at say 15 or 20km/h over the speed limit, to give you that safety margin, and combine this with a process of examining all speed limits and looking for opportunities to increase them where appropriate (as opposed to just dropping them all the time, which is what seems to happen here in Australia).
I agree with most of what you propose, especially with speed limits based on driving ability. This would give a huge incentive to bad drivers to learn to drive better as they would be allowed to do their driving and get places faster.
I don't agree with the coming back every few years for a test because this could just turn into a big money grab too. If people get the hands on training in the beginning I think the retention will be pretty good. Once you learn how to control a car in a drift around a corner you aren't likely to forget that skill, for example.
Great job jeopardising everyone around you. Now if he's that ass driving the 6 ton SUV you have a good chance that you just killed two or three people. I'll agree that doing 100mpg in traffic isn't safe, you slowing down to be 35mph under him is idiotic.
You know what though, I generally have no problem with doing 85mph. It's about where I feel safe driving on interstate highways. Then some completely asshole pulls out in front of you either because they decide you're driving too fast, or because they didn't even bother to look behind them. Now you get to slam on your brakes and hope the guy behind you is as perceptive as you are. Who was the problem? The ass going slower than you, or the ass not paying attention.
So clearly, doing 85mph or 100mph isn't a problem if you're driving that speed allowing for response time and conditions. The problem is incompetent drivers not doing the same.
Perhaps you will learn not to be one of these assholes and drive like you don't want to die. I've had to deal with people who decide they know best far too often. You know what usually happens to them right afterward I encounter them? Me and the next 20 cars fly past them giving them the finger. What did they accomplish? Pissing off 21 cars and making the road significantly less safe.
You can always spot the jerk that decided to make a point about the speed limit. They're the one up front that everyone behind them is trying to cut around. They're the cause of half the traffic out there.
Get off the road, asshole.
You do realise that they aren't limited to the left lane largely because people doing 66mph that spend the next five minutes trying to pass the guy doing 64mph *are*? You end up with people swerving through traffic doing significantly over the speed limit becuase you get self-righteous fools and outright idiots blocking all the lanes. There isn't very good reason for a 40mi stretch of straight highway to have a 70mph limit. You get it anyway, and you still get the lane guru assholes in the way for no reason.
I tend to wait and give people a chance to get out of the way. It isn't worth endangering people rather than slowing down 5 or 10mph for a few seconds. I still end up stuck behind some shit ever day doing 70mph in the left lane on the interstate for no reason, and I end up passing on the right. At the same time, so many other random people are doing the same kind of thing that if you leave half a car length in front of you, you will get cut off because of some other shit doing 70mph in another lane. You are still safer getting closer to the car in front of you than letting someone cut you off. You maintain more control over your situation that way.
Basically, people drive like crap, there is no real training, and driver test are a joke. I have no problem with speed when compared to unobservant drivers and lack of turn signals.
In many states you will have broken several laws doing what you do. Unlawful use of the passing lane, obstructing the flow of traffic, unsafe driving, etc. You don't get to decide anything about this. If you want to do so, join the police. Otherwise drive more safely and stop trying to encourage others to drive unsafely.
PS: You certainly can pick what rules you want to obey. Just because a law exists does not make it just or Constitutional. Your stance just makes you sound like a PC prick with a poor idea of history and an odd similarity to sheep.
All living things that fly can breathe, but not all things that breathe can fly.
The fine is not the biggest part of the profit made by Governments. Insurance companies *LOVE* speeding fines because it allows them to charge you more for what is principally not an increased risk (your rate of accidents is actually a more reliable indicator).
Who wins? The insurance company as well as the government because a part of that increase is tax.
That's why speeding fines and abuse of the system is here to stay.
Insert
If you try really, really hard you can close the door on Jehovas Witnesses.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I would submit that for all but the slowest of reaction-timed individuals, driving slower brings next to no increase in your driving ability. Situationally it might save you from a few "accidents" but those are nearly all avoidable with even the slightest bit of training.
How many times have you watched an old person simply drive into a post at 5mph? These people make the same driving decisions regardless of speed. They drive mechanically, like zombies. I've watched a line of cars drive off the road in a snow-storm each because they were following the car ahead. I was driving the same speed but somehow I managed to avoid the same fate!
Picture the situation: you're trying to get to the hospital with your desperately sick child and this limiter kicking in all the time.
I've got two better suggestions: get the UK police to actually do their job (and give them less red tape, for heavens' sake), and donate the chap who came up with this to science.
As a crash dummy.
Yes, but the point is the same difference in speed makes the same difference. slwing from 35 to 30 has a similar effect to slowing from 30 to 25. Which in turn has a similar effect to slowing from 25 to 20.
There's never an age where a child suddenly becomes an adult either... does that mean we should eliminate statutory rape laws,
Yes. They need to be seriously reformed. I think it's ludicrous that someone can be presecuted for having sex with someone 2 days younger than themselves.
Laws are about reasonable compromise; there are always cases where the line seems wrong, but overall you just have to pick a reasonably good place. Likewise, something doesn't have to be the "be-all end-all of road safety" to regulate it. That's why we havea variety of traffic laws.
That's fine. But it's important to be reasonably flexible with these laws as well. A hard and fast 30mph limit makes no sense. Driving slightly below the speed limit in snow is more dangerous than slightly above on a clear day with an empty road. However, only speeding is punished. No consideration of just how dangerous speeding was is taken into account.
Is this new? In Belgium some ministers wanted to introduce an "Intelligent" speed limiter in the Minister's cars, but the Prime Minister didn't agree. I also read once about an American Car Rental company that built in some monitoring system and charged their customers 1000$ if they exceeded the speed limit...
I think all speed limits should be updated before you can even think about this kind of systems...
This is really easy to work out. If we select describe the mean journey length, l, and we have a maximum speed s, then the journey time t = l/s. If we decrease the maximum speed, then we can see that this increases the mean journey time. People will start there journeys at different times. This means that there will be a rate of journeys being started, and they will exist for a time (mean journey time). A journey, means a car on the road. If you increase the amount of time a journey takes, you must increase the amount of cars on the road. Therefore, congestion. However, it has been observed that drivers tend to crash with more severity when travelling at higher speeds, but this has to be balanced against the tendency to have more accidents when the traffic is at higher density. I live in Leeds, so the study in question is particularly pertinent to me.
Thats the speed at which the maximum number of cars pass a given point, (I know this as I did a study for my degree). Faster than this and the gap between cars increases, and decreaces the number of cars passing the point.
Incidently this (stupid) idea proves the US is not the only country to trample over civil liberties and to be heading the totalitarian route
Now where to emigrate too?
The question you need to be asking is why are they using Skoda's to test for speeding?
I mean, helloo? Why don't they test with a car that is actually capable of speeding???
29 mpg. YMMV.
What are you talking about? In America, a kid becomes an Adult on his 18th birthday, and still can't touch a drop of liquor until he's 21, even though he can go to war and take a bullet in the head for his country (emphasis on his; females don't have the draft imposed on them).
You're right, laws are about reasonable compromise, and the problem is it doesn't seem like anyone can come up with a reasonable compromise unless it puts green in their pockets. Hell, I'd have no problem with the law that says I couldn't drink until I was 21 if I at least had a chance to contest it. At that point, it'd be my own damned fault for not rallying enough people behind me in support.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
There are so many posts in this thread that make me want to be sick. Excuses about speeding and speeding itself is another antisocial behaver that makes my blood boil.
I had a Toyota MR2 ten years ago and I used to speed in it. I used to stop at red lights and challenge people to races around the town. Looking back now I feel ashamed that I risked peoples lives unnecessarily for my kicks.
Even during the rush hour I'd try and beat everyone to the next roundabout. Undertaking people, tailgating others, popping up the headlights and giving a people quick flash to get out of the way. What a wanker I must have been.
I'd start my journey with a Blue Ford Escort 1.0L behind me with a sensible driver at the wheel. 5 miles down the road I could still see it in my rear view mirror. Did I really get to my destination any quicker? Like bollocks did I.
Then there's the environmental factors involved with speeding. I was burning £50 GBP a week on petrol. Yes, I'm truly sorry to all the future generations. I have grown up a little now. Sorry again.
My Dad was a policeman for half a dozen years. He says that the majority of accidents are caused by speeding. Ask yourself a question next time you have a crash or someone else has a crash: could the accident have been prevented by someone going a little slower? Could they then have stopped in time? The answer is normally yes. The highway code, the law of the road, also states that if you don't have enough time to stop, in any situation, you are going to fast. The 30 mph speed sign you see is not the recommended speed; it is the maximum allowed speed.
My Dad actually left the force because he witnessed an accident where a father lost his son and half his left leg. The father was speeding. What a selfish wanker.
Speeders are no better than drink drivers.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Anti cruise control.
I hate cruise control, because I really don't like the idea of having to actively switch it off to slow down, I need to have the car slow down if I ease off the accellerator as long as we're not careening downhill.
However, I *would* like to see a user-selectable limiter. How often have you, the law-abiding driver found the needle creep above the speed limit accidentally just as you see a police car or speed camera?
I want to drive 40mph, press "limit here" and then have the car self-limit at 40mph until I tell it otherwise (when I'm on the motorway, for example).
I have no inherent problem with speed limits (except that the stupid blanket 70mph limit was supposed to be *temporary* (yeah, right!)
Instead of tracking the whereabouts of every car (which is a gross intrustion of privacy IMHO) then why not have a speed limiter system built into cars that responds to local transponders (or digital maps + GPS). In this way, cars can't speed but neither will everyone's location be logged by our big brother state. Oh, I'm sorry is that a problem - safety-wise? I guess that (speed limitors) won't happen since there would be a chance for UK citizens to sue the government - but putting another piece into the big-brother state is OK...?
The other thing that seriously p*sses me off is that none of this was in B'liar's manifesto before his party were elected - otherwise things might have been a bit different electionwise methinks...
Most US state DOTs actually say that they set their speed limits to the speed at which 80-85% of drivers would drive. (You can google for this.) I challenge anyone to drive at the speed limit and see if you pass 4 cars for each car that passes you. I don't think so!!
Where I live, the "normal" speed that people drive seems to be about 5-10mph over the posted limit. If everyone actually drove at the limit or below, I suspect rush hour would last at least an hour longer. (This is a scary thought considering that rush "hour" already lasts almost 3 hours here in Seattle.)
This is the premise behind the "Obey The Speed Limit" movement. Check out http://www.obeythespeedlimit.com/ (Disclaimer: I helped throw together this simple website.)
The idea is... "If everyone obeyed the speed limit at all times, the roadways in our cities would become so unacceptably gridlocked that some positive changes will have to be made."
If this turns into a real movement, I think we'll actually have a chance of finally getting reasonable speed limits.
No, they're absolutely right. In fact, my second car (a 2-litre 2000-reg Accord), being insured just before my 21st birthday, having held a clean license for 4 years, cost me £2300 for comprehensive insurance. That's about $4000. Many insurers simply wouldn't insure me on that car. The rates weren't much lower for my brother on a slightly older 1.6l Civic.
When I was 17/18, there's no way I could consider having my own insurance -- most young drivers in the UK are named on their parents' insurance, because the rates are simply extortionate unless you're a lottery winner.
Last year my car cost me £1200; this year should be £900, and that's for a male who's almost 23, with 2 years' NCB and a clean license for over 5 years.
British insurance is an utter joke -- after paying all this, you wouldn't be able to afford to use it for most accidents anyway, as the excess would be $900, and would ruin your premiums if you made a claim.
Is it just me that gets annoyed by misleading descriptions of how technology works, like this one:
A satellite positioning system tracked the cars' locations
No, devices attached to the cars tracked their own position using reference signals broadcast by satellites.
I suspect at least half the people reading the original sentence think that there's a satellite up there with a camera watching where the cars are and reporting back to some government HQ.
Instead of the device applying the brakes or cutting out the car if it exceeds the limit (which may be dangerous, there are times when you may have to exceed the limit to avoid an accident), why not have it emit a high-pithced, very annoying alarm inside the car? That way there's nothing to stop you physically exceeding the limit when you really have to (or really really want to) but you sure as hell ain't going to want to do it for too long...
Do not speed or jump the red traffic light ever! ...
. jpg . jpg
Not even in a Porsche
One dead, 3 seriously injured (Budapest, Hungary).
http://langlovagok.hu/kepek2005/ftp...iporsche_03
http://langlovagok.hu/kepek2005/ftp...iporsche_06
I've driven 100mph on a snowmobile. Never done that in a car.
Why haven't I driven 160km/h in a car?
Because I haven't been in any situation where that wouldn't have been grossly irresponsible and wouldn't have endangered others.
The snowmobile thing was out on a frozen lake, with perfect visibility and nobody near me. I also made my own tracks and drove back and forth a few times to ensure there were no bumps.
Death will come to us all. Let's live responsible lives and not be mesmerized by the wonderful possibility of being paraplegic survivors of probabilistically survivable 70km/h crashes.
Let the statisticians hypnotize themselves. Let ourselves concentrate on driving well and with foresight and control. And for the sake of the children (not kidding on this one): it's much worse driving 70km/h in a populated 60-zone than driving 110km/h in a deserted 90-zone.
.... if it meant we did away with the stupid fixed speed limits. Make the speed limits variable, so maybe 20mph near schools only when the kids are going in/out, 100mph on empty motorways at 3am.... But that wouldn't raise money for the government.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
So we should all drive 30km/h (18mph!) any time there's a remote chance of someone being in the road?
Your conclusion, not mine. You are the one who wrote "Folks- speed doesn't kill,..." Speed does not generate accidents in itself, but it do influence the results of the accidents. If you have time to react and brake you will of course decrease the risk. But the fact is that accidents do happen, even as all cars are equipped with brakes. The reaction time of humans have not been improved along with the performance of the cars.
The mistake is in my line:
You probably survive if you have a frontal collision at 65-70km/h in a modern car. You will probaly die in the same collision if you go 150km/h.
It should have said:
You probably survive if you have a frontal collision at 65-70km/h in a modern car. You will probaly die in the same collision if you go 90km/h.
The statistics for seriously wounded can be approximated as a piece-wise linear curve. If you drive in a new car (1997-) it looks like this:
20km/h 0% risk
50km/h 30% risk
80km/h 100% risk
The speeds are speed differentials in the collision. The numbers are from actual accidents.
There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous".
Yes there is. That speed is 0 mph!
Yes, there is nothing more annoying than people overtaking on the wrong side pulling in 2ft in front of you and slamming their brakes on and then you running into the back of them and getting blamed because you went into the back of them.
I've got 1.6 MPI golf engined felica it does 100Mph with out even noticing. I'd take it faster but the police really start to get annoyed at that point (speed limit on major roads in the uk is 70Mph). Some of the newer Fabia or Octavia models are even faster - take the rally Octavia (VII I think?). Most taxi drivers seem to drive Octavias in the uk - they're cheap and reliable motors. Nothing like the original Skodas.
To Slashdot or not to Slashdot. That is the question (that will cause me to fail an interview)
clipped a kerb on the way to work this morning trying to take the racing line around a roundabout at 60mph... within the speed limit of course but if i'd have gotten it a bit wronger i'd have rolled. though i have noticed that roundabouts in otherwise national-speed-limit areas are starting to get their own local 30mph zones
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
But then Jeremy Clarkson is a twat who I hope gets run over one day by a speeding SUV with bull bars because the driver was too busy sticking two fingers up at a speed camera.
Seriously, that is the most ridiculously stupid quote I have ever read.
The image links were not working.
i porsche/eredeti/050515_csomoriporsche_03.jpg i porsche/eredeti/050515_csomoriporsche_06.jpg
Fixed, here they are:
http://langlovagok.hu/kepek2005/ftp/050515_csomor
http://langlovagok.hu/kepek2005/ftp/050515_csomor
Just because you are a cretin doesn't mean everyone else is !
Speed limiters? Congestion charge?
The faster you drive, the more fuel you burn per-km (generally).
Congestion is caused by the rate at which you can get vehicles *off* a road. Typically caused by low performance urban roads, junctions, traffic lights and parking spaces.
A particular exit from a road will be able to cope with a maximum capacity which is usually far lower than the road itself is capable of handling. This causes traffic to back up onto the road and cause congestion. e.g. A typical lane of motorway is capable of around 2000 vehicles per hour, an automated car park with barriers can typically only handle 500 vehicles per hour.
The result of insufficient numbers of exits or low performance exits to a road are what cause congestion. So while it seems pretty obvious that lower speed causes congestion, it's also wrong.
Deleted
So what happens if the GPS receiver suddenly decides you're about 20 meters to the left of where you are, and are not infact on the major A road but on some side road running nearby to it? There are places like the A38 around Lichfield that have a dual carriageway at 70mph flanked by side roads at 20 or 30, running parallel only 5 or 10 meters away.
To be acceptable the override switch would have to be in the accelerator mechanism so in an emergency all you have to do is floor it and the thing switches off. Automatics have similar mechanisms for forcing a change down in the gears, so it can't be hard.
So let me get this straight.
Buy a skode with this device attached in Leeds (in the NE of England), but then as a result get a discount for the London congestion scheme some 2-3 hours drive away ?
Can anyone else (in the UK) see a flaw here ?
They could easily tie this in with GPS controlled pay as you drive car insurance (see http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/21/172220 4). If the unit detects that you're speeding, up goes your insurance premium as well as getting a nice speeding ticket through the post.
Life is like an analogy
Getting your Class III license (permit to own automatic weapons) in the US is a fairly involved process. You have to justify why you want to own a machine gun in the first place, submit to an extremely extensive to 8 month background check on par with one done for a Secret clearance, fill out a truckload of forms, and get your friendly local police chief to personally sign off on your application, stating that s/he believes you don't pose a threat to the community.
I'm not saying it would be easier to obtain one in the UK - probably take less time, but not be easier; but it's not just a matter of "filling out a form"
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
A Skoda won't be able to reach the speed limit even without the GPS!
3 Skoda Jokes:
How do you double the value of a Skoda?
Fill the tank.
What do you call a Skoda with a sunroof?
A skip (dumpster in the US).
Why do Skodas have heated rear windows?
To keep your hands warm as you push it.
Or maybe you're on a passive-aggressive power trip because you've failed miserably in the rest of your life and proving to the world you can make everyone drive 55 in the left lane is the most power you'll ever have in the entirety of your miserable existence?
Fucking twit.
At low speed your engine is still doing work just to keep running. Running the engine whil stopped gives you terrible fuel efficency. This gradually improves to an optimal speed, which is usually faster than most cars drive in central London. Plus there's a significant benefit to driving in a higher gear.
Or does that law not apply to you?
Seven teams pulled out of the US Grand Prix to boos from 100,000 Indianapolis fans as a row over tyres destroyed the race.
No, because if you let them push you up close to the guy in front of you and suddenly, for whatever reasen, he slams on the brakes and you rear-end him YOU'RE at fault.
Yeah, it's about control. Coming soon to America, comrades.
The faster you drive, the more fuel you burn per-km (generally).
Not true. You burn more fuel traveling 100 km at 5 km/hr than at 10 km/hr. Generally, the closer you operate to the optimal efficiency of your engine and your transmission's gearing, the better your fuel efficiency. The less time you spend driving, the less fuel you'll burn. Of course, there is a point where wind resistence overcomes the efficiency gains of going faster. For most light, passenger vehicles, the apex of this curve happens at around 80 - 85 km/hr. Slower than that, and you're wasting fuel by spending more time than necessary traveling the distance. Faster than that, and wind resistence starts to seriously eat into your fuel economy. 80 km/h is the sweet spot (or so I've been told by multiple environmental experts).
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Is this significantly more substantial than the difference between statistics on injuries/deaths sustained at 30mph and 20mph, or 40mph and 50mph?
What's more dangerous? 25mph on a crowded icy road, or 35mph on a clear road in broad daylight with nobody around?
This is false and depends on so many variables that such a relationship is neither linear or exponential.
80kph is about right. That's why in the US they set the national speed limit to 55mph(~90kph) in the 70's due to the gas crisis.
Still no controls made/planned for:
* not respecting safety distances,
* not keeping one's right on multilane highways,
* overused tyres/windshield wipers,
* improper (non-)use of lights and/or out of order lights,
* cell phone/eat/drink/make up at the wheel,
* _unbuckled children on rear seats_...
And UK is far from being the only one. I'm French and the trouble with the French government currently is that they don't seem to have acknowledged AT ALL the lessons from the Great Britain example.
But there's more. Modern cars are so quiet, comfortable nowadays that you don't even get the impression of going at all while driving at legal speeds on the motorway (and it's 130 kph here). Tested in a 2005 Opel Vectra. At least, my 200hp/930kg Speedster Turbo is NOISY at 130+, and that sure helps slowing things down.
Wow, I wonder why they do that. Probably have like 50 years of statistics to back it up, or some bullshit like that.
in bombay/mumbai (india), they aren't. most roads have a 40 kph (25 mph) speed limit. this includes overpasses which actually have it specifically mentioned. if anyone actually drives at that speed, there WILL be a lot of accidents.
on one such overpass, i was doing about 65-70 kph, which is slower than most ppl (and lil faster than trucks). which was enough to slowly overtake a police car. i.e. they were going at about 60 kph. no sirens and in the left lane (the slow one), just crusing.
if gps was used to track speeds, the government would make a load of cash, coz the speed limits are set ridiculously low everywhere. the govt's idea of fast is 60 kph (37 mph) on highways and 80 kph (50 mph) on expressways. only cars that are breaking down (flat tyre, overheating) travel at that speed. police cars included.
fortunately, there are only a few roads that have police with those radar speed guns actually checking. but the point is: if they wanted to give u a hard time for speeding, they could.
btw, the police cars here break most of the rules as a "this is how it is" thing. signals, speed limits, no parking, paking on the road, etc. so they ARE above the law in that sense. unless they do someting quite bad, they never get heat for it.
.... Isn't that redundant?
From your admission you sound as if you hadn't been all that sensible - in your partial defence at least you did it in a car that was fairly good at stopping. I can't defend undertaking, racing, tailgating etc, and high speed in heavy traffic is lunacy... but, in my opinion, the last of my concerns about your behaviour was your speed - I believe you should have been cautioned or charged with dangerous driving if anything.
He says that the majority of accidents are caused by speeding.
Most accidents are caused by collisions - speed is almost meaningless without information about context. I think you are more likely to find a causal relationship from a combination of space visibility and speed (among other factors) - and to single out speed is positively stupid.
I'm not a great driver. speed is what I'd most likely be criticised about. I've had two shuts during the last 15 years... in both I was travelling at below 5mph. Speed obviously played a part (if the other vehicle wasn't moving there would have been no collision) - yet the collisions (in my opinion) would have occurred irrespective of speed limit.
Speed is essential in order to get from A to B... it is perfectly safe as long as no-one wants to go anywhere - but that isn't practical. In my opinion effort should be concentrated on better assisting practical drivers (who just want to get where they are going) with improved visibility at junctions; avoiding traffic jams and gridlocks (which always bring out the worst in people - especially when they are under the pressure of deadlines); road markings to assist newer drivers to judge safe distances to leave between cars on motorways; clear and sensible marking of speed limits and avoiding "crying wolf" with 30mph limits where 60mph would be equally safe. These cheap precautions would improve safety and would not unnecessarily burden the motorist. Demonising speed is retarded - It targets the professional driver travels on an empty motorway at 3am rather than the inexperienced loon showing off to his mates dodging in and out of traffic, undertaking and overtaking on blind bends. As police resources are diverted away from traffic duty much is lost - the most dangerous activities will go unchecked as long as they don't trigger the automated penalties while honest predominantly safe drivers will suffer heavy fines and risk their livelihoods along with their licences if inadvertently exceeding the prescribed limit in an unfamiliar city.
The idea that anti-speeding measures have reduced road-deaths is a sham... What evidence is there that this isn't actually a consequence of the fact that modern cars are designed with safety as a primary concern - whereas in the past people were willing to rely upon trying to avoid collisions?
Driving slightly below the speed limit in snow is more dangerous than slightly above on a clear day with an empty road. However, only speeding is punished. No consideration of just how dangerous speeding was is taken into account.
I understand your point, but that's not entirely true--all (or at least most) states have a basic speed law. Driving below the maximum posted limit, but still faster than is safe for conditions, will get you a ticket if a cop thinks your speed is dangerous.
We already have that device. It's called a "mother-in-law in the back seat".
At least the British who have this device installed should feel safer knowing that their government kows their every move, where they go, when they go, etc. Nice to know that if they get kidnapped, get lost, rob a bank or visit their mistress, someone will be able to track down their car, and get within 20 meters of it.
I agree, I also think that there are a lot of donkeys out there who are not competent drivers, and that incompetence - rather than speed causes most car accidents.
However, the results of accidents stemming from incompetence, must be worse when the speed is higher, so in my opinion some limit is necessary.
I think that if such a monitoring system were in place (arguments about personal freedom aside), there could be a large number of associated benefits.
It is my opinion that levels of road deaths will continue at unacceptably high levels until humans are stopped from directly controlling vehicles. Until that time, I would gladly welcome a monitoring system such as this.
Actually the big worry on this is how will it limit motorcycles if brought in. Acceleration/deceleration seriously affects handling so what happens if the ignition is cut mid corner ?
The UK Motorcycle Action Group and Federation of European Motorcyclist's-FEMA(no I'm not posting a link) have more info on this.
Sorry thanks for playing. 85 in a 70 isn't too unreasonable, but if I'm doing 85 in a 70 and you roll up on me doing 100??? You'd better be able to drop that speed fast because YOU are at 100 are a clear and present threat to everyone around you, and I will drop to the limit in front of you. 30mph over the limit? Turn in your license, asshat.
Ask the cops.
Seriously. Since you are so confident in the righteousness of your actions, why don't you just check in with your local state police, it doesn't matter what state. Ask them if what you just described is the safest way to drive, ask them if it is even an acceptable way to drive.
You'll hear back that doing what you just wrote will qualify you for at least one charge of reckless driving.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I hope you have a good lawyer.
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Neat 'nuther use for it: if the driver stops in the vicinity of a known brothel for more than 10 minutes he is presumed guilty of soliciting whores; if the driver stops near a pub, then he is presumed drinking under the influence; if the driver stops near a government building then he is a presumed terrorist unless he is paying his taxes or a fine imposed by this system, then he will be presumed guilty of being terrorized by the state.....like the rest of us poor POTted souls.
Tis all.
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Cache In, Trash Out!
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http://www.drudgereport.com for the truth.
But if a truck is in the right lane going 45, and I'm the left doing the speed limit of say 55. You'll just have to wait, 5 seconds til I can get around said slow truck. What's so important you can't wait 5 seconds?
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Cache In, Trash Out!
The 2nd Amendment is a POLITICAL STRUCTURE - it is there in reserve for when the 1st one fails. The cost is modest carnage, far less than we put up with for personal transport.
to think otherwise is to disunderstand why we are not part of the UK. And how we got this way.
I wouldn't have pulled into the left lane with a vehicle within 3 car lengths behind me to begin with.
Odds are if you're an insane speeder tailigating type, you'll have a cellphone too. Call 911. Get a police escort. I'll kindly pull over and let you pass then.
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Cache In, Trash Out!
In America, a kid becomes an Adult on his 18th birthday, and still can't touch a drop of liquor until he's 21
That is not technically correct. In many (all?) jurisdictions, parents can serve alcohol to their children, and sometimes also to the cousins of their children. As with drugs, it is the distribution of alcohol that is regulated. Consumption is generally only regulated in the arena of motor vehicles (yes public drunkenness laws exist, but without those drunks could still be charged with lewdness, disturbing the peace, etc.)
If you're looking for examples, I'd like to point to Iraq as an example of what a small number of rag-heads with rifles can do. And that's with (from what I can tell) relatively little popular support and against the most well equiped army in history.
Of course, I am sure there will be ways to crack it...Don't take me too seriously though, I have a tin foil cap embedded in my skull. ;-)
:)
Take that tin foil out of your skull and wrap it around the GPS antenna instead. Voila, cracked.
I mean, the thing has to be able to cope with signal loss. The only sensible and safe way for it to operate is to not do anything when it doesn't know where it is. So cut off the signal, and it doesn't work anymore. Wrapping it in tin foil is a good way to go there, because it doesn't leave any marks. Take off the tin foil, and it's happy again.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The speed limit is there for a reason - it's a safe speed to drive.
Nope. The speed limit laws were originally enacted as a way to save energy, during the war. Since then they've gone through ups and downs, of course. But speed limits are usually not based primarily on safety factors.
In some cases, sure. The yellow sign telling to to slow down to 20 MPH for the hairpin turn ahead is definitely based on safety, but the white 45 MPH sign on the long straight road in the middle of nowhere is probably not.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Benning Road. 8-lane highway. Speed limit: 30
M St. 6-lane highway. Speed limit: 25
Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue. In a two-block stretch goes from 25 mph to 35 mph and down to 20 mph. How the fuck are you even supposed to know what the speed limit is?
There are more examples. New York Ave, 6-lane divided highway, speed limit: 35. I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit submit.
Anyhow, these unrealistic speed limits are zealously enforced with cameras. Mayor Williams has argued publicly time and again that if you remove the cameras and/or make the speed limits reasonable, the District will go bankrupt.
There are tons of unreasonable speed limits out there. If you haven't found any in your cross-country travels, you haven't been paying attention.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Your coeffecient of friction might disagree...
You were quite rational with points like "It's safer if I go really really fast, trust me."
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My last.fm page
How long until somebody tries to avoid getting into a car accident, guns the gas, and gets creamed when their car refuses to go fast enough?