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. "

Comments

Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion?

[paanta]

I'm a transportation planner, and the great grandparent is incorrect. Slower speed has little to do with congestion, other than being a side effect. Up to a certain point, slower speeds actually allow more people onto the road. Congestion just has to do with the number of vehicles being too great for the amount of road, for the most part. Speed and capacity are related, but only in that speeds drop as congestion increases. You're just talking about the situation where someone is blocking you from driving as fast as you want to. That's just life. ;)

Not in the UK

[James Youngman]

This hardly ever happens, if at all, in the UK. Most police cars on motorways travel at a significant amount (>5mph) below the speed limit. This allows other drivers to overtake them so that the police car doesn't cause congestion on the motorway - since people won't overtake a police car if they have to speed to do it. Once they're safely beyond the police car, they can speed up a bit. The police obviously know this. It's a sensible policy on the police's part.

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.

Re:the wonderful thing with this...

[uncommonlygood]

And yet...traffic deaths in Britain went UP! Not down! UP!

Err, no they didn't

Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion?

[BiggerIsBetter]

Actually, traffic does behave like a liquid... kinda...

The traffic simulations I've seen use a particle model to work out traffic flows. The idea being that people over and under estimate the speed of their own car, and others on the road. The result of this is each car "vibrates" against others (with a certain air gap, hopefully).

The result of *that* is that traffic tends to slow *more* than the slowest driver would travel at. Which is why you get congestion at points of merging and corners for no apparent reason - nervous/careful people slow down, and it cascades into a near stop for everyone else.

Side note, slowing traffic down "for safety reasons" is inane. Traffic will slow itself down as volumes increase (eg, peak times) all you engineers have to do is make the road flow smoothly.