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. "
Plus, everyone's seen school buses with their regulators, going 60mph on the highway. No one wants to be like them/
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".
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.
Bullshit. The speed limits havn't changed since the 50s, cars have.
How we know is more important than what we know.
What I would give a shit about is the implications for the insurance companies to rip you off even worse than they already do. As an American you probably don't know how bad it already is - for me (a 17 year old male) to be insured on a basic, old car (say a VW bug) would cost somewhere between $2300 and $3500 (converted to US$ for your convenience). If they're mining all this data about exactly how and where I travel, they'll do anything in their power to declare me unsafe and raise my premiums. If I refuse to have a GPS tracker they'll assume I have something to hide and stick a statutory (and massive) penalty on me.