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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. "
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.
As I understand it the 55mph speed limit is still the most pervasive, and that it was set as a fuel conservation measure. With current cars and arrival expectations, I don't consider that a reasonable maximum limit, especially on a road like I-285 around Atlanta. The listed minimum speed is 40mph, but it's more accurately 65mph or you're a statistic.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
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.
I've never driven on Germany's autobahns, but I've *been* driven on them... and it was a scary experience!
Only two lanes (compared to a three-lane UK motorway with a 70mph limit), trucks zooming down both lines like mobile walls, and the nearest thing to 'lane discipline' being "Hey, my car will fit through that gap! Woohoo!"
Now I love driving fast, and I'll freely admit that given a chance and a stretch of empty motorway I'll top the ton. But my German drivers cheerfully exceeded that on busy roads with other cars whipping out of junctions right in front of them, and frankly it scared the shit out of me. No wonder the world's best Grand Prix drivers come from countries like Germany, Italy and Brazil, where driving is treated like combat!
You must think in Russian.
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.
Why go to such an expensive system?
We have a system here in Australia called Safe-T-Cam, which for the moment applies only to heavy vehicles like trucks (and maybe buses). Digital camera systems are placed at various points along major highways to photograph licence plates as vehicles pass and feed them to a central system where they are timestamped. Since the positions of the cameras (and hence the distance between them) is known, the average speed of a vehicle can be calculated by examining photos from two locations along the highway - if it's too high then the driver gets an automatic ticket.
It's cheap. It doesn't require retrofitting technology to existing vehicles. It ensures privacy because it can't be used to track vehicles (in the sense that you can't say "687-NWR is at this specific lattitude and longitude"). And it wouldn't be difficult to expand such a system to main roads in addition to highways.
I live in a small city with a population of just over 50,000 and nearly as many more in nearby suburbs and sprawl. I can say with complete certainty that slow drivers cause significantly more congestion than occasional problems caused by those going too fast. I see traffic messes several times each week caused by someone going slower than the flow of traffic and doing it in the left-most lane (our passing lane).
Most people I know who read _Atlas Shrugged_, and liked it, went through a phase where they thought they had the key to fulfilling their greed: just do it, without caring how you're "fleecing the sheep". Those who happened to be successful during that phase tended to stick with the accumulation of power at the expense of others. Those who weren't, regardless of the useful contribution by Rand's philosophy, usually came away distrustful of those who do.
"These days it's all secrecy, and no privacy."
- The Rolling Stones, "Fingerprint File"
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make install -not war
I haven't read the book and I am not sure if I every will. I just happen to like that quote.
:)
As to AR's beliefs...well some are 'a little' intense and that is all I am going to say at this time
Everyone else understood my post, what's your problem? Cars have gotten safer. Brakes react faster and more effectively. Steering is more responsive and requires less to no physical exertion. Airbags, seatbelts, crumple zones and other safety features are now standard on every car produced. And that's just the cars. The roads have gotten better too! A law should be passed that states that all fines received for speeding will be deducted from the total amount of car registration paid by motorists in the region where the speed limit was violated. That way if you're speeding and I'm doing the speed limit I know that you may soon be reducing my registration costs. The end result would be a lack of enforcement of speed limits (as the local council would no longer see them as a revenue stream) and greater freedom for motorists on the road.
How we know is more important than what we know.
_The Fountainhead_ is better. Especially better than the 50-page grandiose rationalization, her "Objectivist Sermon on the Mount", at the end of AS. She was a great writer, but, though she redeemed selfishness from its benighted status as purely "bad", she brought it too far. Humans aren't as rational as she portrayed us, and we can serve others, while also being selfserving - contradictions are our form of balance. A biopic gives some perspective in understanding her vehemence about life. It's especially fun to watch it screened here in NYC, where her cult still lives, and packs the theater with both worshippers and snipers. FWIW, the Fountainhead movie was terrible.
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make install -not war
Thus, before the system is deployed, it seems likely that the boxes will accept data via some widely deployed wireless system. By adding a serial number to each box, a little software, and allowing the police to put a "set governor max speed to 0 kph and override the disable switch for device with serial # xxx for the next 2 hours" message in the download stream, it should be pretty simple to effectively disable a car whose registration is known.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
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
I have a friend who is a civil engineer, and he says the best way to set speed limits is to take all the signs down and measure the speed of a thousand cars passing by, then set the speed limit a standard deviation above the median.
Slowpokes cause a great many accidents. The speed at which the majority of people drive is by definition the safest.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I hear this argument a lot, but it's a non-issue, at least with the system tested where I live. The ISA project uses an active gas pedal, where it's easy to press it to the floor when you're below the speed limit, but which gets a higher resistance when you're at the limit. If you need to go faster for any reason, you just have to push harder at the pedal. Completely intuitive, and no buttons to press. The system just makes it "easy" to drive at the speed limit, and "harder" to break it.
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.