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Ford's New Car Tech Prevents You From Accidentally Speeding
An anonymous reader sends word of Ford's new "Intelligent Speed Limiter" technology, which they say will prevent drivers from unintentionally exceeding the speed limit. When the system is activated (voluntarily) by the driver, it asks for a current maximum speed. From then on, a camera mounted on the windshield will scan the road ahead for speed signs, and automatically adjust the maximum speed to match them. The system can also pull speed limit data from navigation systems. When the system detects the car exceeding the speed limit, it won't automatically apply the brakes — rather, it will deliver less fuel to the engine until the vehicle's speed drops below the limit. If the speed still doesn't drop, a warning noise will sound. The driver can override the speed limit by pressing "firmly" on the accelerator. The technology is being launched in Europe with the Ford S-MAX.
I have cruise control, thanks. Somebody who can't pay attention to the street signs shouldn't be driving.
I don't respond to AC's.
Mobileye developed road sign recognition tech a while ago. I think BMW was integrating Mobileye software into their cars. Ford is listed as an OEM partner - I wonder if this is the same tech?
You can already get radar cruise control to keep a set following distance behind the car in front of you. It's been around for at least a decade. It's an option on my 10 year old Honda, along with "lane keep assist" to warn if you deviate out of your lane.
I'd like a citation on "don't give a flying turd about the safety of others" statement. I've looked for stats on accidents where speeding was the primary factor. All you see is where speed was a contributing factor. Well, that's just a BS term there. Of course speed was contributing, if no parties involved in the accident were moving, there wouldn't have been an accident. From piecing things together though, as far as I can tell from numbers from other causes vs the total number, speeding results in less than 1% of all traffic accidents. Stop and think about the number of incidents of speeding vs the accident rate. It's as close to zero as you can possibly get. Now remember, more than 20 MPH over is no longer speeding, that's reckless driving, and that one does show up in statistics as a primary cause.
You want to get on somebody about not giving a damn about the safety of others, go for distracted drivers. They're the second leading cause behind DUI accounting for around a third of total accidents.
Meanwhile here in AU, this technology is already available and works perfectly works fine as is. I have it in my own car. Both Mercedes and Audi offer speed sign recognition that feeds in to the adaptive cruise control. Mercedes have been offering it for over 5 years now. If it ever did recognise the wrong sign, you can easily override it, either via the pressing the brake, the accelerator or manually adjusting the limit from a control on the steering wheel.