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Ford's New Car Tech Prevents You From Accidentally Speeding

Posted by Soulskill on from the autonomy-by-parts dept.

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.

5 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. How many minutes until this is mandatory? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My GPS already does a great job at noticing I'm speeding and warning me, even in the rain with poor lighting. The interface to a fuel cutoff would not be that hard.

    I think Ford should invest in getting everyone a moving map GPS rather than letting pranksters plant signs that mess with their vehicles, which will speed at night in the rain slightly more often than I would, were I to care.

    So, bad tech, toward a bad goal. Go Ford!

    1. Re:How many minutes until this is mandatory? by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Causing an accident is far from the only negative outcome of speeding.

      It also massively increases the severity of accidents (remember, a 40mph crash has 4 times more energy involved than a 30mph crash).

  2. Hell No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Let me be the first to say, Hell no! No more Nanny State/Corporations

  3. Good points, bad points by Dynamoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've driven a car with a manual speed limiter for 10+ years now. I don't understand why all cars don't have one. Entering a 30mph/50kmh zone? Set that as the maximum speed on the limiter and you can drive around normally without having to keep checking your speed. Less time checking your speed equals more time looking where you are going. This is only a good thing.

    In Europe, speed limiters seem to be common in Mercedes and Smart cars, Renault, Citroen and Peugeot cars, plus some of the newer Vauxhall/Opel models and Fords. It is built into the cruise control system.

    The bad points? Well, reading signs is a so-so thing when it comes to accuracy, and satellite navigation systems sometimes get the speed very badly wrong if they have incorrect data. And just because the speed limit *says* that you can drive at up to whatever-is-on-the-sign, it doesn't mean it is *safe* to do so in the road conditions you actually have.

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  4. Re:I've never understood that claim. by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dumbass, in the scenario posed the danger was coming from behind. How the fuck is slowing down gonna save your ass when a Semi is barreling down on you and has no room to stop before slamming you as it is. Or I have a real-life situation where burst speed got me out of certain death.

    I'm cruising down a 2 lane (one lane each direction) road with my wife on the back of my bike at 55 (posted limit). Good visibiltiy and no blind curves for about 3 miles down the road, and I could see the road for 2 miles behind me in the mirror. There's a Bar-B-Q place on the right hand side of the road that we're coming up on about 500 feet ahead, Black Ford explorer is coming at me slowing down with the left turn blinker, I instinctively roll back off the throttle and now I'm 60 ft away at 52 MPH...then she turns left. I looked her dead in the eyes and she still turned left. I have two choices here, brake hard and slam into her, or gear down, lay on the throttle to pick up Gyro Force, and go into a swerve around the back of her. When I made the commit, I had about 20 ft of space and she was still in my lane, oblivious to the havoc she just caused. Once my swerve started, I put my thumb on the red button throwing the quad Stebel Air Horns on. I made sure that I did this after the path commit was going to be guaranteed to be behind her turn just to make sure that I didn't throw her into a panic that would have made the situation worse on me. In roughly 40 ft. passed the SUV I was back in my lane and at level cruise at 72 mph, letting off the throttle to get back down to the limit and continuing my Sunday ride to the next gas station where I could figuratively change my underwear. Another biker a ways behind us saw the scene unfold and caught up with me at that gas station and asked why I didn't stop and confront the woman as I would have loved the look on her eyes after she heard the Stebel go off right behind her. I just said "I have an aversion to 20 to Life," and left it at that.

    If I had followed your logic, I'd be either dead or in the hospital right now as this only happened a week and a half ago and in no case would my bike have come out of it in ridable condition. If I had hit the brakes, I would have slammed into her and that's the end of our ride. If I slowed down to initiate the swerve, my tail would have fishtailed and either my wife would have been the first one into the SUV, or we would both be flying off the other side of the road into the ditch with the bike following us, again ending our ride. If I touched on the brakes at any time just before and during the swerve, as soon as I touched into the swerve, I'd lose all maneuvering traction to the brake traction and likely the 900 lbs of sport touring bike would have bit the pavement on the front wheel and done an end over end flip down the road behind the SUV, yet again, ending our ride.