‘Hard to argue against’: mandatory speed limiters come to the EU and NI
‘Hard to argue against’: mandatory speed limiters come to the EU and NI
All new cars must have the devices from 7 July, adding fuel economy as well as safety. Will mpg become the new mph?
All new cars must have the devices from 7 July, adding fuel economy as well as safety. Will mpg become the new mph?
In the highway code and the law courts, there is no doubt what those big numbers in red circles mean. As a quick trip up any urban street or motorway with no enforcement cameras makes clear though, many drivers still regard speed signs as an aspiration rather than a limit.
Technology that will be required across Europe from this weekend may change that culture, because from 7 July all new cars sold in the EU and in Northern Ireland must have a range of technical safety features fitted as standard. The most notable of these is intelligent speed assistance – or colloquially, a speed limiter.
The rest of the UK is theoretically free, as ministers once liked to put it, to make the most of its post-Brexit freedoms, but the integrated nature of car manufacturing means new vehicles here will also be telling their drivers to take their foot off the accelerator. Combining satnav maps with a forward camera to read the road signs, they will automatically sound an alarm if driven too fast for the zone they are in.
Will mpg become the new mph?
No because Europeans use neither mpg nor mph. 🤭
This sounds like blown up bullshit.
How does this speed limiter work exactly, I don't see that mentioned anywhere.
If I drive Autobahn it's not the same as driving passed a school in the city. How does the speed limiter know the speed limit?
To know that accurately, sounds like a somewhat expensive mandatory piece of equipment.
And how come I have heard absolutely zero about this from either car reviewers or local news media?I looked it up for my country (Denmark), these are NOT mandatory that I can find, and they can ONLY be installed by public authorized shops, and from the paperwork required, it seems like the installer decides the limit, there are no mandatory limits.
So it seems like the whole story is bullshit.
EDIT:
Intelligent speed assistance seems to be a thing, but this is a pretty crucial part:
The ISA system is required to work with the driver and not to restrict his/her possibility to act in any moment during driving. The driver is always in control and can easily override the ISA system.
From the OP the Guardian article:
Drivers of most new cars will be familiar with similar features already installed, but they are currently easy to override.
Yes and that's how it will continue to be with Intelligent speed assistance.
Article is bullshit these are NOT speed limiters, which is a completely different thing, despite that I can see numerous articles in English erroneously calling this speed limiters, when it's nothing of the sort.
Otherwise, what's an ACTUAL speed limiter called? You know like what is popular in many new cars, that have speed limiters that prevent you from driving faster than for instance 160 km/h.
The one thing nobody is fixing is the constant phone use in cars. This issue is far more common than speeding and creates jams and dangerous situations all the time. Makes me hate being a part of traffic. I tend to speed by about 10% on highways but never in 30 and 50 zones. The very idea of a "smart" car taking control of my brake, throttle or steering makes me wanna barf.
My comment on US plans to make impaired driving detectors mandatory also applies to these speed limiters.. I admire the desire to make it safer, but holy shit are car manufacturers going to jump on this opportunity to sell out all of your driving data to insurance companies, causing your rates to randomly double and removing any semblance of privacy, and it will also involve additional parts and sensors that will be as closely corner cut as legally allowed such that it breaks as frequently as possible.
a "safe" idea, sure, do I want it, absolutely not, and I will never trust a corporation to implement it 'correctly'.
Is it a little beep or a constant alarm? I can't imagine that many drivers would tolerate having a constant alarm.
I'm in the USA and my impression here is that currently safety advocates are happy to set very low speed limits, drivers are happy to ignore those speed limits, and so everything works out. If speed limits were actually consistently enforced, I imagine there would be a lot of push-back against the politicians responsible.
We need to breed a new generation of drivers who find driving in a more relaxed manner can be just as rewarding.
I don't see that happening.
My dad got something similar build into his car, its wrong so many times especially when road signs are confusing at construction sites.
Example: Construction site limits speed to 60kmh and there is an exit coming up that goes through the actual construction site, that has a speed limit on the the exit of 30kmh, guess what. The car sees the 30kmh sign but doesnt understand its only for cars exiting but alarms the driver now until.the next 60kmh sign.
So in order for this to work properly road signs have to be normalized all around the EU, which i don't see happening anytime soon.
Will mpg become the new mph?
We don't use miles here.
edit: article is UK?
"Hard to argue against"
No, it's really quite easy to argue against them.
I live in a rural area. If I call an ambulance, that's a minimum--minimum--of 20 minutes for any ambulance to get to me. Then it's another 20 minutes to get to an emergency room. I know someone who is a doctor that lives close to me, and their husband got stung by a bunch of yellow jackets. Their husband is allergic. They gave their husband a shit ton of meds, and made it to the ER in under 15 minutes. As it was, he barely avoided getting put on a ventilator, and that was with perfect care and driving 90+ mph on two lane mountain roads to get to a hospital. (He has an epinephrine pen now.) With a "smart" speed limiter on their car? He wouldn't have been breathing by the time they got to the ER.
When you live in a rural area, and emergency help is a long way away (honestly, 20 min ain't that bad compared to other parts of the state where it can be more like 45+ minutes just to get an ambulance out), it's really, really easy to argue against that kind of nanny state nonsense.
I wish regulations like this would help people realize that all along they were casual racing enthusiasts, and then spending time on the track for a few hours would become a weekend activity for many. Then we’d see an explosion of track cars vs grocery cars, and more tracks everywhere. That would be a positive outcome of something like this, per my pov.
Perhaps this type of speeding regulation is also meant to help self driving cars? I am guessing that monitoring and predicting the variable speed of many other vehicles on the road is quite a task.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Technology that will be required across Europe from this weekend may change that culture, because from 7 July all new cars sold in the EU and in Northern Ireland must have a range of technical safety features fitted as standard.
The rest of the UK is theoretically free, as ministers once liked to put it, to make the most of its post-Brexit freedoms, but the integrated nature of car manufacturing means new vehicles here will also be telling their drivers to take their foot off the accelerator.
Safety is the overriding reason for slower speeds, and as charities such as Brake and Rospa emphasise, even small increases above 30mph make a significant difference in outcomes, particularly for those who are not driving the car.
Yousif Al-Ani, the principal engineer for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) at Thatcham Research, says: “Modern vehicles are very good at protecting occupants in the event of a collision through passive safety features, such as airbag and crumple zones, but these have limited benefit to vulnerable road users” such as pedestrians and cyclists.
With the precise readings of computers replacing wobbly speedometer needles, however, and a new generation of speed cameras upping the ante on the enforcement side, it may be ever harder to disown responsibility.
Questions remain over whether the technology works well enough in all real-life situations, and how comfortable people will feel with their car telling them what to do, let alone taking control of their steering, brakes and acceleration – a potentially alarming and disorienting experience.
The original article contains 924 words, the summary contains 254 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Bad thing
I always wondered why this wasn't already a thing. Except for the Autobahn in Germany, where in the entire world are you allowed to drive 120+ MPH on a public road?
Edit: If you're not even gonna give a response with your downvotes, I'm just gonna assume you're an asshole who speeds for no good reason.