EU Proposes To Fit Cars With Speed Limiters 732
schwit1 points out a new EU road safety measure to fit cars with devices that would stop them going over 70mph. "Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded. Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, is said to be opposed to the plans, which could also mean existing cars are sent to garages to be fitted with the speed limiters, preventing them from going over 70mph. The new measures have been announced by the European Commission's Mobility and Transport Department as a measure to reduce the 30,000 people who die on the roads in Europe every year. A Government source told the Mail on Sunday Mr McLoughlin had instructed officials to block the move because they 'violated' motorists' freedom. They said: 'This has Big Brother written all over it and is exactly the sort of thing that gets people's backs up about Brussels.'"
Three reasons why this won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Cars will fail to read the road signs correctly
2. Someone will hack the road signs, leading to mayhem
3. Only a certain percentage of road fatalities are caused by people exceeding the listed speed limit
Why not fit cars with a voluntary limiter that users can enable themselves?
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in Holland last year, we had a car with a GPS and speed limit display. Only problem was, if you were on a main highway and passed over a local road, the speed limit would often switch to something like 50km/h as it briefly became confused about which road you were on.
Needless to say, having every car hitting the brakes at that point would probably be a bad idea.
But the speed limit signs really make no more sense, since they can trivially be 'hacked'; I've seen local kids in Britain turn speed limit signs around for grins, so you'd end up with a sixty mph limit in the town and a thirty on the road leading out of town.
All in all, it's a really stupid idea. Which is what you'd expect from the EU.
Amazing idea (Score:3, Insightful)
It will cost just a hundred billion euros and will make 2% of the fatal accidents non-fatal, only crippling.
fuck that (Score:2, Insightful)
People die because they are shit drivers, make the damn driving tests count for something so that not every idiot gets on the road.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:5, Insightful)
That wouldn't work in lots of place - for example in Germany - where there are speed limits that are variables and are adapted with traffic or weather conditions. That's a principal problem for every area where the speed limit is dependent on weather. In France, a lot of highways have a speed limit of 130 (in modern units) and 110 when it is raining or the road is wet. How would such as system work under such regulations? Regardless of with or without a camera, its not easy.
Then if you don't have a camera, the system would need accurate to the minute information on construction work. Else you'll see someone race at 120 through a 60 construction zone... and it's quite a critical point because once you have automatic speed limiters, people rely on them and stop driving. They just move ahead, without any consideration for the speed they are at. This is dangerous, because they totally lose situational awareness.
Lets say you have a camera. How does it handle multiple speed limits for trucks or cars with trailers? How about lane dependent speed limit? It must also see and interpret the signs associated with the speed limits. That makes quite a lot of data to process and artificial intelligence built in a critical system. Not that its impossible... this is some sort of minimum for self driving cars. But that's going to be expensive. You might just as well make the car self driving if it already has this level of situational awareness.
Speak of it again, I don't think this is a good measure. Either make the car fully automatic or leave it be. Any measure that detaches the driver from situational awareness is the wrong way to go around it in my (non expert) opinion. I would rather consider an alternative, based on the same system, that issues warnings rather than take control of critical systems.
Lets give an illustrative example (I can't find a car analogy right now)... a car passes a truck on a country road. He's almost past the front of the truck, but the driver realizes he miss judged the distance with oncoming traffic. In most cases, the only way out of this, is to accelerate and quickly get for the truck. Breaking to get back behind when you almost past it would take longer... and that's assuming the spot behind it is still there and not closed by another car. Suddenly, your built in speed limiter decides you are going too fast for your safety and cuts the ignition, obviously not aware that you are trying to avoid a face to face collision.
I'd take a lot of time thinking such a system through before implementing it...
Actually, you do not have the freedom to exceed... (Score:3, Insightful)
...the speed limit (or the law) while enjoying the priveledge of being allowed to operate a vehicle. If you cannot do it safely (speed, wreckless or drunk), then you lose the priveledge. Driving is is not a freedom. Speeding is not a freedom. My Corvette will limit the RPM of the engine once I hit 141MPH, I've tried it twice a very long time ago. I was young, drunk, wreckless and speeding. Fortunately, no one was hurt. If we had provided this technology when cars where becoming mainstream no one would know the difference.
Currently cars use several other technologies to prevent 'stupid' and everyone is ok with it.
1) The engine will shut down if oil pressure to low.
2) You can't put the car in drive unless you press the brake pedal.
3) You can't full brake the tires when trying to stop on snow, ice or gravel.
There are many more features working there way into all cars, all the time.
We can try al we want, but we can't fix stupid.
Cheers,
Re:Germany has no general speed limit on the Autob (Score:2, Insightful)
Autobahns are the safest roads around the world now.
Somehow, I think that proper maintenance of the roads, good, well placed signs have much higher impact on reducing the casualties than speed limits. But that would cost government money, not citizen money with next to no middlemen, so actually fixing the roads won't happen.
Driver Fatigue, second biggest cause of death (Score:4, Insightful)
Brussels should just FUCK OFF actually.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:0, Insightful)
But the speed limit signs really make no more sense, since they can trivially be 'hacked'; I've seen local kids in Britain turn speed limit signs around for grins, so you'd end up with a sixty mph limit in the town and a thirty on the road leading out of town.
Not all laws are designed based on how easy it is to break them, especially once you leave the internet behind. Assaulting someone on the street is quite easy, but somehow most of us manage to get to work without doing that each day.
Re:Germany has no general speed limit on the Autob (Score:0, Insightful)
The rich jackass doesn't kill people by driving fast. People die because they're too stupid to use their mirrors and get in front of the rich jackass who is a lot faster than they are.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no. Laws are designed by people with typically the most fleeting grasp of how they might affect reality.
Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in Holland last year, we had a car with a GPS and speed limit display. Only problem was, if you were on a main highway and passed over a local road, the speed limit would often switch to something like 50km/h as it briefly became confused about which road you were on.
Needless to say, having every car hitting the brakes at that point would probably be a bad idea.
But the speed limit signs really make no more sense, since they can trivially be 'hacked'; I've seen local kids in Britain turn speed limit signs around for grins, so you'd end up with a sixty mph limit in the town and a thirty on the road leading out of town.
All in all, it's a really stupid idea. Which is what you'd expect from the EU.
Not really, if the maxium speed limit is 70mph, which seems odd in the EU since it's supposed to be metric, but if the maximum speed limit is whatever, then setting the sensor to go off when you go above the maximum won't be impacted by side roads or the like. It will only kick in if you go over the maximum speedlimit. In the US, for most states that would be 70mph, although there are a few which allow faster.
Giving a warning when one is breaking the law isn't taking away one's legal freedoms, just their illegal freedoms, which by definition, they aren't free to exercise in the first place.
Of course, there is a much simpler method than using computers and the like. Go back to putting appropriately sized engines and gear ratios in cars and they will be able to accelerate quickly, get good fuel economy, and limit their top speed to about 1.25 times the maximum speed limit allowed. After all, why manufacture cars with a top speed of 150-200mph when the maximum legal speed limit is 70mph? It seems that if the state can revoke your license for dwi because you might hurt somebody while driving while intoxicated, the same rational would work for driving well above the posted speed limit.
According to the summary, 30,000 Europeans were killed in car accidents, it doesn't say how many were high speed, but even if only 10% were, that is 3,000 people, about the number killed on 9/11 in the US. The US went to war because those deaths were viewed as being for no good reason. Are traffic fatalities because of reckless high speed driving any better?
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in Holland last year, we had a car with a GPS and speed limit display. Only problem was, if you were on a main highway and passed over a local road, the speed limit would often switch to something like 50km/h as it briefly became confused about which road you were on.
That's a pretty fucked up navigation system then. Tracks should be sticky, and only easily change to other roads when there is a junction, or where the GPS position is significantly away from the road it previously thought you were on.
They can often believe you've taken a slip road (off ramp) when you haven't, and vice versa, before correcting. But to believe you're on a road you are simply passing over is a big fuck up.
Needless to say, having every car hitting the brakes at that point would probably be a bad idea.
That would be a pretty stupid way to implement it anyway, even for legitimate speed limit changes, so it wouldn't be done like that. A limit on acceleration would deal with the majority of cases. If they really cared enough about acceleration sue to downhill slopes, they could add in very gentle braking too.
All in all, it's a really stupid idea. Which is what you'd expect from the EU.
Actually, the stronger possibility is it's the kind of story you'd expect the Mail on Sunday (or it's sister the Daily Mail) to tell about the EU, regardless of whether there is any truth in it. Or if there is a grain of truth, with lots of untrue embellishments.
Re:Actual quote from EU spokesman (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of rabidly anti-EU British papers.
relevant quote from EU spokesman:
“There is a currently consultation focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses.
“Taking account of the results, the Commission will publish in the autumn a document by its technical experts which will no doubt refer to ISA among many other things.”
Thank you!
Any British newspaper, except sometimes the Guardian or Independent, is not a neutral source for news on the EU. They will happily blame the EU for anything, while not noting that British MEPs vote in favour of it, or (fairly often) Britain made a significant input into the proposal.
http://www.votewatch.eu/ [votewatch.eu] can be useful for finding this, but it's not that easy to search.
Re: Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
9 years old is 2004, be about the time of first serious push at eco-diesels in Europe (I think e.g. VW Bluemotion brand was a year or so later). Poster is in UK, an economy car from 2004 _will_ be a diesel (to help your model search).
Say, maybe, "Astra CDTi ECO4 LS [2004]". Engine size will be 1.6something ccs, probably sold as a 1.6 at the time but likely now bracketed as "1.7" (might have more luck finding it that way). I have an older "1.9" diesel (not vauxhaul) which would now be sold / classed as 2l.
Combined cycle MPG for that example model: 64mpg (UK) = 54mpg (US) = about 4.5 l/100km
Good for its time, but indeed not out of this world amazing for a new car - a modern 1.6 / 1.7 diesel similar size will get near 3l / 100km, or over 70mpg combined cycle US gals.
Of course you won't actually see any of these cars in the US because US market is allergic to diesel cars - quite happy to burn lots of diesel on the road and dirtier stuff than in europe, but only in trucks. Why - who knows, but someone will be making money from keeping it that way.
Re: No need for cameras. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you crash at 70mph you're just as likely to be dead as crashing at 80mph making whether you were speeding irrelevant.
Fucking stupid rubbish. If there is a sudden jam on the motorway due to some minor mishap, and you approach that jam at 70mph, even if you see it too late, you will still slam your brakes and crash into the stopped cars at a much lower speed. If you approach at 80mph, your crash speed will be dramatically higher. In the same space where you slow down from 70mph to 30mph (where seatbelt + airbag + crumbling car should keep you reasonably safe), you slow down from 80mph to 50mph.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:4, Insightful)
They should also fit cars with proximity sensors that automatically apply the brakes when you get too close to the car in front. Then if that car brakes, whether it's because of the glitch you describe or any other reason, you'll have enough time to brake to avoid a collision.
Or you could just quit tailgating the car in front of you and you will always have plenty of time to avoid
a collision with the car in front of you, with no additional technology required.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:3, Insightful)
This, exactly. I have never seen or heard of anyone being pulled over (never mind ticketed) purely for unsafe driving. I've heard of people being pulled over under suspicion of DUI because they were weaving, but that's not the same thing at all. But every day across the US, thousands (probably millions) of drivers get pulled over and ticketed because they hit some arbitrary speed over the posted limit. It has absolutely nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with revenue.
Re:Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
What about simply overtaking safely.
It's impossible to pass someone safely on the motorway if you can only get your speed 1mph higher than theirs – it means you sit in their blind spot for ages.
It's worse on country roads, where you're going to make it completely impossible to overtake someone doing any speed over 50mph, because a 10mph passing speed is not significant enough to get you past on any of the short straights on Britain's windy country roads.
Worse, if you come up against someone doing 60mph on the straights, but slowing down unduly on the bends, you now have only one option –to overtake them on the bends. I'd bet heavily that that alone would increase the accident rate, not decrease it, because people would start overtaking in stupid places.
Re:Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt cost and hassle had much to do with it. More likely the screaming, foaming at the mouth rants that would appear on the front of several national newspapers at there merest hint of it.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:5, Insightful)
They should also fit cars with proximity sensors that automatically apply the brakes when you get too close to the car in front.
I'm not sure that would work. To get some things out the way:
I currently live in England whish is blessed with some of the safest roads in the world. I'm going to assume you're American, since most people are here. The English road test is very, very much harder than the various US ones. Compared to some, (i.e. big, empty states like NM) the difference is laughable. On average people fail between 1 and 2 times before finally passing.
I'm not making any particular point except about the test. It's necessary since England is so much more crowded and has on average much more crowded roads.
And that's the thing. Once you get on a busy motorway, it is still terrifing to anyone with an understanding of, e.g. physics. There's usually about a 1 second gap between all cars. There is nothing you can do about it. If you slow down, you'll slow the lane down and cause lots of people to pull out to overtake. That's particularly dangerous since all 3 lanes are full. And then people will simply pull into the gap in front of you, filling the nice 2-3 second gap.
In other words, it's a nice idea, but on crowded roads, even with good drivers, it wouldn't work.
Re:No need for cameras. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't worry about it and drop back. As long as you're keeping speed does it matter?
Stopping someone cutting in front is a pretty bone-headed excuse for tailgating.