Speeding To Become Impossible In UK? 642
dmearns writes: "Picked this up from comp.risks. It seems the UK government is planning on requiring computer controlled speed limiters on cars within 5 years. The system uses GPS to figure out if the vehicle is in a speed limited zone. The original story is here.
I suppose it is inevitable that officials would think of something like this, but I never thought people would accept it!"
Outrageous (Score:2)
ehren ytou're as pised as I am (Score:2)
I'm, as cucked as a newrt. I've had a few ntognightr5, nd wqriet \franekhy;y I think i SOHGULD N'T Drive.
U;n avnazed I caj do HGTMML on an eZ basis. I'm surpsied I know what a
ius for.
Risks and other downsides (Score:2)
Never mind the obvious danger, this would also massively congest roads. Motorway driving speeds in the UK are 80-90mph, vs the official limit of 70. If cars are limited to 70mph, then it's the same as turning the water pressure down on a hose - you're not going to get as much water through...
Just like radar... (Score:2)
Never happened.
I suspect that if you start putting speed controls on cars, people will start fixing up the old ones to avoid having the privacy intrusion. New car sales will falter, and the speed controls will come out. No large corporation wants to get a bad reputation with it's clientele, and I think the fear of being labelled as a 'big brother' type of corporation will keep automakers from actually implementing this...Re:Mass Transit plot (Score:2)
Speed (Score:3)
gps reception? (Score:5)
Wait till it's cracked (Score:5)
But what... (Score:3)
Re:Here are several possible fixes... (Score:2)
Won't work if they embed it in the engine control computer and drive it off the same sesore that times the spark.
consider the positive side (Score:2)
Several months ago I was driving 70 mph on the freeway and I was about to switch lanes. An instant before I did, some idiot can flying by me at what must have been 120 mph. It scared the piss out of me. Had I switch lanes a second earlier, I might not be here to write this. There *is* a reason for speed limits, and there *is* a reason to enforce them!
Consider also that the idiots who would be most inconvenienced by this tracking system are usually also the same idiots who cause cause those traffic jams that waste a half hour of your time every couple of weeks.
Actually, if they set the thing to trigger at about 10-15 mph over the actual speed limit I don't think I would mind it.
Re:I disagree - It can be done... (Score:2)
While I admire your ingenuity, I must also point out that you're not the first to think of the problem along those lines.
In fact, the data in any given 4 km area is substantially more complex than a vector and a few arcs. So there are significant bandwidth issues.
There are also significant geography issues--because your vehicle would have to know which 4 km square to download next. (In fact, you wouldn't download 4 km squares--you'd download .2 or .25-degree squares. GIS generally doesn't do miles or kilometers.)
And once again--you'd have to absolutely, positively guarantee, regardless of wind, weather, or atmospheric disturbance, that the data transfer happened in time. Or you could be sending cars at 100 kmph hurtling into an interchange whose speed limit was just reduced to 40 kmph.
Politicians love control. But they get very nervous about the possibility of large numbers of voters getting killed.
Re:This is a dreadful idea (Score:2)
You're Comparing Apples and Oranges (Score:4)
Hi!
You're essentially advocating one giant, massive computer to track all these vehicles. And you're suggesting a 10-second latency between vehicle reports. Here's an academic exercise for you: there are more than 5 million registered vehicles in the New York City metropolitan area (specifically, the FCC-designated MSC). If a position report requires a minimum of 64 bytes (it more or less does), and each vehicle is reporting every 10 seconds, how much bandwidth does it take to handle all the traffic?
Lots.
Having one massive system to control vehicle traffic can work--but only if it is
Which is to say, this works when you're the Federal Aviation Administration tracking airplanes through the sky (there are only several thousand airliners worldwide). The problem is vastly more complicated when you have hundreds of millions of cars in North America--the bandwidth requirements, and the computing requirements, are overwhelming. And all you need is one vehicle in the middle of it all to suddenly decide to fry its GeoBigBrother chip, and lots of people die.
Yes--some transit systems monitor the positions of their buses. Here's how: the bus does have geodata onboard--but since it is only traveling within the Portland area, it doesn't need any more data than a few counties. That's substantially less than 37 CD-ROMs. The bus also includes a radio transmitter that is talking back and forth with a controller. The system tells the controller where the bus is.
But--that bus gets "lost" all the time, depending on how often it passes large buildings, goes under bridges, etc. If there's a tunnel on the route, forget about it. In a real sense, these systems are just like cell phones (and in some cases, they are cell phones): there are some places where you just can't get radio reception. (And there's the opposite problem, too--sometimes you get radio reception a hundred miles away.)
The system you see when you ride the bus is a reporting system. A system to govern a vehicle's speed--with obvious life-and-death implications--is a command and control system. Don't confuse the two--the first is relatively easy. The second is extremely hard--and the consequences of a failure are catastrophic.
Re:But what... (Score:2)
Besides, we already have a way for cops to tell if you are speeding for the purposes of speeding, and that's physical observation. Now, I know in Chicago and in the state of Michigan, the effectiveness is rather poor (ie the cops will observe someone going 80 in a 60 zone and do nothing about it, causing that person and more people to feel they can put the speed limit up), but that's a problem of how the personnel are trained and told how to do their job and not a technological problem.
Re:Risks and other downsides (Score:2)
Re:consider the positive side (Score:2)
Yes, to get more money. Safety doesn't come into it (you can't legislate for stupidity). Just like when I look at excessive amounts of traffic lights, speed-reducing measures and the like, I don't see any attempt to improve traffic flow, I see measures to slow us all down.
There are at least two reasons for being able to go over the limit:
1) the limit is bogus. We all know that when you see a sign saying "max speed 30" you can take the corner at 40 with impunity.
2) you need to be able to go over the limit in order to get out of messy situations. Otherwise, quite simply, you'll have everyone sitting at 38mph in front of you and won't be able to overtake to do 40 - and why the heck should I settle for them imposing their slowness on me? (For the yanks reading, the UK is full of roads where you need a good clear 10mph over folks to overtake before something comes round the next corner.)
I think the government would be *much* better off dedicating its time to making traffic flow a more fluid affair than trying to make a quick buck and endangering more folks.
~Tim
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Re:What happens in an emergency? (Score:2)
> What happens if my wife or whomever is about to give birth?
Well gollllly Jimmy-Bob, I think you should get in your car and drive 120 mph, because God knows childbirth is a dangerous life threatening situation that will always end badly if not done in a modern high-tech hospital.
(How the f*ck did that make it to 5-Insightful?)
Re:Massachusetts Turnpike: Case In Point (Score:2)
Local authorities in the US have no desire to stop speeding. Their game plan is to set speed limits 15-20 MPH below the normal speed of traffic, and randomly pick out people from whom to collect tribute, er, fines.
/.
Re:Wait till you're fined (Score:3)
You know, I wouldn't mind having this system in my car if it acted as some kind of insurance against speeding fines. But the gubmint won't let such a cash cow go that easily. Reminds me of the Bertelsmann Tax.
Re:Emergencies, Privacy, Law breaking, and Democra (Score:3)
In an emergency, I won't be able to drive fast. How can I get my spouse/child/parent to the hospital in time?!
There are white trucks with red flashing lights, a siren and trained personnel called ambulances that handle this sort of thing.
As anyone familiar with basic arithmetic will realize, the time it takes for an ambulance to cover distance 2X is going to be greater than the time for a car to cover distance X (X = distance between emergency and hospital) unless the car's speed is less than half the speed it is physically possible to drive (which will clearly not be the case in an emergency situation).
But what if I'm in a remote area?
There's almost always some sort of "official personnel" nearby
Er, is this some new definition of the word "remote" with which I have not been familiar?
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! This invades my privacy!
If you're so naive to believe that this is a "new" problem created by this device, go ahead.
The new problem is that a government bureaucrat can track someone by pushing a few buttons in his comfy office. This makes tracking for trivial and illegitimate causes much more likely than the old system, under which agents in the field had to go observe in person and risk getting caught. (Example: If G. Gordon Liddy had been able to listen in on Democratic Party HQ by simply flipping a switch in the White House basement, we probably wouldn't know to this day that he'd done it.)
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! They'll know I'm speeding / visiting a prostitute / buying drugs / running guns!
GOOD. These are ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.
"The government will know I'm visiting somebody on the Enemies' List / buying anarchist literature / running antiwar protests!
(Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Can't Happen Here[tm].)
/.
Re:gps reception? (Score:5)
Y'see, there's some satellite navigation systems that use GPS. Some are rather better than others, some are downright daft. One that springs to mind is a car which was being roadtested and went round a roundabout several times without an instruction to leave. The problem was that the exit it wanted was just after a bridge - so not in satellite reception and so it wasn't ever (as far as it thought) in the right place to get the signal. A stupid system but this sort of problem does exist.
This isn't the only reason why I oppose this though. It's unsafe and will cause accidents. Sound counterintuitive? Think about it.
Firstly, GPS isn't that accurate. Where limits change periodically, some drivers are going to have different limiter settings than others in all probability. Everyone's trying to drive on the limiter so people are going to get irritated by those who aren't - or, worse, not bother to check their relative speed on the assumption that 'the computer will handle it'.
Now, think about a computer which will stop you breaking the speed limit. This removes watching your speed from the routine of driving as 'the computer will handle it' again, so watch for skid marks on tighter-than-anticipated corners. Watch for appalling driving in appaling conditions as speed isn't something people think about any more. And watch for ridiculous overtaking maneuvers from people annoyed that the person in front is going 1 MPH below what their limiter would allow them to. Think that's daft? Watch the lorries and coaches on the motorways in Britain. Almost uniformly limited to 56 MPH in a misguided safety campaign. This, in fact, causes extra congestion, pollution and accidents due to the speed differentials and bottlenecking it causes - most of the traffic wants to go far faster and we now have the daft situation of the majority of the traffic often being in the fast lane. Ahh, note to US readers - British highways only allow passing on the right under normal conditions. Works better, think fluid dynamics.
Anyway, back to my original point there. Because they're all constrained but trying to go as fast as possible, the smallest distinction becomes worth fighting over. Except that the vehicles can't exactly fight hard as they're all limited to pretty much the same speed. So, overtaking maneuvers become long and drawn out. Relatively safe - if irritating - on a motorway, very dangerous on a single carriageway road.
Now, let's imagine the main reason at the moment for overtaking on single carriageway roads - vehicles travelling much slower than normal for the class of road. This might be an abnormal load, a more cautious than normal motorist, a faulty vehicle or possibly a cyclist or horse. If they're to be passed, the passing vehicle must drive into a lane routinely occupied by traffic flowing in the opposite direction. If you're going to safely execute such a maneuver, you should be in such a position for as little time as possible - which might actually mean driving above the posted limit in the name of safety... Yes, these roads carry a tiny percentage of the traffic - but account for an awful lot of the accidents. They need too be considered.
Now, let's imagine you're planning such a maneuver. How would your execution be affected by a vehicle which would suddely stop accelerating? Introduces a rather unwelcome variable into the equation and necessitates a driver staring at the speedo when travelling in what is naturally a fairly hazardous manner. Not clever.
Perhaps we want to discourage such actions altogether? Oops, bad idea. Results in congestion which leads to annoyed drivers. Annoyed drivers aren't concentrating as hard as a rule, so are more likely to make stupid mistakes. They also aren't necessarily thinking rationally so are more likely to go for a gap which they wouldn't otherwise look twice at - again, causing an accident.
Imagine if this system fails. Imagine if you're stuck at 30 MPH in a 70 zone - a dangerous bottleneck and rather likely to be hit, very hard, from behind. Or if you're in a 30 zone and the system suddenly decides to allow 70. You're driving on the limiter safe in the knowledge that it will regulate your speed - except that it will suddenly jump you forwards at quite a rate. Equally unpleasant.
Finally, let's look at the group who cause most traffic accidents - young men. A group which I'm a part of, as it happens. Now, we already have a car culture which regards speed limits and current enforcement methods with contempts, and one which readily modifies any and every aspect of a vehicle in order to enhance its performance. These limiters will get hacked out so fast it's not worth thinking about. Make them compulsary for the annual roadworthiness test? People will do what they already do with exhaust gas catalysts and simply keep two components - one legal, one not - and swap them for that one day per year. Introduce spot roadside tests? They'll become switchable - exactly what happened with lowriders when they became illegal and led to car hopping today.
We might think that it would still be an improvement as at least _some_ would have limiters - but you're assuming a competent job was done of hacking the limiter out, against the years of experience with other computer software. Look at cracked games back in the Amiga days - they often had serious problems due to the work done on them. Now, a badly hacked speed limiter could be very dangerous as there's no guarantee it will be permanently or predictably off, or won't have side-effects. Perhaps emissions control will go out of the window, perhaps reliability will go. Modern engines often run rather close to the limits of the possible and rely on computer control to keep them functional. The respectable guys aren't going to touch this work and I can't see we have much guarantee of competence with the back street hackers.
This is being suggested to feed a rather nasty, media-driven public climate in Britain right now. It is a daft and dangerous measure which is risking a lot to appease a section of the population who haven't thought the ideas through properly and should be knocked firmly and squarely on the head.
As an aside, there's no way of reliably retrofitting this to all pre-legislation cars... expect values of older performance cars to go through the roof if this ever gets in.
US insurance company trying this (Score:2)
pricd to one's driving habits- distance, urban/rural, time-of-day, etc.
The metering device is GPS.
Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:2)
Re:This is something I've thought about before (Score:2)
So if you had impacted at 70mph (the motorway/dual carrageway limit in the UK), you would have been fine?
Re:Speed (Score:2)
Incidentally, has anyone thought that this might actually be a _good_ idea? Say, anyone who's had friends/relatives run down by drunk and/or speeding drivers? Or who's been held up for hours in a traffic jam caused by an accident in fog? A system which reduces the speed limit for bad conditions, AND which increases the limit in perfect conditions - sounds good to me.
Grab.
Re:Second order dead reckoning (Score:2)
Re:Wait till it's cracked (Score:2)
I could also get into the fact that it's really a different technology since the speed limiters on trucks are usully fixed at 55-60MPH (sometimes much lower on ag trucks) regardless of what the local speed is, whereas the tech mentioned here is dynamic depending on your location. But I'll ignore that and focus on the un-needed government intervention...a much more serious issue.
Rejected in California (Score:2)
All that monitoring is there for a different reason. CALTRANS discovered in the 1980s that more than half of freeway traffic delays are due to accidents or other traffic-obstructing incidents. So they put in place systems to detect problems very rapidly and get emergency vehicles to the scene quickly. [ca.gov] This increases the capacity of the freeway system by about one lane, but it's much cheaper. The policy change was that the emergency response is designed to clear the freeway as quickly as possible; law enforcement is a secondary priority. So more effort goes into getting tow trucks and CALTRANS vehicles to the scene. This took some re-education of the cops. At first they weren't happy responding to stuff like this:
But now it's accepted, and today when something happens on a freeway, there will be a CHP car, a CALTRANS truck, and whatever else is necessary. (And, months later, in Small Claims Court, CALTRANS will be collecting for damaged landscaping, sprinkler pipe, guard rails, and such.)More recently, TV cameras have been installed along major urban freeways. They have pan, tilt, and zoom, but they don't move much. Mostly they're ignored until some other sensor (usually the speed-sensing loops) detects a traffic disruption. This, in fact, is the real function of CALTRANS speed sensing. Anything that disrupts traffic flow is very visible from the speed sensor map [ca.gov], which has become a part of California culture. In L.A., it's on a cable channel.
Re:Nice Concept--Won't Work (Score:2)
OK fine, but at any one point in time the only information you have is the current information, and historical information. It's no problem determining where he is now and where he was 10 seconds ago, but how do you suggest we figure out where he's going to be 10 seconds from now?? Are we going to make drivers plot their route beforehand? This is starting to sound like that automated highways stuff all over again....
Re:Risks and other downsides (Score:2)
I'm used to the south east, M25, M20, southern M1 & M4 in particular. It's agressive, pushy and busy. But rarely much clear 80. Then last weekend I was visiting my parents, who've just moved to Derbyshire. Whoah, do people in the midlands drive fast on the M1! I was being hassled if I was doing less than 85... Far less traffic and it was generally less overtly agressive than around London but the speeds were ridiculous. Made overtaking anyone (56 MPH lorries included) a nuisance because someone would normally sit on my bumper and complain I wasn't going as illegally fast as they wanted to.
Never been so glad to get off a motorway.
Re:Second order dead reckoning (Score:2)
Just today when I pulled out of my parking lot I made a 90 degree turn on a patch of ice and the speedometer believed I was going 20 miles an hour when in fact I was doing about 1 or 2 miles an hour while my wheels spun a bit. If it was tracking my movement that way it would have thought I turned all the way around several times, straightening out at an entirely random direction.
That's an extreme case, but even if the slippage were small - a patch of oil or a wet spot - it would make the computer think you were pointed in a different direction than you actually were. In an old city like London, with it's many roads going off at odd angles (as opposed to younger cities where the streets are mostly orthogonal) this would be a big problem. The computer can't just round-off to the nearest cardinal direction. For all it knows, a 137-degree turn might be perfectly valid.
Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:2)
'Cause you're a minority and you live in a town like Indianapolis where the cops are so fucking racist even their cars have white hoods?
'Cause the cop pulled you over 'cause he didn't like your "DARE to Keep Cops Off Donuts" bumper sticker, and since THAT isn't illegal, wrote you a ticket for speeding instead?
'Cause he's in a hurry to fill quota and KNOWS you can't prove you weren't speeding?
Re:Second order dead reckoning (Score:2)
This is used to provide a best guess when the GPS signal goes, for whatever reason. It's not going to be used over large distances with lots of junctions - long distances in tunnels are possible but how many tunnels are crawling with subterranean junctions? In that context, it's good enough IMO.
Re:Emergencies, Privacy, Law breaking, and Democra (Score:2)
It is ridiculous to tear down barriers to government abuse -- much less to give the government new powers to abuse -- simply because they sometimes get away with abuses already. It's like deciding that, since a teenager will sometimes sneak a drink anyway, you might as well give him the key to the liquor cabinet.
/.
Re:Second order dead reckoning (Score:2)
Re:Nice Concept--Won't Work (Score:2)
The article talked about speed zones, which to me seems to imply that it would mark certain areas as having maximum speeds. In my neighborhood there aren't any streets with speed limits above 35mph -- so it would be a 35mph zone. The highway is a ways away, and it would have to have a 55mph corridor. So you could speed on the overpasses, but is that such a big deal? And you could speed in the 15mph parking lot in the 35mph zone, but that's just the way it would have to be.
This is not a lot of information. It's just covering the map with variuos polygons and respective speed limits. It doesn't have to be highly reactive to speed limit changes, because it's only trying to say what the highest speed limit in the area might be. It doesn't have to have a high resolution, because it's just an approximation anyway.
Still may or may not be a good idea, but it doesn't seem that hard. At least technically.
imagination (Score:2)
Why not? As a U.S. citizen, that is, as a rights-free subject under a police state, I can imagine being arrested, convicted, and subjected to a decade in jail for a rape and murder that someone else committed [crimelynx.com]. Also, I can imagine being assassinated on my own doorstep by a police department death squad, each of whom later being found "not guilty" of even so much as a misdemeanor. [villagevoice.com]
If you trust the cops, or the courts, or the legislatures, anywhere in this loathsome country even any at all, then shame on you for a fool, you obviously don't read the newspaper carefully enough.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Re:I don't think this would happen in the USA (Score:2)
Except for the democratic process of elections,of course.
"
Without armed citizens, what threat can be held against the government if they decide to NOT obey an election?
I cannot think of even ONE country that has disarmed it's citizens that is still free. The UK since Comrade Blair took office has been turning the UK rapidly into a fascist police state.
Patrol cars (Score:2)
Patrol cars can already stop your car in any instance. What the hell do you plan to do if you see a police siren behind you, floor it and hope they'll decide not to pursue?
Re:This is something I've thought about before (Score:2)
My question to you is, why were you in the car with someone who was endangering your life? You have only yourself to blame.
The issue here is not whether going to fast is bad (we already know that), and not whether speed limits should be changed (that's a whole other argument), but the nasty implications of this.
The potential for a black market is obvious, and there may be people already investigating this. The privacy implications are also preposterous. This technology allows cops to get around a few things in the constitution, if they try hard enough. (Maybe not technically, but it'll effectively be guilty until proven innocent.)
Bah.
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Re:They need GPS for this? (Score:2)
Re:consider the positive side (Score:2)
proportional to the *square* of speed?"
Square of the velocity, actually. Direction is an important consideration. And you need to demonstrate that KE is the important relevant factor in an accident rather than, for example, change in momentum over surface area of impact.
~Tim
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Oh yeah?!? (Score:3)
A system like this is begging to be hacked. (Score:3)
I wonder how long it will take someone to reverse-engineer the protocol and build a transmitter that can send out forged speed limits. Turning the speed limit down to 5MPH (8KM/H) on a major highway at the height of rush hour would be a great piece of 'hactivism' to show what a totally brain-dead scheme this is. [ Of course, it would be an even better hack if you could force people to speed up when they are driving 40 in a 55 zone :-) ] I'm sure there are some more creative hacks that could be done as well...
Of course, anyone who has more than a half-dozen brain cells capable of working in unison would disable the damn thing as soon as they drove it home from the dealership. The US Army loves to put speed governers in it's vehicles to keep gung-ho young soldiers from driving around like total lunatics. So of course the young gung-ho soldiers waste no time in taking them out as soon as the CO's back is turned.
It is a basic premise of computer security that you cannot secure a system you do not have physical control over. You put one of these things in a hacker's car, and they are going have it pulled apart and under the 'scope before the paint is dry.
Re:Wait till it's cracked (Score:2)
Re:Here's a fix: B-) (Score:2)
Maybe that's why I've never been modded up:)
'twas said 225 years ago (Score:2)
Sounds simple to me. What are you waiting for?
-Nev
Please read the actual article first! (Score:3)
Beyond that: I agree, this would probably be a bad idea if implemented stupidly. However, as was said very elegantly by another poster in response to the NASA brain control of a aircraft discussion, why does everyone always automatically assume that the people developing the systems mentioned here are completely incapable of thinking of all the problems that everyone here comes up with in 30 seconds. I would bet you any reasonable sum of money that the people behind this system have already thought about emergency passing, gradually handling speed limit changes between zones, weather overrides, and all of that. If they haven't, you can bet someone will before they get around to implementing it in large scale five or ten years from now. Please, recognize that slashdot readers do not have a monopoly on common sense. ;-)
Re:But what... (Score:2)
treke
Using GPS is silly and useless (Score:3)
Roads are fixed, so the speed limitation could be very easily done with a fixed short-range transmitter posted at the start of the restricted-speed zone. No need for a messy and unreliable road speed database that has to be carried with the car and would never be up to date. Short-range transmitters, OTOH, could be setup whenever convenient or as needed (like for work slow-zones).
Capping the speed of the car wouldn't be very wise; for example, in case of emergency and you need the speed (like if you're overtaking that big tanker while a floatful of bricks is carreening your way). A loud siren inside the car (like in Singapore) would be safer.
Finally, a better thing would be an event recorder that records the last 30 minutes or so of whatever the driver has been doing (including the speed limitation he's been going through) which would be remotely downloadable by the police, so it could ticket offenders as soon as they run accross them. And also the information would be quite valuable to investigate eventual accidents.
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What if they (Score:2)
That doesn't seem too unreasonable to me if they choose a margin that gives some lee-way that would give the driver some power.
Of course, then if the driver were to continuously use that leeway they'd find themselves without any leeway left if they needed it in an emergency.......
Re:But what... (Score:2)
What about people who race their cars? Don't laugh, there are plenty of people with normal street cars who enjoy racing them on a track in a controlled environment (www.scca.org). I wonder if sports car enthusiasts will be able to get waivers for sporting events?
If this madness hits the states, I hope people will have the guts to protest vigorously and snip their GPS antennas.
The US gov't has mandated that all cell phones made past a certain point in time (a year or three from now -- pretty soon, can't recall just when) have a GPS in them. I do NOT want "the man" knowing where I am going all the time... even if it's for my safety. I'll take my chances.
Flame on.
Re:Speed (Score:5)
- How big is your land, sonny?
- Lissen, dude, I can jump in my car in the morning, drive it until the sun sets, and I'll still be on my land.
- I used to have a car like that, too...
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Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:2)
Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:5)
Re:physically dangerous, unsafe, too many variable (Score:2)
What happens when youre driving along in a 45 zone and the zone changes suddenly to 30? if its raining or there's snow on the ground, you're toast.
Why? Presumably the system would be designed to give some sort of audiable warning allowing the driver to break on their own, and then if they dom't comply, slowly break the vehicle down to the speed limit. It just plain silly to claim that it would be designed to slam on the anchors as soon as you crossed into a zone with a different speed limit.
Are they gonna have a live update of weather conditions at each and every zone as well?
Why would they need them...?
Not in the UK it doesn't, it certainly effects the advisory speed on Motorways, but not the maximum limit imposed by law...appart, of course, for the M25 which has variable speed limits, mostly due to...
...traffic conditions. However these speed limits already update the speed cameras (something I haven't seen much of in the US, so maybe you guys don't have them?) wouldn't be much bother to have them update the black box via a local radio signal. Not a major design consideration really.
How will they resolve disputes like where the speed limit sign says one thing and the Central Database says another?
Well obviously you have to obey the signs, its no defence to say that your car was letting you go faster than the posted limit, or we'd all be able to speed any time we wanted. If the central database had a slower speed than the posted limit, well tough, you file a complaint.
How will they know how many people are in your car so as to know whether you should be in the HOV lane or not?
I'm a Brit, I couldn't even tell you what an HOV lane is, although I could take a decent guess from context. Whatever they are, we don't have them.
Will the argument, "I couldn't have been speeding, the guvnor was operating normally" be a legal defense? should it be?
Unlikely, how can you know that it operating normally at the time of the incident?
Al.--
rigidly enforcing speed limits is good (Score:2)
If speed limits were enforced rigidly, people would finally get up the political will to set them where they actually want them to be set. Maybe then we can travel at reasonable speeds without breaking the law.
Putting a GPS receiver and limiter into each car seems like a pretty expensive and heavy-handed approach. I think it would be better to have automated traffic cameras for enforcement. In addition, to help drivers comply, we should come up with a system of local transmitters (cheap, small, solar-powered boxes) that send information about local speed limits (and other local traffic information) to cars to be used as the cars and drivers see fit.
physically dangerous, unsafe, too many variables (Score:2)
This is an extremely unsafe thing to implement. Anything that overrides your control of your vehicle could potentially make you lose control. What happens when youre driving along in a 45 zone and the zone changes suddenly to 30? if its raining or there's snow on the ground, you're toast. What security model will they use, to prevent malicious hacking (in this case, a virus could have tragic/fatal consequences).
Are they gonna have a live update of weather conditions at each and every zone as well? after all, weather affects speed limits. how will they correct for traffic conditions (sometimes, someone going the speed limit on a highway can actually cause a rush hour traffic jam). What about night vs. day limits? (they change in many places)
How will they resolve disputes like where the speed limit sign says one thing and the Central Database says another? How will they know how many people are in your car so as to know whether you should be in the HOV lane or not?
Will the argument, "I couldn't have been speeding, the guvnor was operating normally" be a legal defense? should it be?
Sometimes, speeding is justifiable (Score:2)
Even if they think about doing this, a better idea would be to not restrict the car's speed, but use the tracking information to deliver speeding tickets without having traffic cops posted all over the place.
-Laxitive
at last (Score:2)
Sometimes I wish people could drive cars near campus at all, it would sure make things easier for me. But once I get home during breaks, and the scooter goes into my closet, I definitely like using my car to get around, so it's kind of a tough decision!
I'd have to say we'd be better off with these things than without, though.
ben.
In a word (Score:2)
Re:They need GPS for this? (Score:3)
Firstly, what is the cellphone company going to do if they can locate me. They're not going to give out that info to Some Dumb Joe (tm). Have you ever even tried to get somebody else's cellphone number from the cellphone company. Last time I tried (I even told them it was an absolute emergency) they told me there was nothing they could do.
Secondly, if you were so paranoid as to be bothered by the fact that somebody might hack the signal and locate you, couldn't either (a) turn the thing off / take the battery out, or (b) not carry/own a cell phone at all??
Also, why don't people say the same thing about Chevy's NorthStar. They can track you in you car. Obviously they're able to give you directions/ unlock your doors / etc. Plus, when you get in a wreck (actually, any time the airbags deploy) they call 911 for you. Which is actually a really nice feature when you think about it.
Who cares if your cellphone told you that the store you were standing in front of was having a blue light special on fat men's uderwear. I think it'd be great if it could also find a list of coupons that are availble at the grocery store that I'm standing in. "Oh hey look, it's buy-1-get-1-free on ketchup. Maybe I should run in and grab 2 bottles for that picknic this weekend."
I'm all for it. Hell, it could even observe my driving patterns and inform me of upcoming traffic conjestion/wrecks/etc and re-route me. This would be great on the way to work. Or, I could easily check how busy my favorite restuarant is. "Hrm.. cell phone estimates almost 2 hour wait... wanna go somewhere else?"
I'm all for automation that makes life easier.
emergency manouvers (Score:3)
After they get these in place, they'll have a means whereas patrol cars can stop your car remotely in any instance. Will bring a new meaning to "fascist state"
Re:gps reception? (Score:2)
THIS got a +5???
Let me take a WILD guess and say the car will continue to work just fine if GPS is not available. Sheesh!
You probably still think Microsoft is going to require a network connection to install Whistler, right?
FUD? (Score:2)
If all the mapping/speedlimit information is stored in the unit then the unit would have no reason to 'dial-out' and allow you to be tracked.
That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it isn't a requirement of using this technology (to the best of my knowledge).
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re:A dangerous proposition (Score:2)
For those who don't remember, about 6 months ago the US government decided to make military-grade GPS available to civilian GPS systems. This made them much more accurate as to location, speed, etc. However they reserved the right to turn the system back down to pre-SA levels at any time, per area of the world, as National Security or government whim dictates.
Now, for all the posters who ask, what will happen if there's a building or a cloud? Will the engine cut out? I wonder about another risk; if the US decides to back off of Selective Availability, what happens to cars in motion that find themselves suddenly hundreds of meters from where they were just a moment ago, due to suddenly and purposefully inaccurate data from the birds?
Dumb computer: I'm going 500 kph! [ticket / shutdown]
Do you trust the government to notice the moment of SA shutdown and nullify the tickets? Or pay for a new car if your engine locks up?
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Re:engineers (Score:2)
Well, not really. The faster you go, the more dangerous it is, especially if you're drunk. 55 mph is bad enough, but it's a lot better than 90.
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Re:I can totally believe it. (Score:2)
[snip]
I'm so glad that the (former) American Colonies got fed up with this a long time ago and did the sensible thing.
hmmm... yeah...
Can you say DMCA or UTICA?
Big Problem Here (Score:2)
While those in the UK generally value the illusion of safety over liberty (it is an exaggeration I know, but not that great of one.), we here in the United States have this little legal principal that cannot be avoided, which is detailed in the 6th ammendment:
Notice the part that says "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." You are well within your rights to dispute a ticket, especially if the only 'proof' they have is some machine readout.
No illusion of security is worth trading your freedoms.... and make no mistake, it is just an illusion. I refuse to give up my rights, no matter how much "safer" that might make society. Would I put my life on the line to preserve the rights we hold here in the United States? Absolutely. Contrary to what some like to think, most governments that have a great deal of power over their citizens eventually degenerate into tyranny for the simple reason that greedy humans are involved; that is a variable that can never be removed from the equation.
-
The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]
Re:gps reception? (Score:5)
Few places in the world are as rural and remote as downtown minneapolis, I don't think anyone in even the UK has to worry about this.
--Alex the Fishman in NYC
Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:2)
Why would I be issued a speeding ticket if I wasn't speeding? Seems like if I was speeding I should be paying that ticket. And you can be rest assured that if you're given a speeding ticket, you ARE most likely going to have to prove you're actually innocent because the fact that you the cop stopped you and wrote you a ticket pretty squarely places the burden of proof back on you. And so you're left trying to prove that the cop gave you the ticket even though you weren't speeding....and the system's telling YOU where to shove it.
Risks Responses (Score:4)
I think it would be appropriate to also link to the responses already generated on Risks:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.23.html#subj14 [ncl.ac.uk]
Lots of good comments involving previous such experiments and some of the implementation dangers by folks who generally know what they're talking about.
Here's a fix: B-) (Score:3)
So make a low-power GPS transmitter and fool it into thinking you're on the Autobahn.
"Every new law is a new opportunity for graft."
- From Heinlein's "Red Planet"
Re:rigidly enforcing speed limits is good (Score:2)
I also agree that there are more cost effective ways of doing local enforcement for problem areas. One of the best that I've seen is the radar trailer. They have a little trailer with a radar gun mounted on it and a big digital sign that shows the speed limit and the speed of cars passing in front of it. This also has the added bonus of setting off the yuppies fuzzbusters.
_____________
Re:Practical considerations (Score:2)
Bull. I'd rather drive a sports car than an unsporty car at or under any speed limit. Am I alone?
no accounting for taste, but I do not like crippleware in cars. I can see it: "Officer, I tried to speed up to get out of the way, but i couldn't!"
But to think of it, I would not mind a test on commercial vehicles first, like those big rig truckers. they can be dangerous!
Re:They need GPS for this? (Score:5)
Of course not. They're going to feed it to the government in real time. If you think that's unrealistic, look at the Digital Telephony Act and Carnivore. That could enable some interesting opportunities for an alert law-enforcement type (and I'm just scratching the surface):
- A crime is committed at a certain address. Let's interview the ten cell phone users who were nearest at the time. We'll ask, "What were you doing on 15th street last night?" and see if they can come up with an alibi that matches their GPS trail.
- Analysis of the GPS trails will yield some phone users who live in the suburbs but travel into the ghetto periodically. Obviously they're getting drugs. Let's pull them over as they're leaving the ghetto - they'll either be high or carrying drugs. Even a 10% success rate makes it very worthwhile.
- When criminals are caught, their GPS trails can be used as a reference. So if it turns out that serial killers go to the library on Fridays, drive out of town on weekends, and go to Chinese restaurants on Sundays, other phone users who share these traits could be pre-emptively monitored, arrested, or searched. At least they'd be prime suspects if another serial killer starts operating.
Please note that I haven't even touched on abuse of the capabilities by a malicious cop. I've just listed some legal, sensible steps which law enforcement would take with this technology. I also haven't brushed on the commercial possibilites.Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:2)
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No more speeding tickets? (Score:3)
Re:engineers (Score:2)
Re:gps reception? (Score:4)
Ah well. We need to have it implemented in one place, just to prove how silly it is, and then convince the rest of the world to never try something like that. Funny that it takes a big screwup before people realize that something is truly wrong.
Glad that I live in Canada!
Re:Nice Concept--Won't Work (Score:2)
- First, you don't need to keep any GIS data in the car. The car sends its location to The System, and The System tells it how fast to go. The System is all that needs to be up-to-date. This also allows for tracking of all vehicles in real time: certainly a wet dream for many.
- Second, the car doesn't have a position, it has a velocity vector. From one point of data no, you can't tell if the car's on I-78 or CR-513, but by checking where the car was 10 seconds ago you can take a pretty good guess. And by seeing where the car is in 10 more seconds, you can tell for sure.
- Finally, this is already happening, and it works really well. In Portland, Oregon (my home) the location of each and every public bus is monitored (not sure exactly how). Each driver has a little LCD screen next to the steering wheel that displays the route time. It displays the bus's current position in 10-second increments: e.g. "40 seconds behind schedule."
There are reasons for this system not to work on a larger scale, but they're not the ones you cited (see sigquestion: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
Re:No more speeding tickets? (Score:2)
Well, we all know that people have tried speed governors before (AFAIK, most modern cars are limited to a top speed somewhat below the rating on their stock tires), and that a lot of people simply disable them. And don't forget older vehicles...my 89 Toyota 1/2 ton will prolly stand 200k or so more miles on the engine if the body lasts that long (rust issues--I live in New England), and even if I doubled my yearly mileage that would put me well into the next decade (OK, so I don't plan on still driving it then because I want 4wd. You get the point)
However, if some vehicles are speed-limited and some aren't, don't we increase speed variance (which is the number one cause of non-DUI accidents, perhaps of all accidents, IIRC)? Granted, we would eventually have a situation where there would be a relatively small number of people who cared to bother removing their governors (which would prolly be illegal and hence not a service readily available at Jiffy Lube) who would be traveling noticably faster than other traffic and therefore easier to ticket.
But this also assumes accurately calibrated speedometers. *chuckles* Yeah, mine's accurate--the needle at 60MPH mean's I'm doing like 53MPH. So I guess the easiest way to defeat the governor is a bigger set of tires.
Practical considerations (Score:2)
2) As a result of #1, driving cars at the speed limit actually feels obviously a safe speed (no doubts about this), and in fact sedate, and, pokey, lazy, etc.
3)As a result, the world of mouth will get out, and people will avoid buying the cars if at all possible. The used car market will get a shot in the arm.
4)And what about those fine folks with jaguars, etc.? I can see the salesman explaining how it can do zero to 60 in under 7 seconds, but the driver will never get to go faster than that. This is certain to kill off the sports car market.
The end result is that it will kill of alot of fine british industries.
It looks like Britain is being used as a test case for a controlled society. It is a very delicate balance between exercising enough control to actually improve the conditions of life, and social engineering for the benefits of those seeking to skim the cream off the top. Someone always wants some extra cream.
and of course, there are those crazy anachists on that nasty internet. Too many free thinkers there, y'know.
Re:engineers (Score:2)
LK
This is a dreadful idea (Score:5)
This would make the British even less intelligible than they already are.
What happens in an emergency? (Score:5)
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Re:Here's a fix: B-) (Score:2)
I swear, some of you people would install Linux on toasters if you could.
They need GPS for this? (Score:4)
I actually heard a company pitch this idea a few months ago in Silicon Valley, they enthusiastically described that in future the government could use the system to track everyone's driving, and how it could be made compulsory. I gave him a piece of my mind with respect to the privacy implications of this.
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Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:3)
Are you proposing a system that monitors your speed, but does not limit it? That is, you get the ticket in the mail at the end of the month for all the times you were speeding.
Re:Thank god we overthrew King George III. (Score:3)
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Here's a probable situation (Score:3)
Suddenly, you hit an ice patch, and your engine speed goes up a couple hundred RPM, while your speedometer needle jumps as your wheels spin without effect. The car's automatic speed monitoring system kicks in, hitting the breaks. The built in GTS system also notices that you are now heading towards the edge of a cliff - a very dangerous predicament - and tries to compensate by turning the wheels in the other direction. Unfortunately for you, that is also the opposite direction of the skid, and your car goes flying through the gaurd rail. It explodes in mid air, moments after you tuck and roll on the road's shoulder. Still laying on the road, you pull out your cell phone, and punch a number. You start to speak.
"Blast it Q, the car was sabotaged!"
"Oh, James, I appoligize. I forgot to tell you about the new features that the manufacturers required to be included. I'm an old school cronie, and I was unable to reverse engineer the protocol. Next time I'll be sure to alert you to such features."
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CAIMLAS
Nice Concept--Won't Work (Score:5)
Hi!
My firm is developing a web-based vehicle locator system [www.etrack...argetblank] which uses GPS receivers mounted in a vehicle, coupled with a GIS database. I can tell you that while this sounds technically feasible, it won't work.
A system like this requires two parts: a GPS-based locator; and a GIS (Geographic Information System). The GPS locator is relatively easy--there are commercial GPS chipsets that (depending on technology) can identify your position to +/- 3 meters. The latitute/longitude values can be mapped against a database of road segments--and that's where the problem begins.
With what speed limit data?
Even computer professionals tend to leap to unbelievable conclusions about the ability of computers. This is an excellent case: GIS data is stored in a massive database (the MapQuest.com [www.mapque...argetblank] database ships on 37 CD-ROMs). Look at any digital map--it is made up of bazillions of very short line segments. Each and every one of those segments has to be categorized by the type of road, the street numbers of buildings on the road, the lat/lon where the segment starts, the lat/lon where it ends, and lots more. But there is some surprising information that is not included in that data: weight restrictions, load restrictions (such as haz mats), and speed limits. Adding that information would be a big job--and an expensive job.
Expensive? We're talking about the government here....
Okay--so there has never been a government initiative yet that was dropped for being too expensive. That's not the only problem. Getting 37 CD-ROMs worth of data into storage on your vehicle may be a worthy challenge, but let's assume that the bright lights in government can handle that one too. (Stop snickering.) The big problem here is that geographic information changes--all the time. That new shopping center you drive past on your way to work? You may have noticed the new traffic signal--but did you notice that the shopping center driveway has a street name? Did you notice that the speed limit on the boulevard past the shopping center changed? Did you notice the housing development behind the shopping center, with a dozen new streets?
Anybody working with street-level GIS data gets a quarterly database update. (Which means we're all re-loading 37 CDs every quarter.) Streets get dug up and moved; streets get extended; streets get eliminated; streets get widened; bridges get closed. A quarter's update might include changes to millions of street segments--it is by no means trivial. And typically there is a 3 to 6 month lag between the time a street is changed or added and the time it appears in the database. In order for this system to work, every single car would have to be updated to the current speed limits--and they'd all have to be updated more or less simultaneously. Consider the spring construction schedule on your favorite interstate highway--what happens when construction starts? They'll drop the speed limit to 25 mph, and make all the computers slow all the vehicles down. What happens on the day the project ends--and only 96% of the cars have had their computers updated to show the speed limit on that road segment to be 75 mph again? Answer: 4% of your drivers die. Updating all that data to every single car--simultaneously poses a massive challenge.
And that's not all. With a GPS chipset that supports WAAG (fixed-position, ground-based GPS transmitters) we can determine your position to +/- 3 meters--but the road data frequently isn't that accurate. In the U.S., for instance, all but one commercial GIS data provider uses street data based on the U.S. Commerce Department TIGR data files. Different providers will tweak the data--fixing problems, even comparing the TIGR data to satellite photography (the difference in price between different vendors is generally due to the detail quality of their maps). But even with the best maps you can buy, vehicles sometimes still seem to appear well off the actual road. Not all the time, not most of the time, but often enough that this system won't work. Consider what happens when the onboard computer on a vehicle on I-78 in New Jersey (speed limit 65) decides that it is really on the adjacent service road (speed limit 25, just 15 meters south) and slows down....
As it happens, this level of imprecision drives me nuts. The client is continually having to remind me that GPS and GIS are about displaying information, and letting a human brain do the pattern analysis to determine what it sees. For example: suppose we have a position report that shows a vehicle at 40.638 North/74.8974 West. Is the vehicle on I-78 (speed limit 65 mph), County Route 513 (speed limit 40 mph), or Old Highway 22 (speed limit 25)? The answer is--could be any of the three. (The lat/lon--and it's real data--is an overpass.) You and I can easily answer that question based on our knowledge of other data points, and perhaps knowledge of the specific vehicle we're tracking. (We can see four other data points showing the vehicle westbound on I-78, and we know the vehicle is being driven by a Pennsylvania resident, and we know that the data points were mapped during the westbound rush hour: we can easily deduce that the vehicle is probably on I-78. But all we can do is deduce that--and all we can deduce is that the vehicle is probably on I-78. The driver may well be on the off-ramp, heading for a nearby McDonald's. We have to accept that level of imprecision, because that level of fuzziness is the best we can do.
There is an enthusiasm for technology today that sometimes can let people get carried away. This is one of those times. The developers will get a grant from the government to pursue the idea. And maybe they'll do pilot studies and tests and generate a lot of good PR. And hopefully they won't kill anybody before they realize the limits of this technology, and give it up.
Re:But what... (Score:3)
However, if you imply the latter part (have the GPS report back if you were speeding, then determine if it was necessary or not), that leads to "guilty until proven innocent" attitudes that we need to get away from.
GPS is one of those things that can be easily abused by a gov't in the name of nation-state security but limiting privacy and personal freedom. It's important to have GPS for numerous apps, but there has to be an agreement that the GPS cannot be traced or recorded or whatever.
I don't think this would happen in the USA (Score:4)
But imagine the outrage... While the masses may be ignorant enough of the technical details of the DMCA not to get up in arms over it (at least until it becomes impossible to tape stuff), THIS would hit every Joe 6-pack. EVERYONE speeds. Why? Because most highway speed limits are unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road.
Also, I don't think the law enforcement types would like this either. One reason why speed limits are lower than they should be is that speeding tickets are an excellent form of tax revenue. This would eliminate the need for speed traps, and thus, the cops might actually have to go after REAL criminals.
But then again, this sort of thing does fit right in with a "1984" society, which we seem to be advancing towards at an alarming rate.
Only a completely mis-educated, ignorant citizenry would allow police THIS kind of control over them. Why aren't they burning things in the streets of London over this proposal, AND the odius "RIP" law (that allows any cop to demand your encryption keys at will, and mandates jail time if you refuse or reveal to anyone that they DID get your keys)?
Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
This is something I've thought about before (Score:3)
> "I suppose it is inevitable that officials would think of something like this, but I never
> thought people would accept it!"
This is the kind of attitude tht really pisses me off. "Oh no! Speeding is my Gog-given right!!! You can't take it away!"
Someone mentioned the need to speed in some emergencies. I agree. There are definitely times that extra speed is in order. I think cars should also have a device that will let you disable the governer, and will request a police escort for you. That way you could still get somewhere more quickly and you would hopefully be a little safer while en route. And if you were just speeding because you didn't want to bothered by a speed limit, then that cop would know when you reached you destination and there was no emergency. Then you should be given a fucking huge ticket. One that would actually teach you a lesson.
All this deferred adjudication and taking defensive driving over and over is stupid. I releases people from their responsibilities. Cars can kill quite easily. Careless, irresponsible mother-fuckers should not be allowed to drive.
The way things are now, there might as well be driver's license vending machines with cameras inside. You just stick in a $20 and out pops a license. Anyone who feels my opinions are too strong, go for a drive in Houston or Austin one day.
Re:Risks Responses (Score:3)
I am for anything that will stop the slaughter (Score:3)
99 out of every 100 people injured in the U.S. transportation system are injured in motor vehicle crashes: approximately 5-6 million every year. Despite this fact, highway safety accounts for only one percent of the budget of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Motor vehicle crashes cost society more than $150 billion every year in medical, rehabilitation and long-term care costs, lost productivity, lost tax revenue, property damage and police, judicial and social service costs. The health care portion is approximately $14 billion (of which Medicare and Medicaid pay $3.7 billion or almost 30 percent).
Motor vehicle crashes remain a major public health problem. They are the leading cause of death for Americans ages one to 34 and the leading cause of injury for all age groups. The numbers are so mind numbing that fatal accidents rarely get news coverage unless it involves more than 5 people yet it is news when an aircraft just skids off a runway and no one is hurt.
Why should we have cars that can go 200mph/320 kph when the maximum speed limit is 70/120?
Why are there places where the wearing of seatbelts is not mandatory?
Why do we confiscate a hunters weapon and take their truck for poaching a deer yet if they drive drunk and hurt someone they may just get off with a fine and a temporary suspension?
If you say you hate someone you can get 7 years in jail for the hate crime yet if you drive over them and kill them when drunk you might get as much as 2 years.
I say that we have to stop the highway slaughter and this proposal to limit speed is a good start. Something also has to be done about drinking and driving. In 1994 alcohol-related deaths [dot.gov] were 16,900 or 42 percent of total traffic fatalities. Why not use technology to not allow drunk drivers to drive? Penalties don't work.
Re:What if they (Score:3)
That may not be the case.
However there may be times when it is desirable to exceed the speed limit to some degree (as an emergency manouver for example) and no automated unit should be able to take that ability from a driver.