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Transportation AI Government

California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Like the EU (caranddriver.com) 207

Posted by EditorDavid from the you-can-drive-55 dept.
UPDATE (9/28): California's governor vetoed the bill.

Below is Slashdot's original story...

"Exceed the speed limit in one of the 27 European Union countries, and you may get some pushback from your vehicle," reports Car and Driver. "As of July, new cars sold in the EU must include a speed-warning device that alerts drivers if they exceed the posted limit."

The warnings can be ither acoustic or haptic, "though the European Commission gives automakers the latitude to supplant those passive measures with either an active accelerator pedal that applies counterpressure against the driver's foot or a governor that restricts the vehicle's speed to the legal limit." Drivers can override or deactivate these admonishments, but the devices must default to their active state at startup.

Now California is looking to emulate the EU with legislation that would mandate in-car speed-warning devices [for driving more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit — in "just about every 2030 model-year vehicle equipped with either GPS or a front-facing camera"].
The article cites statistics that 18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding.

Although the projects director at the European Transport Safety Council also acknowledges the systems may struggle to identify speed limits from passing signs — and that their testing shows the systems generally irritate drivers, who often deactivate the systems...

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Like the EU More

California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Like the EU

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  • Correlation != Causation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by commrade ( 79346 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @10:10PM (#64806779)

    The article cites statistics that 18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding.

    I don't speed a lot but could it possibly be the case that uncautious drivers ignore multiple safety factors (seat belts, tires, brakes, following distance) due to a general lack of giving a fuck and that lack correlates with fatal crashes? Seems like a clumsy correlation.

    • Re:Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @10:51PM (#64806861)

      Speed reduces reaction time relatively - if everyone is hurtling down the road at 20% over the limit (that's actually LOW where I live) then everyone still has the same reaction time to deal with other drivers braking or changing lanes or whatever.

      What causes more accidents is aggressive drivers who want to go faster than the flow of traffic and tailgate, weave in and out, and cut people off.

      And while I haven't actually done my own rigorous study of this... I drive the 400 series highways in Ontario all the time. The Toronto section of the 401 sees about 400,000 cars per day... and we get fewer than 10,000 collisions and 200 fatalities per year across the entire province. And there's ALWAYS an aggressive driver in the traffic.

      Clearly driving at 120 km/h (75 mph) is not a problem. If we want to be truly protected from car accidents we should stay home. We choose to take a risk every time we get in a car, and on major highways 120 km/h is fine.

      • Re:Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @11:11PM (#64806883) Homepage

        Speed reduces reaction time relatively - if everyone is hurtling down the road at 20% over the limit (that's actually LOW where I live) then everyone still has the same reaction time to deal with other drivers braking or changing lanes or whatever.

        Only when following distances are proportional to speed. From what I've observed in my decades of driving in Florida's miserable traffic, some people will still tailgate at 75MPH.

        • Re:Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday September 22, 2024 @03:29AM (#64807071)

          Only when following distances are proportional to speed.

          Following distances are relevant only to a single subclass of accident. Changing following distances doesn't help reduce the impact or likelihood of pedestrian accidents, cycling accidents, T-bone accidents, running lights, right of way accidents, etc. Driving 20% slower in any of those can mean the literal difference between life and death.

          Even if everyone on the road is a tailgating arsehole reducing speed still has a significant impact on accident and fatality rate.

          • Re: Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Malc ( 1751 ) on Sunday September 22, 2024 @03:48AM (#64807099)

            And of course the thing to do when somebody tailgates you in traffic is to slow down rather than speed up. By increasing the gap between you and the car in front, you decrease your need or likelihood of breaking hard and being rear-ended by the dickhead behind you. Ultimately you still go the same speed. Tailgaters are just complete morons.

            • If you want to piss them off, a brake check will do it. Tap your brake to activate your brake lights and they'll have to brake hard because they have no time to determine how quickly you're decelerating. Of course, you may end up with a dangerously aggressive road rager after that.

              I just let my foot off the gas a bit and slow down. I try to make it so that I spend a lot of time with other cars boxing that person in behind me so it takes them a long time to get around me, but mostly that's irrelevant beca

              • If you want to piss them off, a brake check will do it.

                It's even more fun in my EV. If I take my foot off the gas the regen brakes kick in and the brake lights come on, even if the regen is minimal.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )

          Florida is a trip. Some drivers, the retirees, want to do 55 in a 70. The rest want to do 90 in that same 70. Doing the speed limit in FL will get you killed. Lol.

      • I have seen a few accidents happen. Aggressive entitled drivers definitely make the roads unsafe. But I think the majority of accidents are... accidents. People did not see the bike when they turn, car stops and car behind it notices it too late. Tire blows on the highway. Sun is low and limits visibility, ...

      • That 18% figure really stood out at me...
        for being too low!
        Considering the amount of people I see speeding. (I'm actually referring the UK here, with tons of speed cameras)

      • For many people, it isn't really a choice to get in a car. They have obligations, like work, & no other feasible way to get from A to B. When southern Ontario has effective, convenient mass transportation infrastructure, then you can say it's a choice.

        I'm speaking from experience. The (very slow) trains alone run on bizarre schedules & are often replaced by (even slower) buses that take convoluted routes with the need for changes & long waits between them. What should be a 1 hour journey (eq

        • True enough. I have very mild enochlophobia. Put me in a crowd and I'm not terrified, but I get stressed and want out. So the GO train into downtown turned out to be a bad option for me and I ended up on the Gardiner in my own car.

          Sure, you watch the train go by as you're sitting on the Humber Hump waiting to lurch forward another few feet, but weirdly on average you beat the train. It's ridiculous.

          The average speed of a commuter trying to get to downtown Toronto is below 60 km/h from the time you cross

      • 120 km/h is about the highest you should ever go on a US highway.

        I currently live in Germany. Meaning I'm used to driving 200 km/h and beyond, for long distances, on a regular basis.

        I drove 75 mph on highways in Washington State and it was Hell on earth. I'll concede that probabnit all.highways are th same, but I've seen more than one up there, and I'll assume they're generally in a similar manner and quality.

        Starting with the less wide lanes and wider cars than Europe, then the truly abysmal quality of the

        • There are definitely places in the US where 85 or 95mph is reasonable. Flat, see for miles places. Not driven much in WA but TX, CA, KS, ... has some. Even 100 would not be unreasonable in places.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        So speeding on an interstate has less risk due to the limited access ramps and separation from opposing flow of traffic. Its only once your speed exceeds 90mph thst the chances of you surviving a crash falls close to zero. In residential areas the problems are quite a bit different. A significant amount of our residential roads are 25mph, with the busier outer access ones running at 35mph. Often people continue to do 45mph or greater. This is a particular issue for pedestrians, kids playing in their yards,

        • I was told by a California Highway Patrol office that the fast car weaving in and out is the most dangerous everyday scenario, because so many people don't use their mirrors let alone signals when changing lane, and their mental picture of what's behind them is wrong because the time snapshot of the fast car weaving into their driving area is so short and they miss it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        I don't think speeding by 10% or even 20% on 400-series highways is the real problem. The real problem is speeding on residential streets or stroads that are supposedly OK for pedestrians to cross.

      • You're ignoring everyone else. A large number of car deaths occur against people walking or riding bikes. If you understand how a driver going much slower than traffic creates a hazard, then you understand what an extreme collision risk a person walking, or a bike going 10mph is. Slightly exceeding the speed limit in areas with people outside of cars increases the danger nonlinearly....90% of car vs. person collisions below 20mph are survivable. Every mph you speed faster means more ground is covered befor

        • You know what? Call me an asshole if you like, but anyone walking or riding a bicycle on a 400 series highway not only deserves to die, but they should be blamed for causing the accident that killed them and their estate should have to pay for repairing the driver's vehicle and any therapy they may need.

          I suggest that perhaps next time you actually read and comprehend the post you reply to before composing your response.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )

        What causes more accidents is aggressive drivers who want to go faster than the flow of traffic and tailgate, weave in and out, and cut people off.

        Believe it or not, a study was done (I don't have a link) and they found that these drivers (I'm not one of them) actually help improve the flow of traffic. I was quite surprised by the results, but if I remember right, they apparently create distances between cars and loosens up the flow. When cars are all in a uniform flow, they bunch up too much. The weaving breaks up the bunches.

        Also, lets not forget that slow drivers in the wrong lane also cause backups.

  • So ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @10:19PM (#64806803)

    18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding.

    ... 82% were not speeding. Sounds like a clear case to get everyone moving faster.

    • You joke, but that's actually kind of surprising it is so low.

      From my driving experience, far more important that just 'speed' are things like following too closely, weaving in and out, not paying attention...

      I can personally recall one time I was driving back from university late at night. It was like 3 hour trip. There was a point, my eyes must have shut... and it scared the living crap out of me.

      I actually don't mind many of the things that cars have today that warn drivers. My car has blind spot monitor

  • So there's a conspiracy theory going around (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @10:24PM (#64806817)
    That the reason for walkable cities and public transportation is so the government can control where you go.

    It's kind of silly if you stop to think for a moment since government pays for all the roads since roads are too expensive for car companies to make and make a profit from so they need our taxpayer dollars to build the infrastructure for their product...

    But it's even sillier when you see stuff like this which is clearly being driven by and pushed by the auto insurance industry. More and more your car isn't yours it's the property of insurance company and they will do whatever it takes to prevent you from having an accident so that they don't have to pay out.

    But it does mean before long we're going to have all of the disadvantages of cars with all the disadvantages of trains. The absolute worst of both worlds. I'm reminded of Adam conover's stand-up bit about why cars suck

    • Re:So there's a conspiracy theory going around (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @10:42PM (#64806849)

      It's kind of silly if you stop to think for a moment since government pays for all the roads since roads are too expensive for car companies to make and make a profit from so they need our taxpayer dollars to build the infrastructure for their product...

      The US's interstate highway system (proper name: Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways) was built at least in part to make it easier to move the military around the country as necessary.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • But it does mean before long we're going to have all of the disadvantages of cars with all the disadvantages of trains. The absolute worst of both worlds.

      The disadvantage of cars is sitting in traffic crawling along at 10MPH, not a lack of being able to exceed the posted speed limit by 10MPH. Heck, here in Central Florida I often see people driving well below the posted speed limit because presumably there's something on TikTok that's more interesting than paying attention to the road.

    • They likely don't want to control where people go, but I'm sure given their druthers they'll hapilly accept the ability to track people wherever they go at will, and handing them the technology to do so would be very tempting to say the least -- and in this case insurance companies and other corporations would gleefully accept the ability to access that data as well.
      This has to die,die, die. It's a terrible idea.

      • They likely don't want to control where people go,

        They don't. 15 minute cities is about having most of what you need within 15 minutes without using a car. Shops, doctors, restaurants/entertainment, maybe even work. It's not and never has been about stopping people moving, it's giving people the option not to have to slog hours everywhere by car all the time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This is a conspiracy theory that doesn't hold up to even basic scrutiny. When you look at actual walkable cities, people are more mobile in them. Better public transport links make getting about easier, and people are more likely to travel if they know they aren't going to get stuck in traffic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        One of the things that struck me about a recent visit to Amsterdam was that Amsterdam is a much better city for drivers than Toronto is. If you want to solve traffic, you take as many cars off the road as possible. That makes it reasonably-uncongested for the few people who really have to drive.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      ...so the government can control where you go.

      To anyone that had 2 years stolen from them to a massive media-driven overreaction, it is absolutely a valid concern.

  • their testing shows the systems generally irritate drivers, who often deactivate the systems...

    Just pull the breaker [slashdot.org]. After all, drivers are far better trained than a bunch of airline pilots.

    • If it's built into the same onboard computer that runs other things doing so may completely diable the vehicle though. Cutting and terminating GPS and cellular antennas would be a better choice, I think, because the vehicle can't disable itself merely because it can't get a GPS lock or find a cell tower.
    • Between the in car GPS, phone GPS and posted signs I frequently get a choice of three different speeds.
      • I also will occasionally fire up both the phone nav and car nav. Always fun choices when they disagree about which way to go. I recall one case where I was going on a long trip and car had the XM traffic and I was using waze as well. Oddly, it was XM that called out take next exit now or something like that. Not waze. I got off and sure enough a massive accident was just ahead. Glad I listened to XM that time( I think saved me an hour+) as usually I ignore its idea of congestion and follow waze.

  • Nanny says no speed for you!

    • Nanny says no speed for you!

      And not gas stove for you! And your phone/toothpaste/coffee shod is full of carcinogens and will KILL YOU!

      Sigh. Thank you EU. Now I'll have one more annoying warning to dismiss, just like the cookie warnings I never wanted.

  • The article cites statistics that 18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding.

    Of course, 25% of the drivers not involved in any crashes are speeding at any given time, but never mind that.

  • If this idiotic idea doesn't die a well-deserved death, I eagerly anticipate making a lot of money by designing something that will use the car's OBD2 port to silence this annoyance, and wipe all traces of itself from the car's many computers whenever the driver decides there is a need not to get caught using it.

    • Your average cop is not a tech wizard, but trust me when I say you will not fool a traffic cop by fiddling with your car computer unless you ARE such a wizard. Truck drivers try it all the time and cops have had the tools to connect, download, and analyze the data to detect tampering for at least a decade that I know of.

      Not only that, but speeding? The cop doesn't need the onboard system at all to give you a ticket... they nabbed you with radar or lidar. Breaking your onboard system is just going to be a

      • Your average cop is not a tech wizard, but trust me when I say you will not fool a traffic cop by fiddling with your car computer unless you ARE such a wizard. Truck drivers try it all the time and cops have had the tools to connect, download, and analyze the data to detect tampering for at least a decade that I know of.

        There are literally thousands of parameters I can code in my car, including for safety critical systems like stability control. No cop is ever likely to connect an analyzer to my OBD port.

        Not only that, but speeding? The cop doesn't need the onboard system at all to give you a ticket... they nabbed you with radar or lidar.

        They have some very good detectors for that these days.

      • You actually make an excellent point for another system for common cars - speed log. The police would just need to download it on the spot to prove someone was speeding. No more denial on the spot by the driver bullshit.

        • The way it worked in northern NM was even more reliable. Caught speeding on a reservation (which had many of the major roads). You are absolutely 100% free to challenge it in court. The reservation court. With a reservation judge. At a time of their choosing, in the complete arse end of nowhere relative to wherever you live (i.e. not on a reservation).

          So you have huge, wide, empty 3 lane roads, and people just set the cruise control and did. not. speed.

    • You could easily disable it by cuttng GPS and cellular antennas and terminating both with 50-ohm dummy loads. Without GPS data and no wireless internet connection to get speed limit data there's no way I can see it would operate. Even if they used a camera of some sort to read speed limit signs, you could cover the camera as well.
      Regardless I'd imagine you're also correct, someone will come up with a hack that permanently disables the alerts. But if they used the system to also surveil and track citizens i

      • Without GPS data and no wireless internet connection to get speed limit data there's no way I can see it would operate.

        Uh...here in the 21st century, they have cameras that spot speed limit signs.

        That said, my car has this option (and I like it) and there's a spot where my car sees a speed limit sign that is meant for a side street. So it's a bit amusing where I'm driving along at 60 and it suddenly jumps up and complains that I'm going 45 mph over the speed limit.

        • My car also has the camera.

          Just like with humans new to an area, or without any memory, it misses signs on occasion.

          But sometimes it will recognize school zone signs, sometimes it won't. Whether the lights are going or not. So yeah, 45 mph in one of the local school zones down to 20, when the school zone isn't active.

          I've also had it pick up speed signs, not just from side streets, but from a bike path along the road.

    • Belgium here. Flanders region. There is a race going on here to have the lowest speed limit. We are treated like little children in some places but... I want that speed warning gimmick in my car. There are so many cameras on the road that speeding tickets will fly in your letterbox if you do not pay attention. Especially in regions were you are not familiar with the roads. In our local village centre, we have to drive 30km/h, day and night. Cameras monitor all roads. If your average speed is more than 36? T

      • In the USA, it's less speed cameras and more red-light
        cameras. I'm pretty sure that it's because US politicians are sure that speed cameras would result in them being lynched. Florida passed a law that essentially killed red light cameras, by passing enough regulations that cities and red-light cameras can no longer make money with them. They all disappeared practically overnight. About safety, not money, my ass.
        Another city had somebody run against the local incumbent (who normally have like a

    • Isn't OBD-II read only?

      • For consumer level stuff, yes. If you're willing to pay a few thousand for a professional system, including a few thousand a year in subscription fees, you can do all sorts of things with the computer.

  • How is this supposed to work?
    I'm imagining it would have to use GPS (which is not reliable enough) and a cellular connection to get speed limit data.
    Unreliable GPS will mean you'll be 'alerted', or perhaps hard-limited, to a speed limit of an adjacent roadway rather than the correct limit; if you're on the freeway with a 65mph limit and a frontage road parallel to it has a speed limit of, say, 40mph, suddenly you're either annoyed for no reason, or slowed to a dangerously low speed for the freeway? Prepos

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      In my mazda it reads the signposts (and may use GPS too, don't know). Unfortunately it often gets it wrong particularly if there's a limit sign on an off ramp which it quite often reads as the limit for the main highway.

  • Wrong placement of speed warning (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiananmen tank man ( 979067 ) on Sunday September 22, 2024 @12:18AM (#64806943)

    Cars already have speedometer on the inside. The speed warning indicator should be on the outside of the car, visible to others (like police)

    • ... speed-warning indicator ...

      Cars have had a selectable speed-alarm on the steering-wheel panel, for 20 years. For city driving, one has to set it to the maximum city speed, reset it for the highway, then set it again for the next suburb/city: No surprise, people didn't know and didn't want it. A half-intelligent someone suggested QR codes on speed signs but didn't suggest security, so the idea failed.

    • Cars already have speedometer on the inside. The speed warning indicator should be on the outside of the car, visible to others (like police)

      The thing about the speedometer is that it requires you to interpret compare and make a decision, all the while also taking your eyes off the road. You can see this in countries that have ludicrously strong anti-speeding campaigns, people spend more time looking at their dash than they do on the road. Using your speedometer less can make you a safer driver but ... physics still dictates in a situation where you are speeding the outcome will be universally worse.

      Your absolute speed is not relevant to you, yo

  • Recently used one of these in Europe. Not good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Sunday September 22, 2024 @12:26AM (#64806949)
    Rental car in Italy. The warnings are both distracting and frequently wrong. I saw 10km/hour (yes 6 mph) listed by the car as a speed limit in some places where there was no such limit. Other times the car listed hither speeds than the road signs. Some places, as in the US, traiffic regularly drives above the limit and driving at the limit will result in drivers (and in Italy bicycles on downhills) passing on twisting 2 lane roads.

    For this to not be a dangerous distraction it needs to be reliable. It also has to be combined with reasonable speed limits on roads. In California, the max speed on open road rural freeways is 70mph. The speed on a crowded commute freeway near me is 65. That difference needs to be a lot higher.

    • Rental car in Italy. The warnings are both distracting and frequently wrong. I saw 10km/hour (yes 6 mph) listed by the car as a speed limit in some places where there was no such limit.

      What you have here is a quirk that won't apply to America. The cars get their speed limits from their cameras. They are frequently wrong in some places in Europe where streets are segregated into roads / streets, or where two parallel streets are with different speed limits - you almost certainly did have a 10km/h speed limit, and it was probably in a parking lot or access driveway, your camera saw it.

      However in America where every road is 30m and 10 lanes wide, where the concept of segregating speeds on d

      • The cars get their speed limits from their cameras.

        mine gets from GPS and locally saved maps.. which means they go out of date

    • Rental car in Italy. The warnings are both distracting and frequently wrong. I saw 10km/hour (yes 6 mph) listed by the car as a speed limit in some places where there was no such limit. Other times the car listed hither speeds than the road signs.

      Yep. E.g. Google maps regularly tells me that some unposted rural highway is 25 mph (I guess that's their "unknown speed" default?).

      So my car is going to buzz at me the whole time, because I am (massively) "speeding"? That sounds safe ...

  • "The article cites statistics that 18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding. "

    Some time ago I stumbled upon a statistic from the USCG that some 80% of drowning deaths are people not wearing PFDs. So I looked up the overall wear rate for PFDs and it turned out to be something like 20%.. just can't make this shit up.

  • Speed is easy to measure. Lets blame everything on speed and we will solve world peace. I need and I will overspeed at certain situations like to pass buy someone slow and minimise time being in opposite lane. Or to not fall into nonreactive dontcare state where the speed limit is way below actually safe speed for the location and situation.

  • I have said it before. I will say it again. And this is despite me being libertarian on most things.

    Radio trackers should be on all vehicles. Capable of externally knowing your exact position down to a couple inches down every street based on a radio ping with your vehicle serial number. All vehicles are tracked equally... end of story.

    As a consequence the system knows every move your car makes and if you did something wrong immediately. You get some warnings but the system itself trains you to become the b

    • Nothing is more consistently libertarian than mass surveillance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lsllll ( 830002 )

      Man, damn glad you're not running for congress.

      The system in a car shouldn't just broadcast data from it's own GPS and speed data. The reported data can be hacked. Rather it should identify the vehicle with an encrypted serial number ...

      Yeah, because encrypted data never got hacked.

      and broadcast a ping that radio sensors along roads can pickup and triangulate your speed and position very accurately from.

      I guess we'll spend next year's GDP to put networked sensors along all roads.

      As a consequence the system knows every move your car makes and if you did something wrong immediately. You get some warnings but the system itself trains you to become the best driver you can be because otherwise you get automatic fines and citations that could lead to your license being suspended.

      When there's a will, there's a way. Just yank the transmitter out, or wrap it in tin foil. Here's something that should bake your noodle. Almost all states that charge tolls offer some sort of "iPass" (in Illinois that's what they're called) which determines via RFID (or may be something else now) that your vehicle went t

    • ... me being libertarian ...

      While the 'my free-dumbs' fanatics have not said much, if you're demanding less protection from the government, you are not libertarian.

      ... could not install their own radios receiver ...

      They don't need to: In the USA, no-socialism propaganda and no privacy rights, means anyone can buy your location from the corporation owning "the system".

    • As a consequence the system knows every move your car makes and if you did something wrong immediately. You get some warnings but the system itself trains you to become the best driver you can be because otherwise you get automatic fines and citations that could lead to your license being suspended. You have no chance to be a sloppy driver so everyone drives very well and accidents become extremely rare.

      Take it the opposite way - figure out what behaviors are actually dangerous or not. I have the feeling that if you engage in this level of tracking, you'd discover that a lot of the "accident prone behaviors" aren't actually all that accident prone.

      This also takes one of the fund raising techniques of cities away from them. Further, cops can't choose to stop you while driving anymore. The system has to give them permission in an extreme situation. You can't drunk drive or even drive tired as the system would notice from you swerving and your reaction time to other vehicles and tell you itself to pull over and if you didn't shut off the vehicle in the middle of the road after so long. It could literally tell you where and when you could pull over to sleep it off.

      If they can do this much, then just take the next step, but have the computer do the driving as well.

  • I lived about a decade in California, and in my experience over 90% of the traffic was exceeding the speed limit if it was possible to do so. If they are now saying that only 18% of the fatalities were in incidents where people were exceeding the speed limit, there is something wonky going on. The only time traffic in LA was going slower than the speed limit was when it wasn't physically possible to do so due to traffic. Maybe traffic only flows freely about 18% of the time or something.

    In any case I'm real

  • safer? (Score:3)

    by DeBaas ( 470886 ) on Sunday September 22, 2024 @04:20AM (#64807131) Homepage

    Safer?

    I live in the EU and am very much pro EU. But the way it is implemented in my view does not make it safer.

    I recently bought a new car that has this. The biggest gripe I have with it is that by law the warnings go off at exactly the speed limit. I, like most drivers here, usually drive a little faster. For one the speed that your car indicates is usually higher than it really is. But also when passing a car you're supposed to this with a significant speed difference. So the result is I obviously turn it off and do that every time. Now this can only be done by going in the menu, a menu I cannot access until the car is properly booted which takes some time since it insists on a welcome screen and wishing me a good morning. So I end up doing this when I'm already driving.
    The result: I don't use it and end up fiddling in the menus while driving. And I think most people do this as well.
    Also in my country the cars cannot always know the exact speed limit. We have a lot of locations on the highway with a 90kph sign only for when the road is wet. We also currently have that between 19:00h and 6:00h the speed limit on the highway on large areas is higher than during the day. My brand new car cannot handle that.

    It would be a lot better if:
    - you could set the threshold (i.e. 10%)
    - turn of the warning on the steering wheel (for situations where you for a short time deliberately go a bit faster, i.e. passing on the high way)
    - you could disable it with one button.

  • Just NO. !!! the European Transport Safety Council also acknowledges the systems may struggle to identify speed limits from passing signs....... So you might be in a 55 zone and it misreads it for 35 and slows you down. NOPE !

  • Step one, set fines for speeding to a percentage of gross income - say 1% and increase with every subsequent ticket. Step 2,issue a civil fine to every party in an accident. After all, car crashes typically result from reckless driving or breaking some other law. Increase the fine with every subsequent accident. Start with 1500 for the first, 2500 for the second, etc. let drivers who are not at fault seek recovery from the at fault drivers insurance. Virginia saw positive results when they classified speed

  • The tech exists to prevent cars from exceeding the speed limit. You could mandate all cars to stay under the speed limit + 10mph. You could also make it so cars can't exceed 90mph. This limit could be overridden if you're driving on a racetrack. This is all feasible but would it ever happen, no way!

    • The tech exists to prevent cars from exceeding the speed limit...is all feasible but would it ever happen, no way!

      Why are you so confident? I'm not, especially since the regulation explicitly says car manufacturers can add hardware to manipulate the pedals (not that they'd need to move the pedal, the ECU can limit speed just fine).

      While in theory, this is fine. "It's just giving you information so you can make an informed choice!" In practice it seems likely to lead to automatically enforced speed restrictions eventually. Maybe it won't matter: in 20 years they'll mandate all cars must be self-driving and self-driving

  • I'm surprised that apparently 82 percent of fatal crashes apparently do not involve speeding.

    Now just between us - maybe it would be better to work to stop that 82 percent of other factors in fatal accidents. I don't know the relative different percentages, but still.

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