California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Like the EU (caranddriver.com) 36
"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.
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.
Re: Does speeding cause cancer... (Score:2)
Obviously. Even the air does.
Correlation != Causation (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:3)
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: (Score:2)
If more than 18% of cars speed, and only 18% of accidents involve speeding, then speeding may prevent accidents.
One reason may be that speeders are more attentive.
Another reason may be that they reach their destination sooner, so they spend less time on the road.
I can't dive 55! (Score:2)
what used to take hours now takes all day.
Re: I can't dive 55! (Score:2)
Well yeah you'd run out of air before that long. Why does it take you so long to reach that depth?
Versus the 98% of all drivers who speed... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The article cites statistics that 18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding."
And it provides an excuse to judge other people instead of minding your own business or actually helping somehow.
I feel confident they're some of those people who think going slower is always safer. And that they're helping by forcing other people to suddenly slow down (while not allowing anyone to merge near them).
Re: (Score:2)
100 of all drivers who are in accidents were in automobiles. So let's ban autos... Such broken logic the nanny state of California has.
Re: Versus the 98% of all drivers who speed... (Score:2)
You ain't seen nothin' till you've lived here. Basically they legislate as if every bad Hollywood action flick could happen IRL. So they do stupid shit like ban balisongs, which are purely utility knives, because they saw Mohamed Imar Rambo Bruce Lee kill 300 men with it during the course of a single action scene.
Re: (Score:1)
You ain't seen nothin' till you've lived here.
I visited LA back in '08. It was like Florida if someone had installed a state-sized dehumidifier. Funny thing was, I expected the traffic to be a lot worse the way everyone seems to whine about it. Those real estate prices were no joke, though.
Re: Versus the 98% of all drivers who speed... (Score:2)
I've only been to Orlando and Cape Canaveral. I guess technically I've been to Miami once because I was there for like a day once when I was a teenager, but I didn't drive or anything.
But at least for the Orlando-Canaveral areas, traffic is a lot better there than here. And the Florida man meme is kind of odd because people do that shit over here all the time and it's so common that it rarely seems to make even local news. Somebody here commented something like "people always drive around without mufflers j
Re: Versus the 98% of all drivers who speed... (Score:2)
Oh, and drivers out here are fucking assholes. They'll do shit like obviously break the law and then angrily honk at you for being in the way when they tried (and failed) to cut you off. All you can really do to them is give them the California howdy, just don't do it in the shitty part of town.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qa... [youtube.com]
Don't need smartphone cars (Score:2)
Yet another smartphone car add on, phone home add on, preventing me from driving add-on, ...
How much of this government mandated tax via 'required safety features' on cars is enough?
Car manufactures love this because they can sliver out a few percentage points profit margin from every required safety feature.
Governments love this because they get a sales tax revenue based on the vehicle's selling price.
Not wanting another incremental loss of freedom via government imposed tax via higher prices or a car slow
Re: (Score:2)
I feel confident they're some of those people who think going slower is always safer.
Somebody has to be the back markers. Accept that as their purpose as you safely and confidently pass them.
Re: (Score:2)
claims roughly 75% of drivers drive 10mph over the limit, and 22% drive 20mph over the limit in california. The statistics in the article are useless without comparing accident rates for speeding and non-speeding drivers.
So ... (Score:5, Funny)
18% of those drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding.
... 82% were not speeding. Sounds like a clear case to get everyone moving faster.
So there's a conspiracy theory going around (Score:3)
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:4, Insightful)
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]
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
This has to die,die, die. It's a terrible idea.
No Problem (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I bet just about every airline pilot there is would pull out any system that restricts their ability to maneuver their craft for reasons akin to "highway speed limit". In fact, such a system would make the aircraft fail to certify.
CA (Score:2)
Nanny says no speed for you!
Sounds counterproductive (Score:2)
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.
This is excellent news! (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Will be unreliable, and an invasion of privacy (Score:2)
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
Wrong placement of speed warning (Score:2)
Cars already have speedometer on the inside. The speed warning indicator should be on the outside of the car, visible to others (like police)