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The EU is moving forward with legislation to require ISA, Intelligent Speed Assistance, in all new cars starting in 2022. This system will use GPS, map databases, and speed limit reading cameras to limit speed. Speed limiting will be accomplished by limiting engine power. Drivers can temporarily override the system by pressing down hard on the accelerator. It seems that, at least to start, the system will have an off button. Other requirements of the legislation include a system to monitor the driver for drowsiness, and inattention, as well as standard hookups for in car breathalysers. It seems the driver monitoring systems may include in car cameras pointed at the driver.
Sources:
thisismoney.co.uk
fortune.com
euractiv.com
theengineer.co.uk
gizmodo.com
Previously on Soylent: Volvo: In-Car Cameras Will Monitor Drivers and Take Action to Prevent Distracted or Impaired Driving
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snospar on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:15PM (25 children)
The most obnoxious part of this legislation is the mandatory use of "Black Box" recorders tracking every bit of driving and reporting back to the authorities. This detail seems to get swept under the rug when people are faced with a speed limiter, but the limiter can be overridden with a switch after engine start and temporarily by flooring the accelerator. The black box tracker is always on and always reporting on every journey.
Why don't they use the forward facing camera to prevent dangerous tail gating? Being too close to the vehicle in front (especially in poor weather) is far more dangerous than the speed you are travelling at.
Looking at the graphs of road deaths things have never been better. We should be arguing that with the safety built in to modern cars we should be allowed to go faster when roads and weather make this a sensible option. Instead we're told that we must stick precisely to the limits while those speeds are reduced. It would help if they didn't let every moron out there pass their test - surely if someone fails 5+ times they should simply be told "Take the bus."
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:31PM (15 children)
I'm anti-surveillance - but I like the idea of black boxes. The thing is, the black box shouldn't be actively reporting on you. Let it record - then if/when anything goes wrong, like running down Grandma, or Santa, or the Abominable Snowman, THEN the authorities can get at the data. 24/7 surveillance is anathema to - well - everything human!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:51PM (3 children)
I think that hit and run combined with the attempted escape was probably used as an excuse here somewhere. My only question is what sort of consequences this will have for rich fuckers with expensive fast cars and disabled/altered blackbox/speed limiter systems.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:58PM (1 child)
I remember people draining the pellets out of catalytic converters in their vehicles when those first came out. The performance and mileage improvement was pretty noticeable.
Presumably this won't impact performance and gas mileage however, and computers will just be set to require the box to report it is active before you get to drive. Yay.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:57PM
Limiting speed is by definition impacting performance.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday March 28 2019, @06:58PM
...or the poor people in their 20 year old minivan.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday March 28 2019, @05:01PM (7 children)
I admit 24/7 surveillance is a bigger problem. But with a black box, the same officer that currently installs a warrantless GPS tracking device on your car to see everywhere you go, could instead just plug into the black box and download a complete history of everywhere you've been.
Given the much higher return on investment of downloading data from an existing black-box, I would fully expect such "retroactive tracking" to become far more common than current active tracking. Especially if the law doesn't explicitly state that a warrant is required to download the data (and I see no reason to expect that it would). Downloading your vehicle history would become step one in any investigation of anyone who comes under even passing suspicion, and that data would almost certainly be permanently archived for future reference. Almost certainly with insufficient security to keep out hackers, who would spread that tracking information around indefinitely.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 28 2019, @06:40PM
I'm pretty sure such data is already available on current cars with electronic motor control. And in many cases probably remote-readable, too.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:00PM (1 child)
ok for blackbox but only if it belongs to me just like the rest of the car and i get to READ it too!
without my consent the blackbox cannot be read.
next we need to have mandatory sensors in the index fingers and the elbow that register excessive acceleration due to wielding a club to
murder someone or register the special NFC chip in the gun-trigger etc etc ...
soon we will be covered in sensors and antennas reporting every move and (wrong) wink we make ...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:05PM
no worries, the rabbit eared boyfriend in appleseed is a good guy! ^_^
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 28 2019, @11:35PM (3 children)
They're not all like this. My brother got into a one-car accident about 1/8 mile beyond a traffic counter - they also record speed - the officer at the scene did dump the counter data, and did note to my father that there was a single car in the hour of the accident recorded at 89mph, but never wrote anything about it at all in the accident report, not even a presumption of excessive speed as a cause - the written report attributed it to slick (wet) pavement conditions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:28PM (2 children)
It doesn't matter if they're all like that. Nobody has to worry about the truly noble and honest cops who would never dream of abusing their power for personal gain, or bowing to illegal political pressure. Except to worry that the power may eventually corrupt both of them.
What we have to worry about is how the power we give to cops can be abused by the corrupt ones - because the evidence is that a significant percentage of cops are corrupt in a number of different ways:
Selling out to criminals is the go-to example
Abusing their power for personal satisfaction or profit is another big one
And performing unconstitutional surveillance and harassment for blatantly political ends is a perennial favorite
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 29 2019, @08:51PM (1 child)
We all give power to people every day for countless things.
I used to eat a lot of food from Burger King drive thru windows - that's giving half a dozen minimum wage workers power over what goes in the food I'm about to eat, not to mention the giant FOR PROFIT corporation that supplies them.
Cops, politicians, political appointees, teachers, firefighters, electricians, cable repairmen - they all have far more power over my life than I like - but the alternative (not having these people serve and potentially abuse you) is probably worse.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @11:18PM
Sure - but the that's no reason to carelessly give anyone *more* power. Especially not politicians, executives, police, or intelligence agencies - all of whom have a pretty much perfect track record of both badly abusing the power they are given, and making it extremely hard to take that power back.
I may give that fast food crew power over my lunch today - but the only power they have over where I eat tomorrow is to provide such high quality food and service that I'd rather return than go somewhere else.
Now, I actually have some ideas on ways we could hold politicians to the same standards , but at present that's not the world we live in. And bureaucracies are even more problematic, as institutional culture can be extremely difficult to alter, even with the full support of the top administrators.
So, as I see it, any time you consider giving someone power, you should always ask:
How could this power be abused for the benefit of someone else? Not just by the person it's being given too, but also by all the people they might be bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise manipulated by.
How hard will it be to take this power back?
Exactly what am I truly likely to get in return?
And finally:
Assuming that the power will inevitably be abused, does the benefit outway the risk?
Personally, I can't think of any way anyone would profit from my being poisoned, other than the restaurant owners (by neglecting to pay for adequate food safety), and so I don't hesitate to eat somewhere that has a good safety history.
But ubiquitous surveillance? That's never turned out well. Way to valuable for crushing threats to the current power structure, and thus allow it to become even more abusive in other ways.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:22PM
With all the crap you get dealing with dealers having a black box capturing everything the VEHICLE is doing would be very useful in proving your case. But I imagine it will do everything it can to only track the driver.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by Unixnut on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:35PM
> I'm anti-surveillance - but I like the idea of black boxes. The thing is, the black box shouldn't be actively reporting on you. Let it record - then if/when anything goes wrong, like running down Grandma, or Santa, or the Abominable Snowman, THEN the authorities can get at the data. 24/7 surveillance is anathema to - well - everything human!
That already happens. Every OBD compliant car (so we are talking from the late 90s onwards) stores historic data (it varies from 30sec to 10 minutes usually, but there is no upper time limit defined) of all events in the car, including speed, acceleration, throttle position, and G forces (if you have built in navigation, then GPS co-ords are kept as well).
This is used to piece together accidents, as well as evidence in court / insurance purposes, to see whose story matches the data.
You don't need an additional "black box" for that, it has been good enough all this time. The new black box tech is pure 100% intrusive spyware, and they can get lost quite frankly. No way will I buy a car newer than my current one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 29 2019, @01:51PM
Like you criticize the wrong person in power.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:35PM
Dear Citizen,
We have registered your concerns regarding the required safety protocols associated to your motor vehicle. As such, your Attainable Safe Speed rating has been reclassified as 30 MPH.
We recognize that your new ASS rating may be lower than you would prefer. If you feel there has been a mistake with reassessing your ASS please feel free to contact us between 10:45am and 11:15am, on the 3rd Thursday of odd numbered months. With your new ASS you may be able to reach one of our remote offices by the next available appointment in November, 2023. Leave soon and drive safe.
Your Safety Is Everyone's Safety,
B.I. Tch,
Karma Driving Administrator
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:53PM (7 children)
Even if we're designing cars to better protect the meatbags within, I don't think we're getting much better at avoiding collisions in the first place. I don't think improved safety means we can feel free to crash two ton blocks of metal into other people and their property on a regular basis.
Reducing speed is a great way to reduce the amount of potential damage.
Vehicle Speed Odds of Pedestrian Death
20 mph 5%
30 mph 45%
40 mph 85%
The exact numbers vary by source, but the trend is just physics. More speed means way more damage. Just slow the fuck down.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:30AM (1 child)
Pedestrians who keep themselves away from being in the line of impact with a vehicle have a 100% survival rating.
Keep the pedestrians out from in front of the moving hunks of metal, and pedestrian deaths will plummet.
I've seen too many pedestrians simply walk out in front of moving traffic, oblivious as to how close a moving hunk of metal may be, simply because they think the laws of physics do not apply to them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:37PM
And I've seen too many in accidents that have taken them on to the sidewalk, or into somebody's living room.
Also, pedestrians always have the right of way - even the stupid Darwin-award candidates that step out from behind a van directly into the path of your car. If it was likely physically impossible for someone obeying the speed limit to stop in time, you'll likely not face punishment. But if you hit them because you were distracted, or doing 35mph in a 25mph zone to double your braking distance, and likely killing someone instead of just breaking them up badly, then that's totally on you. Speed limits aren't just so you can keep your car under control, they're also so that everyone in the area knows how fast to expect traffic to be going.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:01AM (3 children)
They lowered all speed down to 40kmph around schools. For a while it was highly dangerous. A.driver spending their time watching their speedo to make sure they don't go over is far more dangerous than a driver watching the road.
I find myself doing this. Enter a 40 zone. Slow down. Keep a careful watch on the speedo. Leave. Frankly I do not see much except the speedo and the road directly in front. If a kid runs in front of me they are probably going to be Darwined
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @06:57PM (2 children)
One of the reasons I 'm annoyed by a lower limit on cruise control. If I hit an abnormally slow section of road, like a school zone, especially without other traffic to pace myself by, I much prefer to turn on the cruise control and leave my foot hovering over the brake. Minimizes distraction and stopping time. Sadly, most of the time it seems like cruise control won't work until you're going at least 25-30mph. Waste of a good tool.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday March 29 2019, @08:38PM (1 child)
What irritates me about the new blanket 20mph limit in my area (apart from the fact it is on a road that was originally 50, then 40mph) is that it sits in between gears. So I can either keep myself in 1st gear and the engine revs are around 3k so I sound like a tosser going down the road (plus my fuel economy goes down and emissions goes up), or I shift into second and the engine struggles at near idle (or I ride the clutch in 2nd, which works, but wears out the clutch as well as the clutch bearings). Cars gearing is designed for 20mph to be a transitional speed, in between 20mph for creeping along and 25mph+ for driving. The irony is the drop in speed limits was to "help the environment" and reduce emissions, but I end up emitting more as a result of it (as do others I suspect).
And yes, cruise control never works below 30mph, on any car I have been in. I guess the logic is that you should only use it on long empty stretches of road, not in slow dense areas where you need to be fully concentrating. My car has a nice feature you can turn on, where if you exceed 20mph it beeps at you as a warning, so I don't have to keep my eyes glued to the speedo at low speeds.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @09:02PM
Yep, never overestimate the ability of politicians to "fix" technical problems.
I used to have a car that would let cruise control engage at 15+mph. As I recall it was also one of the few that would apply braking to avoid going too fast
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 29 2019, @01:52PM
The important stuff we accomplish by driving is what makes us feel free to very slightly increase risks to ourselves and others.