UK, EU Cars (But Not Bikes, Yet) to be Fitted With Speed Limiters:
This comes as part of the General Safety Regulation passed in the EU. Mandates state "new models/types of vehicles introduced on the market," beginning in July 2022, must arrive outfitted with this software. It will be mandatory for all new cars beginning in July 2024, ostensibly to give manufacturers time to retrofit their existing production models.
[...] The European Commission describes the way a car outfitted with ISA behaves in one of four ways: cascaded acoustic warning; cascaded vibrating warning; haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal; or speed control function. Manufacturers choose their own adventure there. The first two only provide audible or tactile feedback to the driver. "Haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal" means the pedal pushes back against your foot. "Speed control function" means the car slows down for you.
https://etsc.eu/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa/
[...] ISA uses a speed sign-recognition video camera and/or GPS-linked speed limit data to advise drivers of the current speed limit and automatically limit the speed of the vehicle as needed. ISA systems do not automatically apply the brakes, but simply limit engine power preventing the vehicle from accelerating past the current speed limit unless overridden. Vehicles with this kind of ISA system factory fitted are already on sale[...].
Intelligent speed adaptation is the terminology of the British BSI. Intelligent speed assistance is the terminology of the EU law used in regulation (EU) 2019/2144 of the European Parliament.
The two types of ISA systems differ in that passive systems simply warn the driver of the vehicle travelling in excess of the speed limit, while active systems intervene and correct the vehicle's speed to conform with the speed limit. Passive systems are generally driver advisory systems: They alert the driver to the fact that they are speeding, provide information as to the speed limit, and allow the driver to make a choice on what action should be taken. These systems usually display visual or auditory cues, such as auditory and visual warnings and may include tactile cues such as a vibration of the accelerator pedal. Some passive ISA technology trials have used vehicles modified to provide haptic feedback by making the accelerator pedal stiffer when appropriate to alert the driver. Most active ISA systems allow the driver to override the ISA when deemed necessary; this is thought to enhance acceptance and safety, but leaves a significant amount of speeding unchecked.
An often unrecognised feature of both active and passive ISA systems is that they can serve as on-board vehicle data recorders, retaining information about vehicle location and performance for later checking and fleet management purposes.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:54AM (2 children)
Obscene SPAM journals on the front page are obscene. Jesus wept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @10:51AM (1 child)
Unfortunately free speech has some rough edges. Idiots will gibber.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:04PM
...and fascists love it, because they can plan their violence without getting punched in the face repeatedly, which had been the usual discouragement method for decades in offline spaces.
Fascism is a mortal threat to anyone who isn't in whatever the in-group is defined as today. That definition changes very easily. If fascists can deny, eg, the rights of trans people, they can deny your rights ('someone smart enough to know what italics are') just as easily. The dividing line can be set at any angle, and you are not immune. An out-group is necessary.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Friday June 03 2022, @03:04AM (24 children)
just saying...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:12AM (2 children)
Rarely is it necessary to floor it to get out of a dangerous situation, but when it does happen there's no time to look for an override switch. I'm sure this system will work as expected 99% of the time, but there will undoubtedly be some accidents because of it. It's possible there will there be fewer accidents than there would be without it, but someone will absolutely be killed by it at some point. I bet it won't even make the news.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:58AM (1 child)
I drive a car with such a limiter.
Flooring it is the override.
It stays overridden until the speed drops to the limit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 03 2022, @02:14PM
Does this speed limiter actually change behavior, or are you running along over the limit with the rest of traffic all the time like if you had no limiter?
Even a little tell-tale light on the dash will modify _some_ drivers' behavior (like the fuel econ lights of the 70s) but... by and large, not.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:13AM (10 children)
Does Europe have a lot of roads like that? I'm from the USA and
they're quite common in rural areas. Europe is a bit more crowded
so I wonder. OTOH, since trains are such a big deal they might
have spent less on roads so maybe they have *more* of those things.
Aside from that, there are plenty of situations where going
over the limit is actually the proper evasive maneuver.
Having the car second-guess the driver isn't my cup of tea.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Friday June 03 2022, @08:25AM (9 children)
Would you care to give some examples?
My local jurisdiction (police/magistrates/crown courts) would take the view that having insufficient anticipation and road awareness such that you get into such situations is at least 'driving without due care and attention', and quite probably 'dangerous driving'. You shouldn't be putting yourself into situations where the only option is to exceed the speed limit as an evasive manoeuvre. Your jurisdiction may take a different view.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @10:26AM (6 children)
That's very true and how the law should work. However, I am of the opinion that humans make mistakes. I don't condone law breaking but what's a better outcome in such a situation where someone has already made several mistakes? A temporary transgression of a largely arbitrary law to mitigate the mistake and prevent an accident, or dead people, a closed road, emergency services and a legal inquiry? I'd rather have the speeding ticket and live to reflect upon my mistake. I'm sure the other driver, their family and friends would also welcome that opportunity.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday June 03 2022, @02:09PM (2 children)
Well, yes, if a brief transgression prevents deaths, then it seems obvious that it should be possible. As you say, people make mistakes.
Unfortunately, some people consistently make mistakes, which is why there are laws in place to provide corrective action - fines, and eventual loss of licence. The counsel of perfection is not to put yourself in a position where a mistake requires illegal action to recover. I do realise that we are dealing with fallible humans here, so it doesn't work, but it is at least a worthy objective.
It would be interesting if someone came up with an AI that gave an indication that it saw no reason not to overtake. It might help to advise people not to overtake on blind bends, when you are already being overtaken by another vehicle, before the apex of hills, and before dips in the road where an oncoming car could be concealed - i.e if it detected you were about to do an overtaking manoeuvre, it said something along the lines, of: "I'm sorry, Dave, I advise against that...". Trouble is, people would take it as permission to overtake, and not that it had only checked the most obvious risks. There's already a very simple equivalent: the orange light in the wing mirror that some cars have that tells you there is a vehicle in your blind spot. Look for "Blind Sport Warning" [sic] in this page [honda.co.uk], and https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/threads/intrigued-by-an-orange-triangle-in-door-mirror-cls-class.171914/ [mbclub.co.uk].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @03:13PM (1 child)
I had an idea years ago, before drones were a thing. Imagine you could have a small aircraft hovering or circling over a section of road or roads, monitoring it. Then it could transmit information about what's happening down to the traffic on those roads. The cars and drivers could use that information to their advantage.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Touché) by Freeman on Monday June 06 2022, @02:09PM
You mean Law enforcement officers could use that to their advantage. Better yet, no more traffic cops. Just drones in the sky sending out tickets. You know that's what would happen. They already do that with traffic light cameras.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Reziac on Saturday June 04 2022, @02:55AM (2 children)
I'm surprised they haven't come up with something that prevents the car from moving at all if it comes up to a red light. After all, idiots plowing through red lights are a major cause of fatalities, right?
So, realworld example. Busy intersection with multiple lanes and four-way jump lights. One complete cycle took up to 7 minutes (I'd timed it). Light turned red just as I got to it. The three straight-ahead lanes were packed solid, but I was the only one in the left-turn lane. And a block behind me, suddenly a fire truck pulls onto the road, in a flaming hurry and coming my way. Light turned four-way all-red for the fire truck but it had no way to get through the intersection (center barrier, no shoulder, and the only long way around takes at least another 20 minutes). And I'm thinkin'... seven minutes is way too long to wait for a fire. So I chose to "run" the light and open my lane for the fire truck. There was much grateful waving as it whizzed on through the gap so opened.
Which of course would have been impossible if vehicles had "red light governors".
Yeah, freak example. But if they choose to restrict vehicle speed based on relatively rare incidents, I see no problem with presenting freak evidence against such overreach.
And of course we all know a speed governor is really so you can never outrun the cops.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:29AM (1 child)
Your example is a great example and spot on. Great decision.
I have a personal example of the opposite happening. I'm a red light with one guy behind me. Fire truck with lights and sirens is coming up behind us. The light turns green for us, but I stay put. Why? Because the left turn lane is completely free and I know it's better to be predictable. If I had turned right and the fire truck had wanted to make a right turn too (and who knows where the guy behind me would have gone), I'd just be in the fire truck's way. The guy behind me didn't understand my reasoning and blew his horn at me. I stayed put. Fire truck driver probably knew why I had remained stopped at a green light and took the left turn lane to pass me. It was all over in less than ten seconds. Fire truck went straight, but could have turned right in front of me safely.
The point being that odd things happen and we need to think on our feet. Laws can and should be bent / broken in extreme circumstances.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:44AM
Good example of your own, and one I've done myself (stay put and let the fire truck aim at the existing hole, instead of turning things dynamic). As you say, in such cases the law needs to be set aside. And if we're not allowed to think on our feet, how long before no one is able to do so?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:23PM
> You shouldn't be putting yourself into situations where the only option is to exceed the speed limit as an evasive manoeuvre.
That's why we need guns. Sometimes the only solution is to blast your way out of a crowded movie theater.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:54AM
Well, for example, if something bad happens in your rear view mirror. If I see a fuel truck rolling behind me, I'm getting out of Dodge. Your local jurisdiction can bill me later, assuming they'll care.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Friday June 03 2022, @08:18AM (2 children)
If there are speed limiters that can't be overridden, I'd expect a lot of people to end up in the middle of 'overtaking' situations with nowhere to go except the cemetery. A great deal is written on overtaking techniques, but many people execute extremely unsafe overtaking manoeuvres and get away with them, and end up thinking they are safe, good drivers.
Driving tests should really include sections on how to overtake safely, and how to be overtaken safely, and how to help other drivers overtake safely. Mandatory 'refresher' courses would also help.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:27PM
Being overtaken = gay.
They might as well try and teach being cornholed by the other driver and giving head. It ain't happening.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:03PM
My father once had to take the ditch because someone he was passing wouldn't let him back in, either ahead or behind, and they met oncoming traffic. Then once he was safely out of the way the oncoming vehicle also took the ditch and they met head on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @07:08AM (1 child)
you know you can also abort the passing and slow down to return to your previous place in line... why risk your and other people life?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @08:33AM
Sometimes, you run into an asshole that deliberately causes mayhem for the fun of it. However statistics will usually deal with the asshole first.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday June 04 2022, @12:05PM (4 children)
Don't rely on the fact that you want to continue accelerate over the speed limit when overtaking on the wrong side of the road against oncoming traffic .
Pretty basic rule of safe driving, technology or not, for the last 100 years.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:10AM (3 children)
The most typical dangerous situation arise when the overtaken car increases speed "to punish" you. It's not that common now because any reasonable car can double speed limit on a short notice. However once the asshole knows you can't increase speed, this will become a popular game I am afraid.
You don't believe me? Consider that majority of Americans don't use turn signals when changing lines for exactly the same reason - assholes try to prevent it.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:35AM (1 child)
This happened to my Dad like 40 years ago. He was behind a guy doing 20 mph, so my dad passes him, but the guy speeds up. 30... 40... 50... 60 mph and the guy is matching my dad's speed. Now there is oncoming traffic and my dad is only partly ahead of the other guy. At that point, my dad calculates that there are two possibilities: head on collision or just come on over back into the proper lane. So my Dad simply start pulling back over. The guy realized my dad was going to collide with him and quickly brakes. No accident that day fortunately.
But yeah. People are assholes.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 05 2022, @06:09AM
Different stupid unintended consequence: California passed a "Move Over" law (and made a big deal about enforcing it) -- where if there's a vehicle on the shoulder, you're supposed to move over and leave a lane empty between, in case a cop is there and suddenly jumps into traffic.
Except the way it was presented, it also appeared to apply on two-lane roads.
And soon thereafter, I became grateful that my local two-lane highway had wide grassy shoulders, because someone mindlessly obeyed the new law and pulled into MY LANE to "move over" for a vehicle parked on the shoulder. Missed a head-on by about thirty feet. And developed a heightened paranoia about oncoming traffic... suddenly cars parked on the opposite shoulder were a hazard for MY lane.
"You trust your fellow man. In fact, you trust him with your very life. Don't think so? You drive on two-lane roads, don't you?"
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:55AM
I always thought it was assholes and "punishment for passing me" until I was tasked with teaching a very green driver how to cope with Los Angeles -- and quickly noticed that she would, entirely without noticing she'd done so, speed up as someone passed her. Mind you this was even on the freeway with all traffic going the same way.
And that's when I realized it's not just being an asshole (she was far from that); rather, it's herd behavior. Don't get left behind for the wolves to eat. Stupid place for it to manifest but there it was. (And yes, I broke her of the habit.) I suppose there are some assholes but I'd hazard the majority are completely unaware when they do this, and that it's actually most common in people who try to conform.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:41AM
and are the *only* type of vehicles EU should now care about (not) introducing on their roads before 2024.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday June 03 2022, @03:45AM (18 children)
How reliably does the system detect the correct speed limit? It's not too big of a deal if it is only warning the driver, as a competent driver will recognize a false warning. It is an issue if the car automatically slows down because it incorrectly applies the speed limit of a road close by.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @04:20AM (7 children)
I would rather an acceleration limiter that is in effect all the time.
EU doesn't have as much of a problem with idiotically huge wasteful vehicles/engines as the US, but here in the US, you can't drive a sane vehicle without someone tailgating you the entire time you accelerate from a stop / accelerate on the on-ramp to the freeway. They don't get it / care that not everyone has a V10 8 liter engine in their vehicle.
An acceleration limiter would eliminate any marketing advantage of 0-60 in __ seconds / hundreds of horsepower, etc. We might end up with more sane cars on the road / fewer gas hogs, but even the idiotic gas hogs would be forced to be operated in a manner in which they would also achieve better fuel economy.
Same applies to electric-- electric vehicles are still burning fossil fuels in most places, just indirectly.
Simply limit all vehicles to the same acceleration rate as an econobox with a small displacement 4 cyl engine.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 03 2022, @05:14AM (5 children)
I haven't seen a 4 cylinder engine in quite a long time. V-6 engines are the norm. And, even small V-6 engines have respectable acceleration. Today's (few) inline 6 cylinder engines are a near match for V-6 engines.
You mention highway on-ramps. I would suggest that if your vehicle is incapable of achieving the posted speed limit while still on the on-ramp, you probably shouldn't be driving on that highway. Your 4 cylinder vehicle is almost certainly an antique, and you shouldn't be stressing it in 75 mph traffic. Take the back roads, and enjoy the scenery.
Seriously - if your car is straining to keep up with high speed traffic, you're on the wrong road.
If you want to limit acceleration, pick a more modern engine as your baseline.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Friday June 03 2022, @05:54AM (2 children)
almost every volskwagon, (so also audi, skoda etc) are 4 cyl, ~2litre na/turbo/twin turbo
Almost everything from Japan and Korea is also 4cyl
and most smaller/non-sport BMWs.
Only "US" vehicles get de-powered V6s as a matter of course. The rest of the world has been dominated by 4 cylinder cars for a long time.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @10:30AM
I have a 2.5l Toyota (in the UK) which is 4 cylinder. It's a hybrid too. For a while, some of the VWs were 5 cylinder. I used to love my Wankel engine many years ago.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:30PM
Clown cars. Might as well ride a bicycle, you fucking dweeb. Ohhh nooo my little scooter can't pull a boat trailer and 6 adults up a hill in a hurricane. Fucking pansy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @12:24AM (1 child)
You read a lot into the GP post that isn't there. Nothing suggests inability to accelerate to highway speeds within a reasonable distance. But, that is the straw man you went after.
The problem is morons flooring it in their monster trucks and SUVs or cars with engines multiple times larger than necessary expecting the sane cars in front of them to get out of their way (any passenger car with a V6 has an engine much larger than necessary-- likely the car is much larger / heavier than necessary too [even for lard butts]).
E.g., the Toyota Yaris (no longer sold at all in the land of the gas guzzler USA) when it was sold in the US was only offered with the largest engine option (there are three engine options elsewhere in the world). The claim is there isn't a market for sane economical cars in the US, but that is because the SUV driving morons in the US would run over drivers of the sane car with the smaller engines rather than take an extra second or two to accelerate from zero to highway speeds.
The difference in fuel economy between the Yaris that was imported and the best fuel economy option available elsewhere, was an additional 15mpg.
Putting acceleration limiters in vehicles would allow these more economical vehicles to have access to our roads without having to worry (as much) about some SUV driving moron trying to run them off the road.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @08:41AM
Well, maybe take the same approach I did:
Big old 1 ton van with a 185 HP engine.
I am definitely not the bastard scaring the bejeebies out of everyone else.
But no one wants to hit me either. There's probably more steel in my bumpers than many have in their entire car.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 05 2022, @06:17AM
Driving in Los Angeles traffic, many times I saw acceleration advantage save someone's life, most often when an 18 wheeler couldn't see who they were about to run into. (Not always the fault of the car coming INTO a blind spot.)
Also, contrary to popular belief, a bigger engine is more efficient for a heavier vehicle, because it doesn't need to work as hard to move the same mass. Put a smaller engine in it, and it'll get worse gas mileage.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by coolgopher on Friday June 03 2022, @05:13AM (2 children)
Sensors fail. Having that impact the safety of the entire vehicle and its passengers seems idiotic to me.
This smells like a "solution" in search of a problem. From what I've seen, it's people doing 80 past the school zone's 40 that's the far bigger issue, not people doing 180 in a 110 zone.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:33PM (1 child)
I wish upon ye a plague of 18 year olds doing 180 in a 110 zone. Enjoy the (short) ride, asshole.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday June 04 2022, @03:34AM
A non-congested freeway? Sounds like an improvement to me
(Score: 3, Interesting) by garfiejas on Friday June 03 2022, @11:02AM
The concept is actually quite good; especially when driving around (UK) places/cities where I'm not familiar with speed cameras where the limit changes from 30 to 40 and back to 30 in the space of a few hundred yards (e.g. Nottingham); you activate the intelligent limiter and concentrate on which lane your supposed to be in.
However there are massive problems, e.g. noticing signs under the slip-road up to a motorway - me accelerating to 70mph, the car refusing to go beyond 30mph and slowing down - e.g. significant risk of death; when your in traffic at night, trying to figure out whats gone wrong/the cancel button will be why this gets taken to the high-courts and cancelled - much like the blow-back against smart-motorways - the sad thing is the f*wits wanting this won't appreciate how bad the road system is across the UK until lots of people have died...
The other is the shocking state of UK road signage - the signage by the council just isn't right - or is not there - e.g. a random trip to school (about 1.5miles) would involve me cancelling the intelligent limiter at least 4 times, as it noticed signs down side streets, ones that were a bit haphazard, overgrown, obscured by the weather or the wind had blown sideways... i.e. it made most trips randomly dangerous esp in traffic. And it was hilarious going downhill - as the automatic gearbox didn't care how fast it was going...
Still if they fix the signage, it was very useful, but the speed limits on the maps are still the better option, the one with the intelligent limiter seemed to trust its cameras - which were wrong about 40-50% - my other car trusts the maps - with a side order of sign recognition (e.g. variable speed limits)... and a nice lady reminding you *by voice* of the speed limit... until you slowed down... YMMV...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 03 2022, @02:22PM (1 child)
I was driving a rental that had speed limit recognition built in - it only affected the cruise control. While driving into a small downtown area on cruise control, the posted speed limit dropped from 45 mph to 25 mph (yes, an unusually large drop) this on state road 60. The auto-cruise recognized the 60 as a speed limit, not the 25, and continued on into the 25mph zone at 50mph cruise setting for some distance before I slowed it manually.
As these systems become more common, _most_ jurisdictions will polish up their speed limit signs and possibly even institute some kind of easily AI recognized "NOT A SPEED LIMIT" icon on other numbered signs that might be confused for speed limits. Others (a minority, but still significant if you live nearby) will relish in the opportunity to allow shrubbery to obscure their dropping speed limit signs and otherwise trick the robots into feeding the county coffers with fine money. Think the judge will have sympathy because the speed limit sign was obscured, possibly by the off duty officer's strategically parked pickup truck? Think again, the judge and the sheriff play poker on Tuesday nights, and part of those speeding fines find their way into the pot through creative accounting and "training exercises" on the books.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @08:44AM
I live close to Highway 10. This could get interesting.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday June 04 2022, @12:39AM (2 children)
My car has several of these "safety" features. There's a little red square that encloses your speed if you're going over the limit. Seems harmless, but what if your car is recording all the "speeding" you do? Sign up for connected services or whatever it's called? Does that information get downloaded and sold to insurance companies? Worse are the default forced "help" features. Where I usually have to drive, the lanes (two in each direction) are not particularly wide and the edge of the right lane along the side of the road is often used by cyclists. The first time I veered a bit out of the lane to go around one, the car started to fight me to keep me in the lane. I had to look through the manual to find out what it was and learn how to disable it. The worse thing to me is the "safety help" on cruise control. Right after I got my car I hurt my hip and in order to drive more comfortably, I often used cruise control. No problem I thought, the brake pedal or cancel button are right there, and I paid attention to the traffic. There was one time however when someone made a left turn from the opposite direction across my lane. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, I saw them about to turn, I was far enough away so should they stop in front of me for some reason I could stop and go around them, ordinarily I would keep up speed and they would have turned well before I got there. The car however, surprised me by slamming on the brakes, probably hard enough to get you dinged on your car insurance if you were fool enough to sign up for one of those monitored "safe driver" discounts. I was just glad no one was close behind me. I thought I had that disabled, but it still slows me down when approaching a car ahead of me instead of letting me check quickly to make sure all is clear and smoothly change lanes to go around.
I'm all in favor of self driving cars, but when I see how these basic features function it makes me believe we are still a long way away from that being safe.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday June 04 2022, @03:05AM
Oy. I hate your car already. What if it fights your intended veer-away when some kid runs into the road?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @02:34PM
> ..The car however, surprised me by slamming on the brakes,
AAA (American Automobile Assn) recently tested automatic emergency braking on several cars, report posted on their website. None of them worked well with false braking in a number of (simulated) common situations. At least for now, this feature looks more like a bug to me and I won't be buying any cars with it until it is improved.
What's scary is that a relatively unsophisticated testing operation run by AAA could find these edge cases easily. The car companies have (at least traditionally) always done extensive testing of their products before release. I fear that the car companies are now under the thrall of the Silicon Valley business model.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday June 04 2022, @03:01AM
How many accidents will it cause by distracting the driver during the split-second available to decide what to do?
What about roads where the speed limit is not the same if you're going the other direction? (Yes, these exist -- they're fairly common in SoCal due to zoning boundaries.)
Similarly... turns out spurious warnings along the road actually cause more accidents than they prevent -- by distracting drivers when their attention should most be on the road.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/71/7133.asp [thenewspaper.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:50AM
-nomsg
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @04:00AM (1 child)
https://www.rush.com/songs/red-barchetta/ [rush.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:26AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @04:01AM (4 children)
Secondhand
Kit cars
ECU replacements
Grey market imports
Boutique brands
Camera blockers
Homologation models
Wire cutters
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:28AM
The GPS equivalent of a Playstation Modchip...
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday June 03 2022, @07:29AM (2 children)
And if you have an accident and it is found that your car was manipulated, the insurance will likely refuse to pay. Unless you're willing to bear that risk, that already reduces your options quite a bit.
But then, you've still got the option of getting a car that merely gives you feedback. Note that three of the four listed options only involve feedback.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Opportunist on Friday June 03 2022, @08:27AM
So you might want to get a manipulation device that can be removed without leaving a trace. Like a GPS blocker or the like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:38AM
People building kit cars or replacing their engines already don't give a shit about that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Friday June 03 2022, @07:19AM (8 children)
Irresponsible driving does, by people who didn't deserve a drivers license in the first place.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Friday June 03 2022, @07:24AM (7 children)
And driving too fast for the conditions is one of the most common symptoms of irresponsible driving.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday June 03 2022, @07:34AM (2 children)
And of course these systems won't check for the conditions, but for speed limits. So if you go 80 on a street where this is the limit, but the conditions are so that 80 isn't safe at all, the system won't stop nor warn you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Friday June 03 2022, @08:27AM (1 child)
Quite. Speed limits are limits, not targets.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:02PM
They are used as defacto targets, which is a good thing. Traffic moves most effectively if everyone is doing the same speed. I think at least for off residential roads they should be targets, not limits. But I suppose this complicates things in that you'd need to separately specify maximum and minimum speeds, then there's road conditions and you don't want to technically tell people to drive faster than the conditions warrant, so maybe we've already hit upon the optimal solution and unofficially consider speed limits as targets.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday June 03 2022, @08:29AM
In my experience, driving too fast for the conditions is less an issue of speed limits and more one of conditions. The car may have a 70km/h speed limit allright, but in heavy snow, driving 50 through those curves may already be more than the average driver can handle.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 03 2022, @02:25PM (2 children)
One of the most senseless things about speed limit laws is how they are the same nearly everywhere, all the time. Day, night, rain, shine, even driving straight into the rising sun too low to block with a visor, the speed limits do not change.
Simplicity is easy to communicate, and enforce, but 95%+ of the time the posted speed limit is far lower than conditions (and most vehicles) will safely support. And when it's not too low, it's almost always too high.
Keeping traffic moving at low relative speeds _is_ good for safety, but teaching drivers that speed limits are a joke is not.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:42AM (1 child)
Let's not forget that speed limit as designed has nothing to do with safety but with saving gas.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 05 2022, @02:17AM
That was true for the 55 mph US national speed limit from the 1973 oil crisis until the Reagan rollback of that measure.
Before, and since, I do believe some speed limits are set with safety in mind. During my time with DOT I also observed several speed limits that were set unsafely high in order to increase the "quality of service" of the roadway so it would receive federal funding for maintenance and improvements.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Interesting) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @10:49AM (3 children)
A while ago I bought a used but top of the range car. I wanted a four wheel drive hybrid for living in the Scottish countryside. I don't normally buy top of the range but it was the only one available with four wheel drive at the time.
It has many features, some I've never used such as the voice actuation for various things. Some things are intensely irritating. For example, the navigation and in car entertainment are on a touch screen. That's dangerous. You cant just reach across and feel the buttons.
The other feature which is silly and irritating is that it attempts to read the speed limit signs, and has a little display in the middle of the dashboard next to the speedometer where it tells you what it thinks the current speed limit is and turns it red if it thinks you're going too fast.
It often gets the speed limit wrong. For a few decades now on UK roads on the approach to low speed limits entering towns and villages (40mph or 30mph) there are often signs giving you 300 yards of warning, one every hundred yards, that the speed limit is going to change. Of course, it reads the first one and flashes up read on the display.
Around some schools there are temporary 20mph speed limits with flashing yellow lights which say "speed limit 20mph when lights flash." Of course, it doesn't understand that.
The open road, single carriageway, out of town has the "national speed limit" which for private cars is 60mph. It's lower for some other vehicles, such as buses and goods vehicles. This is denoted by a white circle with a diagonal black line through it. The car interprets this as "no speed limit." It's 70mph on dual carriageways including motorways. The reason for that sign goes back a very long way, before there were speed limits on the open road in the UK. In fact, when motorways first appeared, there was no speed limit. The was also no central barrier and people used to do U turns! And stop for picnics on the road.
The funniest thing, though, is when it gets the reading completely wrong, Several times it has told me that the speed limit is 110mph.
I think that this causes more problems than it potentially solves. How stupid are some drivers? Yes, that's a rhetorical question...
I've had a driving licence for over 30 years now and I have never been stopped by police and I have never had a speeding ticking. I knew someone who was stopped once for driving at the speed limit precisely on a motorway at night. The police though he must have been trying to hide something and searched his car!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @11:15AM
It seems unlikely that the folks who made this law obey the speed limits to the letter of the law.
One wonders if they are thinking.
Speed limits are a one size fits all solution to road condition, car, and driver.
On a good day, good uncrowded road, with a good vehicle. They are somewhat conservative.
In the reverse conditions, very optimistic.
Traffic engineers know this and set them to what seems to work generally.
(Works means moves traffic relatively safely.)
This law seems to fix about a third of the problem.
The other 2 thirds are. The limits not adapting to the condition of the road and car. and the older cars not equipped.
Without fixing all at once, if enforced, it seems likely to cause something noticable at the voting box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ncc74656 on Friday June 03 2022, @05:29PM (1 child)
The rental car I drove recently had a similar feature. I was in El Paso at the time; like most cities in Texas, the freeways (with speed limits of 55 mph or more) are surrounded by frontage roads (with speed limits of 35-45), with lots of on- and off-ramps connecting them. I'm not entirely sure if the speed-limit display was driven by a sign-reading camera or GPS, but it frequently displayed the frontage-road speed limit while I was on the freeway, or vice versa.
Fortunately, the speed-limit indicator was only informational. What if it was tied to a governor? Being forced to do 35 in a 65 sounds like a good recipe for becoming roadkill.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @08:10PM
Our other car isn't so fancy, but the satnav displays what it thinks is the speed limit. Unfortunately, it gets it wrong too sometimes. There are places where a speed limit has obviously been lowered from 40mph to 30mph after the satnav was set up, so if you're relying on the satnav to tell you the speed limit you'll be wrong some times.
There have been cases in the UK where a driver has been convicted of speeding when the speed limit sign has been obscured by vegetation. The local authorities haven't keep the signs clear. Of course, the local authorities were not charged and convicted, but the motorist was. I suppose motorists often can't afford good enough legal representation. It makes you wonder what the signs are for. Are they for safety or to milk people for cash?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:02PM (4 children)
Imagine a world where no one was speeding. What would the cops (and many small towns) use to replace the income from speeding tickets?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:55PM (2 children)
In well-adjusted countries, fines do not count as revenue for the local police office. Instead, they are routed directly into the nation's coffers just like taxes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 03 2022, @02:30PM
Nobody ever accused rural Louisiana of being well adjusted.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by owl on Friday June 03 2022, @05:52PM
Money, being fungible, simply can't work that way.
Yes, the $200 for the fine might route directly to the nation's coffers, at least in the accounting system. But all that will happen then is that three days later, there will be another transaction in the accounting system, from the nation's coffers, back to the local police office, in the amount of $200, labeled "misc. funding".
End result, the local police office got the 'revenue' they raised by the ticket, just after some accounting games to "send it to the nation's coffers".
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday June 04 2022, @12:10AM
Don't worry, they'll think of something.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:15PM
Baaaaaaaa!
Baaaaaaaa!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:44PM (1 child)
what are the legal ramification if the car can make decisions for you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @09:58PM
The other problem with direct feedback systems like this is that people will start to rely on them, and pay less attention to the signage on the side of the road. So should then "your honour, I can't have been speeding, because my car never beeped, vibrated or hapted at me" become a valid defense?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:44PM (1 child)
Eurocrat totalitarians ruling the emasculated populace who accepts the technocrats word that "they're doing it to protect you".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:52PM
Amen to that! Fuck you EU!