Europe to Make Speed Limiters Mandatory by 2022

[Proctopeo]

Please, Iffy. Worst case plausible projections for global warming a threat to us. High temperatures + erratic, stormy weather = collapse of agriculture and therefore urban civilization. Sucks to be us, but most species will go about their merry ways.

I didn't say "global warming" I said "environmental impact". The environment is where life lives. Impact it too hard and oops, no more life. Savvy?

We live in an environment, living organisms rise up

[Northwest Slobovia]

Please, Iffy. Worst case plausible projections for global warming a threat to us. High temperatures + erratic, stormy weather = collapse of agriculture and therefore urban civilization. Sucks to be us, but most species will go about their merry ways.

I didn't say "global warming" I said "environmental impact". The environment is where life lives. Impact it too hard and oops, no more life. Savvy?

Uh-huh. And hitting it that hard is laughably beyond anything we can do, driving cars or not. I mean, you do understand that the biosphere survived the change from a reducing atmosphere to an oxygen atmosphere, incredible vulcanism like what made the Deccan Traps, and God knows how many major asteroid impacts? We'll wipe ourselves out long before we can hit anything that hard. (Or, more correctly, wipe out our ability to hit it that hard long before we can. See above about oopsies taking out urban civilization.)

[Forsher]

That post is talking about giving people tickets for following the law.

Well, breaking a law technically. "Reckless Endangerment" or some such, can't remember the actual charge they tend to give. The idea is that by not following the flow of the traffic you risk causing an accident when some idiot on his cell phone comes careening down the road going 90 in a 55. There's too many of THEM to stop them all, so they do the opposite until those few days where they get backup from the State Police and then everyone just doesn't go anywhere because sneezing will get you pulled over.

That makes more sense but speaks to wide spread failure.

[Galloism]

Well, breaking a law technically. "Reckless Endangerment" or some such, can't remember the actual charge they tend to give. The idea is that by not following the flow of the traffic you risk causing an accident when some idiot on his cell phone comes careening down the road going 90 in a 55. There's too many of THEM to stop them all, so they do the opposite until those few days where they get backup from the State Police and then everyone just doesn't go anywhere because sneezing will get you pulled over.

That makes more sense but speaks to wide spread failure.

It’s about minimizing deaths, basically.

Any traffic speed is basically ok within certain physics limits and road design limits, as long as it’s consistent with a minimum of variation. Those breaking the pattern are the hazard - not those following it.

It doesn’t help our politicians frequently set the limits well below what the traffic engineering analysis determines to be appropriate.

[The Liberated Territories]

Re: OP

Well gee that's extremely Orwellian. You go one kilometer over the limit and get written up? (Also I guess this doesn't apply to the Autobahn.)

No. The limiter just prevents you from breaking the speed limit on the road you're on. Unless you turn it off before you set off or push down hard on the accelerator to over ride it.

Even worse.

[Vallermoore]

The underworld will make lots of money illegally removing speed limiters.

[Risottia]

Personally I think that these systems should only exist if there's an override switch as suggested in the article. I'm not a ‘boy racer’, I don't feel the need to go 20+ miles over the limit to have fun, but just on a matter of principle I think that your vehicle should be controlled by you and no one else.
If there's no override then it would feel like everything is a Lada;

Translation "I don't feel the need to speed for fun but driving a car which can't speed at least 32 km/h above the limit is boring like driving an OMGCOMMIE car THEY WANNA TAKE ME FREEDUM".

Dude, the point in driving on the public roads isn't having fun. If you want to have fun, go on a race circuit, well separated from regular traffic.

[Forsher]

It’s about minimizing deaths, basically.

Completely wrong.

It's about maximising throughput subject to deaths and injuries.

Any traffic speed is basically ok within certain physics limits and road design limits,

Nope.

Look up Vision Zero. Roads which are meant to serve certain functions have designs wholly inappropriate to those functions and as a consequence their capacity to enable faster speeds is a problem.

Form dictates function. Shame about all the people living on the residential street designed like a motorway.

as long as it’s consistent with a minimum of variation. Those breaking the pattern are the hazard - not those following it.

Not really the problem.

It doesn’t help our politicians frequently set the limits well below what the traffic engineering analysis determines to be appropriate.

Watch what happens when bureaucrats point out that too many people are killed on over-engineered roads.

Politicians aren't their allies.

[The Republic of Fore]

Personally I think that these systems should only exist if there's an override switch as suggested in the article. I'm not a ‘boy racer’, I don't feel the need to go 20+ miles over the limit to have fun, but just on a matter of principle I think that your vehicle should be controlled by you and no one else.
If there's no override then it would feel like everything is a Lada;

Translation "I don't feel the need to speed for fun but driving a car which can't speed at least 32 km/h above the limit is boring like driving an OMGCOMMIE car THEY WANNA TAKE ME FREEDUM".

Dude, the point in driving on the public roads isn't having fun. If you want to have fun, go on a race circuit, well separated from regular traffic.

If you want complete and absolute safety why even drive?

[British Tackeettlaus]

Interesting idea but I don't think it will help much, at least not in the UK. Our speed limit is 70 mph, so I assume the limiter will limit at 70. And I am much more scared of someone going 50 in a 30 zone, much more dangerous than doing 90 on the motorway. A limiter wont do anything about that, And it is speeding in residential areas with low speed limits that actually cause the most deaths, not going over 70 on the motorway.

[Chan Island]

Good. Sick and tired of watching lunatic maniacs barrelling well above the speed limit like they aren't endangering everybody else. And let's not forget that speeding is the primary cause of traffic accidents, accounting for about half of all deaths.

Also cars will drive themselves at some point anyway.

Reading thus thread is having me worried about what kind of Sunday drivers we have here that are so worried about the limiter. Most of the "Sunday drive" types I've spoken to are old folks who go well below the speed limit.

[SD_Film Artists]

Personally I think that these systems should only exist if there's an override switch as suggested in the article. I'm not a ‘boy racer’, I don't feel the need to go 20+ miles over the limit to have fun, but just on a matter of principle I think that your vehicle should be controlled by you and no one else.
If there's no override then it would feel like everything is a Lada;

Translation "I don't feel the need to speed for fun but driving a car which can't speed at least 32 km/h above the limit is boring like driving an OMGCOMMIE car THEY WANNA TAKE ME FREEDUM".

Dude, the point in driving on the public roads isn't having fun. If you want to have fun, go on a race circuit, well separated from regular traffic.

Actually I think recreational driving is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate reason to be on the roads. You can't explore the countryside roads on a race track. Of course exploring the countryside doesn't mean that you should break the speed limit but I never advocated that so frankly that's a strawman. The point is that if everyone is in huge, slow cars which are only designed to haul people's fat arses from the nursery to the Bingo hall then it will destory the market for performance vehicles; remember that acceleration and good handling are both perfectly safe and legal when conducted responsibly. It's not all about speed.

You could then say "well if recreational driving isn't all about speed then why are the limiters a problem?" but as mentioned above it will create a market and culture where performance and human-controled driving are bad words. As I said in the OP, saying "why drive on public roads when you can always go on a track" is like saying "why live in a house when you can always visit a hotel?".

From the Article: AA president Edmund King said there was no doubt that new in-car technology could save lives, adding there was "a good case" for autonomous emergency braking to be fitted in all cars. "When it comes to intelligent speed adaptation, the case is not so clear," he said.

[Petrolheadia]

Good. Sick and tired of watching lunatic maniacs barrelling well above the speed limit like they aren't endangering everybody else. And let's not forget that speeding is the primary cause of traffic accidents, accounting for about half of all deaths.

Also cars will drive themselves at some point anyway.

Reading thus thread is having me worried about what kind of Sunday drivers we have here that are so worried about the limiter. Most of the "Sunday drive" types I've spoken to are old folks who go well below the speed limit.

Speeding is the cause of less than 1/300th of all deaths.

And those old folks are far more annoying than any speeder. You better hope you weren't in a hurry if you're stuck behind one.

[Petrolheadia]

Translation "I don't feel the need to speed for fun but driving a car which can't speed at least 32 km/h above the limit is boring like driving an OMGCOMMIE car THEY WANNA TAKE ME FREEDUM".

Dude, the point in driving on the public roads isn't having fun. If you want to have fun, go on a race circuit, well separated from regular traffic.

Actually I think recreational driving is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate reason to be on the roads. You can't explore the countryside roads on a race track. Of course exploring the countryside doesn't mean that you should break the speed limit but I never advocated that so frankly that's a strawman. The point is that if everyone is in huge, slow cars which are only designed to haul people's fat arses from the nursery to the Bingo hall then it will destory the market for performance vehicles; remember that acceleration and good handling are both perfectly safe and legal when conducted responsibly. It's not all about speed.

You could then say "well if recreational driving isn't all about speed then why are the limiters a problem?" but as mentioned above it will create a market and culture where performance and human-controled driving are bad words. As I said in the OP, saying "why drive on public roads when you can always go on a track" is like saying "why live in a house when you can always visit a hotel?".

From the Article: AA president Edmund King said there was no doubt that new in-car technology could save lives, adding there was "a good case" for autonomous emergency braking to be fitted in all cars. "When it comes to intelligent speed adaptation, the case is not so clear," he said.

Another thing we gotta remember is that many limits currently upheld were introduced somewhere between WWII and the 70s. Since when does a Panda, C3 or Golf have the same safe speed as a 500, 2CV or Beetle?

Well, breaking a law technically. "Reckless Endangerment" or some such, can't remember the actual charge they tend to give. The idea is that by not following the flow of the traffic you risk causing an accident when some idiot on his cell phone comes careening down the road going 90 in a 55. There's too many of THEM to stop them all, so they do the opposite until those few days where they get backup from the State Police and then everyone just doesn't go anywhere because sneezing will get you pulled over.

That makes more sense but speaks to wide spread failure.

Yes, it is failure. Failure of those who try to judge modern cars' handling and performance by 1970s norms.

[Chan Island]

Good. Sick and tired of watching lunatic maniacs barrelling well above the speed limit like they aren't endangering everybody else. And let's not forget that speeding is the primary cause of traffic accidents, accounting for about half of all deaths.

Also cars will drive themselves at some point anyway.

Reading thus thread is having me worried about what kind of Sunday drivers we have here that are so worried about the limiter. Most of the "Sunday drive" types I've spoken to are old folks who go well below the speed limit.

Speeding is the cause of less than 1/300th of all deaths.

And those old folks are far more annoying than any speeder. You better hope you weren't in a hurry if you're stuck behind one.

1 in 300 is a pretty high rate. It's enough so that everybody knows or knows of at least 1 person in their life killed by speeding. Also, nice way of not saying "the second highest cause of death to the under 35s behind suicide."

I'm sure they are very annoying. You know what else is super annoying when I'm in a hurry? A fucking fender-bender up the road because some jackass couldn't read the speed limit. So I'm sure you can excuse me when I say I do not hold much sympathy for the whole 'Sunday driver' thing.

[Valentine Z]

I am not very informed about this, so I would like to ask... What will happen to those no-limit superhighways in Germany, like Autobahn?

At the same time, I feel like this will be a step in the right direction, given how people can just go into a road rage, or drive way beyond the speed limit because the speed cameras aren't around.

Though, I can see the drawback to this, such as... What will happen if someone out there knows exactly where you are driving to? I understand that we already have GPSes on our cars, but a mandatory GPS device in your car might be a little too much.

As always, I don't know much about this, so please pardon me if I am wrong about some statements.

[Ifreann]

Translation "I don't feel the need to speed for fun but driving a car which can't speed at least 32 km/h above the limit is boring like driving an OMGCOMMIE car THEY WANNA TAKE ME FREEDUM".

Dude, the point in driving on the public roads isn't having fun. If you want to have fun, go on a race circuit, well separated from regular traffic.

If you want complete and absolute safety why even drive?

Because you have somewhere to be?

[Esternial]

Re: OP

Well gee that's extremely Orwellian. You go one kilometer over the limit and get written up? (Also I guess this doesn't apply to the Autobahn.)

No. The limiter just prevents you from breaking the speed limit on the road you're on. Unless you turn it off before you set off or push down hard on the accelerator to over ride it.

It's basically an automatic version of the speed limiter some cars already have today.

I sometimes used it in my Volvo V40. If you would exceed the manually set limit it would break lightly - when going downhill that usually didn't slow it down enough, prompting it to alert me once it exceeded a 10km/h threshold. If you pressed the throttle hard enough it would disengage. I'm not a terrific fan of it, especially when you're really focused on something else - like you're driving in an area you haven't been before, complex city layouts - which in Belgium is quite common.

Suddenly being shook by the automatic speed limiter when you're in the middle of a maneuver can cause confusion and risk an accident, especially for people that don't feel overly confident in their car yet. You can easily forget the stuff that's automatic. I constantly forget my car has a start/stop mechanism that's enabled by default, I sometimes forget to turn on my lights in older car models because I've gotten used to driving cars that do so automatically, etc.

[Ethel mermania]

Enviromental impact is not the end-all of life. In fact, for me it's a very minor concern.

Environmental impact could be the end-all of life quite literally. But it probably won't be quite that bad, because policy makers aren't likely to listen to you screaming "Stop saving the world, I want to break the speed limit!"

---

In my country, cops will not go after you if you go five miles over the limit on normal roads or ten miles over the limit on a highway. In fact, I am one of the only people I have ever known that follow the speed limit exactly. Everyone- I do mean EVERYONE -around me goes faster than I do, so I am always in the slow lane.

Not to mention, if you need to floor it for a vital reason, like getting a pregnant woman to the hospital, or you need to smash into a tree because someone has a gun put to your had, you MUST go over the speed limit to do this effectively.

If you're in a movie then you won't need to worry about it, the writers will just pretend speed limiters don't exist.

If you're in the real world, you're not going to need to rush a pregnant woman to a hospital or have someone put a gun to your head in your car and make them drive somewhere.

---

Yeah, and the people in the rural areas will starve to death. Your idea would work in Japan or small nations in Europe, but not in the USA. This is another example of urban people dictating the lives of the rural population despite having no understanding or care about them: city slickers in general, overall, always seek to oppress the rural population, almost entirely by sheer ignorance or apathy instead of actual malice or hatred.

You seem to be assuming that I want public transport to be the sort of profit-driven affair that doesn't serve small communities. Which is quite the opposite of what I have in mind. I want public transport that does serve small communities, even if that means running at a loss.

---

Nah, Iffy is an equal-opportunity oppressor.

Any brief study of mass transit will reveal that people drive for two main reasons: convenience and autonomy. Both mean so much that people drive even in huge, densely populated areas like Manhattan... despite there being adequate if not great mass transit. If people want others to use mass transit more, make it suck less.

I do want to make it suck less. But making cars suck more will help us all not kill the world.

Friendship and magic is not a viable basis for an economic system or political decision making.

[Esternial]

I am not very informed about this, so I would like to ask... What will happen to those no-limit superhighways in Germany, like Autobahn?

At the same time, I feel like this will be a step in the right direction, given how people can just go into a road rage, or drive way beyond the speed limit because the speed cameras aren't around.

Though, I can see the drawback to this, such as... What will happen if someone out there knows exactly where you are driving to? I understand that we already have GPSes on our cars, but a mandatory GPS device in your car might be a little too much.

As always, I don't know much about this, so please pardon me if I am wrong about some statements.

Since those roads should technically be recognized by the GPS a no-limit road, nothing would change. You'd still be able to go as fast as your car realistically allows.

I wouldn't see the point of knowing where you are, and people willing to go through the effort of hacking into your car's GPS will probably have other means to get what they need.

[Ifreann]

Environmental impact could be the end-all of life quite literally. But it probably won't be quite that bad, because policy makers aren't likely to listen to you screaming "Stop saving the world, I want to break the speed limit!"

---

If you're in a movie then you won't need to worry about it, the writers will just pretend speed limiters don't exist.

If you're in the real world, you're not going to need to rush a pregnant woman to a hospital or have someone put a gun to your head in your car and make them drive somewhere.

---

You seem to be assuming that I want public transport to be the sort of profit-driven affair that doesn't serve small communities. Which is quite the opposite of what I have in mind. I want public transport that does serve small communities, even if that means running at a loss.

---

I do want to make it suck less. But making cars suck more will help us all not kill the world.

Friendship and magic is not a viable basis for an economic system or political decision making.

If it works for the cartoon horsies, it'll work for us.

[Petrolheadia]

I am not very informed about this, so I would like to ask... What will happen to those no-limit superhighways in Germany, like Autobahn?

At the same time, I feel like this will be a step in the right direction, given how people can just go into a road rage, or drive way beyond the speed limit because the speed cameras aren't around.

Though, I can see the drawback to this, such as... What will happen if someone out there knows exactly where you are driving to? I understand that we already have GPSes on our cars, but a mandatory GPS device in your car might be a little too much.

As always, I don't know much about this, so please pardon me if I am wrong about some statements.

Since those roads should technically be recognized by the GPS a no-limit road, nothing would change.

Knowing the state of GPS, it's a very big "if" when the car becomes even slightly old.

[Petrolheadia]

If you want complete and absolute safety why even drive?

Because you have somewhere to be?

You can take public transport if it's so much better. I'll stick to cars, bicycles and my feet.

[Ifreann]

Because you have somewhere to be?

You can take public transport if it's so much better. I'll stick to cars, bicycles and my feet.

That's the plan.

[SD_Film Artists]

Friendship and magic is not a viable basis for an economic system or political decision making.

If it works for the cartoon horsies, it'll work for us.

Equestria to Make Pegasi Wing Shortening Mandatory by 2022.