A few years ago I heard a report about an organisation in England that was experimenting with the idea of installing speed limiters in cars that used GPS and a database of speed limits. The system would only allow cars to go as fast as the maximum speed for that particular street, and the GPS was used to know where the car is and the speed limit of that area. If the car entered a zone with a slower limit the car would gradually decelerate to the new speed limit. If the care entered a zone with a higher limit the car can only accelerate to the new limit.

I guess they are hoping to have it installed as a mandatory safety system in new cars.

Will it take a Big Brother approach to finally slow drivers down?

CHEERS.

Mark

Personally, I think it's a horrible idea. There are times when a driver must be able to exceed the speed limit... even in the essence of maintaining safety. Take away the control of speed from the driver and you take away yet another thing they have to be responsible for. I say do what the FAA does. If you break a rule, you better have a damn good reason for doing so. Exceed the 200kts speed limit in a class B airspace and you're liable to lose your priviledges. Sneeze wrong and you're liable to lose your priviledges. Get the bad drivers off the road and keep them off. We already have a decent way for drivers to allow themselves the luxury of not having to pay attention to speed limits. It's called taking public transportation.

The Finnish Road Administration is piloting a new system to keep track of road usage and congestions. They collect a sample of GSM roaming signals to calculate the average speed of phones (and cars those phones are in, presumably) travelling on a given road. When publicly introducing the project they were very careful to make it clear that this system would not be used to collect information about individual phones. The issue of being able to identify an individual car and it's speed was discussed, too. As it is, they apparently cannot give the information they collect to the police even if it were to be used to investigate a traffic accident.

--J

well, although in theory the idea has a lot of merit i personally don't like the "big brother" aspect, and it would NEVER be allowed in the "personal rights" USA "the government can't tell me what to do"

i do think the answer lies mostly in better enforcment of existing laws and holding people liable for their actions. while i have complaints with German drivers, because of the much greater level of penalties and enforcement auto drivers are much more careful than in the US (e.g. you can EASILY loose your license here which is virtually impossible in the US as long as you aren't drunk)

and if some type of system were persued, i would think something that records and notifies the authorities of the offense would be better than phsyically limited the speed of the vehicle - i.e. send a radio signal to the local police so they either send you a ticket in the mail (in Europe ok, in the US probably wouldn't be allowed) or use a device to detect that you are speeding (like a radar gun but the auto itself indicates if the driver is speeder rather than the radar detecting if the driver is speeding)

GPS signals are very weak and can be jammed. Just going by a road that has tall trees on both sides can block the signal, this is the main downpoint of charging using a GPS system. You'd need a stronger signal (e.g. Mobile phone) in order to get something that would work. Even then you can jam these frequencies too. A system would need to combat this. E.G. The car won't start if it can't find a signal. However, this would be pretty frustrating if you're in the wilderness and miles from the signal!

What if you wanted to speed down this particular street, though?

I agree with Nathan on this one. If they just give us some greater law enforcement in this area, we wouldn't need all this stuff.

The new OBD III computer for cars due out next year will have the capablity to record your speed so your involved in a wreck the patrol officer will be able to hook into your computer and read your speed at the moment of impact... neat idea...except for one added feature: if you break the speed limit it will send a signal to a sat in space than send it back to a new local automated traffic ticket place that will send you a ticket in the mail for speeding! When this capability will be activated remains to be seen. But isn't it nice that our cars will not only be capable of speeding but tattle tale on us when we do. Why don't they just limit our top speeds to 75mph and get it over with. I HATE NEW CARS!!!!

When I was in Dubai, by law, the cars there had buzzers that would go off if you exceeded the maximum allowable speed limit (100kph I think). It wasn't dynamic enough to know what the speed limit of the actual road was however. I was told by many of the locals that many car dealerships made quite a bit of extra money on the side for disabling the buzzer upon the sale of a new vehicle. I think some of the taxis also had it set up so that the fare was discounted if the driver exceeded 100kph. I remember seeing the words "TOO FAST" flashing on the fare-meter as our driver was speeding down one of the expressways.

I don't know about USA or other countries but a lot of the speed limits here in Australia have no correlation with actual road safety. They are simply in place as an excuse for the Government to buy more speed cameras/radar guns and reap the financial benefits by catching motorists exceeding the speed limit (by as little as 2 or 3km/h).

I think there would be a world wide outcry if a GPS speed limiter was introduced.

To which parts of Australia are you referring specifically? Personally I like the idea of people having to slow down to 40km/h near schools, especially with some of the totally incompetent driving that goes on in those areas around 3pm. My only beef with that law is that we don't have fascist enforcement of it.

Why do we have laws if we do not enforce them enough to make them effective? We need more enforcement.

Unfortunately with the amount of cars on the road (anywhere), enforcement of the road rules is beyond the police forces capabilities. We have 30 speed cameras here in a city of 1 million people, these cameras are working 24/7 and are snapping speeding cars virtually every second. Drivers still will not slow down and just complain about revenue raising. It's very simple, no speeding no revenue.

A car was tailgating my wife recently in a 60kph zone, he passed us and I asked why people like this never get caught, he was travelling at 80-90kph, then flash, he'll get a $235 fine in the mail.

CHEERS.

Mark

Dutchy, does your post indicate you would be willing to have a car that would send you a ticket everytime you speed in it?

The revenue raising arguement comes up again and again. I agree with you on this. The government needs funds to do its job and if they can get those funds from people who break the law rather than those who abide by it - fine.

Taxis in Singapore have similar kind of system. Knowing the laws in Singapore the driver would probably get his @ss literally caned if caught. OTOH speeding seemed fairly common, so maybe this is one of the laws they are not enforcing very strictly.

--J

I am one to worry about Big Brother, also. But speeding is an epidemic.. Usually practiced by those who resort to road rage.. Think it has merits..

Then it's very simple what the problem is here. 30 speed cameras isn't enough. A $235 fine isn't enough. As I've said elsewhere, it's time to spend speed camera revenue on more speed cameras. If this means that every single road in existence is totally saturated with speed camera coverage, so be it. Sooner or later, those continually paying the fines will run out of money.

although i'm not crazy about the "big brother" aspect of it, i think given how out of control automobile unsafety is, i personally am not against it -- note, throughout much of Europe (in Germany i have seen them) there are "blitzers" which are machines that monitor your speed and take your photo and send you a ticket in the mail if you are speeding above a certain threshold (usually 10km/h over). you can contest it if the face in the picture is not you or is not clear enough to be clearly verified as YOU--- of course, there has to be some protection like this for abuse of the system so you don't somehow get 500 tickets sent to you when you did nothing wrong or someone borrowed your car.

on the other hand, speeding is only one of MANY driver offenses that is not inforced - actually speeding is about the only one other than say running red lights that is even somewhat enforced --- i.e. dangerous passing, tailgating and "wreckless driving" and "inattentive driving" occur frequently and are almost never cited unless after an accident. (and the inattentive driver on a cell phone who doesn't notice for 2 minutes that a police car is behind it with the lights on is probably MORE of a threat than a careful driver who is speeding)

as to the Big Brother aspect: driving is a priviledge and something that carries a VERY high risk to others in society (operating a deadly weapon of great mass at high speed), so government enforcement by observation (i.e. eletronic surveilance of DRIVING only) is a not a major infringement on privacy and in my opinion worth the small sacrafice of privacy. --- now full time viedeo or electronic surveilance of PEOPLE is another issue (like the face-recognition software being tested in i think either Florida or NYC, i forgot which)

but whether it is accomplished through electronic surveilance or more police officers or both, we need to increase enforcement as well as penalties so that dangerous and wreckless driving is no longer acceptable as the norm (or the "oh, i was late for a meeting or to pick up my kid from school" is NOT a valid excuse to endanger the lives of others)

additionally, more driver training as well as some type of public opinion campaign to change the public's attitude that "unsafe and inattentive" driving is ok, would also help (like the Drunk Driving campaigns in the US the last 20 years as well as tougher penalties AND enforcement HAVE changed the attitude towards drunk driving)

That face recognition software is being tested here in Tampa in the Ybor City club district. I have stopped going there because the club scene has been infested by "normals" and the cameras were simply the last straw..

speed limiting by gps seems like a silly idea. most newer vehicles already have a speed governer in place to prevent excessive speeds anyway.

I worry about "big brother" when it comes to oversupervising human beings--however, having serious doubts about the humanity of drivers, it seems like a great idea!

I wasn't referring to the (speed and your car will dob you in system) that is ridiculous, even the most consciences driver will go over the limit at some point even if by only a small margin. I was referring to the GPS speed limiter system which would (in theory) stop speeding in it's tracks. I personally think the speed limiting option is highly probable considering drivers unwillingness to slow down. Just a matter of time.

This would sit fine with me. In Sydney they have permanent cameras on some roads and yet people still get caught.

CHEERS.

Mark

The only manufacturer supplied speed limiters I have heard of are on some European cars and are set to 250kph/156mph.
This new system will stop a car from exceeding ANY posted limit on any street.

CHEERS.

Mark

This is where the size of the fine comes into it. If people were being fined $1,000, I wonder how many would still get caught then.