Device Stops Speeders From Inside Car 781
frdmfghtr writes "CNN reports that the Canadian government is testing a new anti-speeding device." From the article: "The system being tested by Transport Canada, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Department of Transportation, uses a global positioning satellite device installed in the car to monitor the car's speed and position. If the car begins to significantly exceed the speed limit for the road on which it's traveling the system responds by making it harder to depress the gas pedal, according to a story posted on the Toronto Globe and Mail's Website."
well.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:well.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:well.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Insightful)
The new Light Sport category might change that (offtopic). Anyways, trust me, the rules for aviation are there for the safety of you, your passengers, and others in the air or on the ground. There do happen to be a ton a regs in aviation, but I've never found one that I didn't agree with. F
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Informative)
They were on a low powered motorcycle.
A large truck came up behind them - hadnt seen them
They didnt have the power to pull away
The truck destroyed the bike, the person only survived by throwing themselves off the bike and grabbing a tree at 50 MPH, breaking a lot of bones. The bike was spread over 180 yards of road.
In this instance it was the bikes lack of power causing the problem, but if that same power w
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Insightful)
And not once in all of that did I see an accident that could have been prevented by "evasive high speed".
If this is true, that's only because you're imagining dangerous situations infront of your car. How is braking going to help you when a speeding car is bearing down on you from behind? If anything it's only going to make the collision happen sooner. How is braking going to help you in the split second you realize someone is about to T-bone you from a side?
The first thing you are taught in defens
Re:Hopefully the GPS will work when ....... (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, if there were a natural disaster in Montreal, the only roads that could support high speeds (the highways) would be gridlocked traffic much like they are every day during rushhour.
Hang on... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not just use a cruise control type system to limit the speed?
Re:Hang on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hang on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Say you're driving along a two lane road (1 lane in both directions) stuck behind a slow truck. Cars are piled up behind you. I'm sure most drivers have been in this situation before. When you overtake the car behind you will move up to your old position stopping you from going back. If while you're on the wrong side of the road you see a car coming towards you it may be necessary to speed to complete the overtaking move. The proposed system would appear to allow for this while a set speed limiter may not. I'd prefer to speed than to die wouldn't you?
Re:Hang on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, speed is a contributing factor to the severity of the accident, but not to whether or not the accident actually occurs. Look at the Autobahn in Germany. Accidents are not nearly as common as they are on American freeways (I don't know anything about Canadian freeways and their accident rates), yet the speeds tend to be substantially higher.
Personally, I think the speed limits are mostly for police to engage in revenue collection. Yes, keeping speeds around 55-60mph usually results in fuel savings for most vehicles, but people should be free to move at any safe rate of speed, within appropriate limits for that particular roadway (and most people naturally drive at a safe speed for the road, even if it is higher than the posted limit), and have that choice be their own. If I choose to drive at 55 to save fuel, you'll find me in the slow lane with the semi trucks. If I choose to drive 85 because I'm late for an appointment, I'll be in the fast lane with other similarly-rapid vehicles.
I would posit that if one were to remove all speed limit signs, except for those around inherently dangerous sections of roadway (i.e. an upcoming sharp turn that requires a lower rate of speed), most people would drive slightly faster (maybe 70-80mph) than they do presently, but would still drive in a safe manner. I doubt that many would suddenly start going 140mph just because there's no signs.
[1] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/p-sl.html [ibiblio.org]
[2] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html [ibiblio.org]
Re:Hang on... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also bear in mind that the Autobahn is monitored electronically and the speed limits are variable depeinding on the amount of traffic at any one time. The U.S. doesn't have anything like that (and really, with as much Interstate as we've got here, we can't).
Better would be to compare states with similar driving conditions but different speed limits. In Oklahoma, the speed limit on the Interstate is 70. In Illinois, it's 65. In Texas, I think it's lower for trucks than cars (which always seemed abysmally stupid to me - you're causing obstacles in traffic that way). It makes more sense to compare the accident rates on selected areas of similar highway and derive your results from that.
Re:Hang on... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nisu.flinders.edu.au/pubs/bulletin9/b9p 7.html [flinders.edu.au] check paragraph 6
In areas where there are many driveways, pedestrians on the side of the street, cyclists, etc, speed needs to be regulated.
Here are a few sections from another article:
Are pedestrians at risk from speeding vehicles on city
Re:Hang on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hang on... (Score:3)
Re:Safety... what is safety? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as speed goes its a tough concept because all drivers are not equal. A 16 year old goin 130mph is inherently more dangerous than a 32 year old race car dri
Before this is over...... (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're sucking on a giant icecream cone - don't be surprised if you're not allowed onto the bus.
The bus only goes where the government decides it should go.
It only goes when the government decides it should go.
And, lo and behold, along the route the government decides it to go.
There's just one thing... almost everywhere except for the U.S., public transport -works-, and works *so* well that there are millions who not only see it as a viable alternative to their car (if they even have one), but they prefer it.
The car is not a symbol of freedom - it's a mode of transportation which is regulated like any other, except that you have even more responsibilty. And, sadly, there are many who do -not- drive their cars responsibly, making it possible for these types of limitations to be implemented. It's a shame that a few should 'ruin' it for the rest. But, do tell, what bit of not being allowed to speed is ruining exactly what ?
Now if, on the other hand, you're pondering the gov't always knowing where you are... I wholly agree
This is for the more extreme people who share your view...
Roll back a few decades to when seatbelts became law... would you also have said "Before this is over, we'll think we're the luckiest people in the world just to be allowed IN the damn car..." etc. ? Did 'the slippery slope' start there ? Or do some measures actually just make sense ?
Re:You do realize... (Score:3, Informative)
Are you from the US? Do you remember being a teenager? Have you ever seen a car commercial? Do you realize how much the automobile has changed the physical/social/political landscape of this country?
I suggest this course. [ferris.edu]
Re:You do realize... (Score:4, Insightful)
(* ignoring that it's much more expensive in most other areas of the world - though it's much cheaper in Venezuela, of course
I'd be interested in the 'what the future likely holds' bit, though - back when I had the course in high school, the future held this:
more cars
even more, wider, highways
more land making way for parking plots (they even predicted that parking garages would never become popular - despite taking up less space. right they were.. after all, how would you drive an Excursion around in what would have been the then-typical parking garage?)
more distance between shopping and living
'islands' for shopping, rather than lanes.
In other words, the downward spiral continued.
So yes, I'd be interested in that bit - see if that's been revised since then. *eyes greyhounds and such, currently* somehow I doubt it
Chase scenes? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Having their cake and eating it too (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think these will last very long.
I found a recent article about red-light cameras that had been installed at various local intersections. The article made interesting mention of the fact that some of the yellow lights were timed as low as three seconds, which unquestionably does not provide enough notice to bring the vehicle to safe stop. You have two choices: slam on the breaks and hope there is noone in back of you, or continue, which will most likely have you entering the intersection on a red light.
This provides an excellent revenue source for both the city, and insurance companies- the city can impose a fine, and the insurance company can raise your rates. In fact, one of our local interstates generated over $13,000,000 in speeding fines (from cameras). Ethics aside (there don't appear to be any in this business) do you honestly think local governments are going to think very highly of a device that will deny it such a substantial source of revenue?
Re:Having their cake and eating it too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Having their cake and eating it too (Score:5, Interesting)
Computerized enforcement of laws is only going to get worse.
In the past, punishment for illegal parking/speeding was overly harsh so as to make an example of those caught. Now that "they" are gaining the ability to catch/fine *all* infractions, do we see the penalties decreasing? Nope.
Just something to think about as we rush headlong into the great 21st century with computers and stuff.
Over Engineering (Score:2, Insightful)
would this have any effect... (Score:4, Funny)
How reliable is this stuff (Score:2)
Cruise-control a DMCA circumvention device? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cruise-control a DMCA circumvention device? (Score:3, Insightful)
Safety issues? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, let's say you've got a 25mph residential street that turns onto a 50mph highway. You're driving along at 50mph, and suddenly the GPS system mistakenly thinks you're close enough to the residential street that you should now be going 25mph. The ensuing weirdness with the gas pedal distracts the driver for a moment. Fantastic.
Have you ever seen an incorrect (possibly simply out of date) street on Mapquest/Yahoo/Google Maps? I wonder how that sort of thing might affect this.
I would have no problem with using this technology to light up a warning light on the dashboard or something, but directly affecting the control of the vehicle sounds like a VERY bad idea to me. As long as we still trust humans to operate the steering wheel, we need to trust them to operate the gas as well.
Re:Safety issues? (Score:3, Funny)
war time (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Safety issues? (Score:3, Insightful)
How can some GPS know whether you need emergency acceleration or not?? How can it know whether you're passing a long string of cars (oh, I see -- by *their* GPS tags) or maybe serving as an unofficial emergency transport, where you might need to speed significantly for more than a few moments? And imagine this being applied where the driving conditions are already hazardous, and any unplanned or unexpected change of ac
Re:Safety issues? (Score:3, Funny)
I drive a 1989 Mercury Cougar with duct-tape in place of weather stripping on the back window. I guess it's understandable that you could come up with a situation where hitting the gas is necessary and I couldn't.
Re:Safety issues? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Safety issues? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, what the government decides is excessive may be a different story, but I can't see people taking anything that doesn't line up
Re:Safety issues? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as this system, I would remove such a device if I could. I do not want anything effecting the operation of my vehicle that does not have to. This is the same reason that I usually disable the traction control system in my car; it interferes with my ability to be in complete control of the vehicle.
People just need to learn that you punish people for committing a crime. That means *after* they have committed a crime, and have been convicted. At least they aren't talking about requiring such a device, just certifying it.
Government works better when they aren't playing moral police, social enforcer, and the general mommy and daddy of the populace. People need to be free to make their own decisions, even if those decisions will get them killed. A crime needs to start being simply an act that harms an unwilling person, be it their body or their property.
Reminds me of the recent articles about checking (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/0
And who defines "significantly?" (Score:2)
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for violation of the verbal language statute..."
Seriously, though, this is just a bit too invasive.
This is insanity (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe. (Score:3, Insightful)
The key word here is in bold. Doing 200 in a 50 zone? Not ok. The brief burst to 60 or 65 to avoid a swerve into your lane (total time elapsed, 1.3s + reaction time)? Probably fine.
No need to be reactionary, just trying to take the dumb out of dumb drivers.
The less humans are in the system, the more we can weed out mistakes. I'd rather have a car hit me because of a malfuction than an old man who happened
Crippling our vehicles is a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
What if someone is pregnant or hurt seriously and needed to get to the hospital quick? What if it's the dead of night and no one is on the road? Do you follow the 55 mph speed limit (yes, I know it's Canada, not America) or do you proceed to go up to 70-80 mph?
Re:Crippling our vehicles is a bad idea (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Crippling our vehicles is a bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Crippling our vehicles is a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The one in Cuba was seen and dealt with the most quickly, then the one in Canada, then the one in the US. I believe the overall 'quality' of service was also best in Cuba. The guy in the US was left in a corridor on a wheelchair with one leg raised, where people kept walking into his bandaged foot.
So, utterly anecdotal and certainly hardly scientific (well, it is Michael Moore), but it makes you wonder. It's just a shame about the free speech/human rights issues they have there though.
I mean in Cuba, not the US...then again, the US seems to outsource their human rights violations to Cuba these days ;-)
Get the government out of my car (Score:3, Insightful)
I take responsibility for the task of driving, thank you.
It's all those other nutcases out there that need to be regulated.(irony intended)
or build yourself one of these... (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, I can see it now:
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Funny)
Mine must be busted; I only get warnings that I'm going "only 5 over".
Tunnels? (Score:2, Funny)
will this also work for grannies? (Score:5, Funny)
Not safe (Score:2)
Work out... (Score:2)
lawsuits forthcoming (Score:4, Insightful)
Speeding is not always bad, what about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, everyone's seen school buses with their regulators, going 60mph on the highway. No one wants to be like them.
This will make things so much safer! (Score:4, Insightful)
If everyone was logical, rational, and never did anything stupid, this would be fine... but the stupidity of others is always going to put people in danger, and this will just make it worse.
Still pointing at the wrong problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
What do the Germans have that we don't? Are they smarter (don't answer that), are they better drivers, do they have better roads ? Well the answer is IMHO yes. They aren't smarter, but they are more responsible behind the wheel... they aren't better drivers, their driving license is MUCH harder to get; they have better roads, but they also have WELL MAINTAINED CARS.
So in essence, the Germans are happily driving at 250+ Km/h on their autobahns without having significantly more accidents than us, because they have much higher standards when it comes to issuing drivers' licenses, they have suited roads, and their cars go through a very strict mechanical check-up every year, to make sure they are road-legal.
So stop pointing fingers at just speed, and start admitting that the reason we crash as much as we do is because we have too many sh*tty cars with sh*tty drivers. Period.
Re:Still pointing at the wrong problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to get the facts straight: (Score:5, Informative)
1. The mandatory check-up (so-called "Hauptuntersuchung") is every _other_ year, and only after four years for a new car. Still, judging from what I see on `Pimp my ride', it is possible in the states to drive cars that would never be allowed on public streets in Germany.
2. Nobody is "happily driving at 250+ Km/h". Yes, I have been overtaken by the occasional Porsche doing 300 km/h (~190 mph) and Mercs at 220 km/h are not exactly a rare sight, but these people are notorious for closing up to an arm's reach of your bumper with headlights flashing; and they are generally considered arseholes with tiny wangs.
3. About 60% of the Autobahn network (that's an estimate, I couldn't be bothered to look it up) have speed limitation, typically 120 km/h. That doesn't stop people from speeding there, but they get caught sooner or later (the Autobahn police squad sports disguised, camera-fitted cars with appropriate engines)
4. From what I hear from friends with American licenses, you are right about driving licences.
5. Accidents don't happen on Autobahns. They happen on county roads with sharp curves, crossroads and narrow passages. Due to the Autobahn's construction (or any other Highway's, for that matter), head-on crashes are nearly impossible, and deadly crashes are much rarer than they are on county roads (believe me, I am an EMT...)
Re:Just to get the facts straight: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can just see the road tests ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I'll lose all respect for their product test cycle if it ever gets out of alpha testing.
We've had a Garmin 3600 GPS gadget for a couple of years. It's a nice tool, but you quickly learn that it has certain, uh, limits.
For example, I often take a local street to avoid a busy stretch of our local super-highway (Boston's Route 128). The two roads are only about 10-20m apart for part of the drive, and the GPS map often shows me jumping back and forth between them. The speed limit on one is about twice the limit on the other.
Similarly, if I'm on the main highway, my GPS position often shows as the nearby frontage road. So the proposed gadget would show me going 2-3 times the speed limit of the street that it thinks I'm on. I'm not sure that trying to slow me down to 25 mph on a busy super-highway is all that wonderful an idea. And this problem isn't limited to adjacent "frontage" roads; sometimes my GPS position puts me on a street a block away from my real position.
I've seen cases where my GPS position was more than a mile from my real position. This lasts a few minutes, and then suddenly corrects itself. I wonder if the US military is again playing games with the satellites. But I don't know.
This afternoon, I was driving south on a local street in a nearby town. I glanced at the GPS gadget, and suddenly it showed me headed north on the street at around 150 mph. A few seconds later, it showed me headed south at my actual position, but at over 200 mph. Then my speed dropped back to around 30. I wonder what the proposed gadget would do with my gas pedal and/or brake in this situation?
This gadget has the ability to record a trip, including times, positions and speed. I recently looked at this after a trip, and was a bit amused when it said that my top speed was 350 mph. I've been contemplating the prospect (proposed seriously by some people) that such devices be installed in cars for evidence to be used in court.
In real life, the guys doing the programming and testing have some very interesting problems on their hands.
Actually, I think these problems are interesting. I wonder how one might get a job working on such problems? It seems to me that they might be solvable. But it also seems to me that Garmin hasn't solved them yet. Stories from other GPS users are similar, so apparently nobody (or maybe no commercial developer) has solved them yet.
Of course, for uses like they intended, they don't really need to fix these petty inaccuracies. Users just get a chuckle now and then and quickly learn the gadget's foibles. But making the device responsible for part of the vehicle's operation or use of GPS data by the legal system are something rather different.
My prediction is that it will fail and quietly disappear during alpha testing. Of course, it's always possible that the bureaucracy will ignore this and decree use of the technology anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that stuff was debugged by the victims^Wcustomers.
lots of differences (Score:3, Insightful)
My Volkswagen Passat, a pretty mid-range German car I guess, is rock solid at least to 130 mph (209 km/h).
Then there's the story of a car exam in Germany, as encountered by a former coworker of mine. After noticing a bit of rust, two examiner
Red Barchetta (Score:3, Interesting)
Godwin's on the way... (Score:3, Insightful)
In e-discussions on environmental related topics, Godwin's law holds true for the words "middle ages" and "stone age".
Patent Prior Art Right Here!! (Score:3, Funny)
There are soo many of these cockamamie schemes coming out that depend on GPS - for examaple california was floating a mandatory GPS logger for highway use taxes - that there is certain to be a big market for GPS spoofers. The signals from the GPS satellites should be faint enough that overpowering them in a radius of say, 10 meters ought to be feasible with a handheld-sized device.
In this case, I see two popular uses.
1) Spoof your own GPS to "unlock" the accelerator. Make it think you are always in the booneys on a highway with an 80mph limit (or one with no limit in the system's database).
2) Spoof that idiot in front of you who is driving too slow or the jerk tailgating you. Put him in a school zone with limit of 10mph and watch him come to a near stand-still - slowpoke will eventually pull over to the shoulder and let you pass while the tailgater will quickly fall off your tailgate.
Fix underposted speed limits first (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want people to take speed limits seriously you need to make the limits appropriate and enforce them appropriately. A favorite trick in many states is to post a rediculously low (20 or 30mph under the prevailing traffic speed) work zone speed limit where no actual work is occuring. Then a police officer sits there and pulls over the people at the high end of the normal traffic speeds and tickets them. This behavior is unsafe, unfair, increases distrust of law enforcement and leads people to believe the whole traffic system is a scam.
A local expressway here is posted at 65. People typically drive between 65 and 80. Some drive faster. 80 is a completely safe speed on this road (in good conditions) and the off duty police drive much faster on their way home. A reasonable solution would be to set the limit at 80 or 85. Most people wouldn't drive that fast. I know most of the time I'd stick around 70 for fuel mileage but knowing it was legal to accelerate faster than that for passing or traffic maneuvers would increase safety.
This could be great...... (Score:4, Interesting)
Speed enforcement is a money game here in the US. No one really cares if the roads are safer, they just want ticket money. I even heard of a recent case where a districy raised the budget for ticket collection by $1,000,000 without even consulting the Police Department. They simply told them to go out and get more money.
Here's where it gets good..... If cars were elecronically limited to never speed, then speed enforcement would become a dead industry. Fewer and fewer cars would speed as old cars are replaced by new. Then the police would go do something productive (like watch for people running stop signs, or suddenly changing lanes in front of a car, or something else that actually kills people). One good thing already. Now, someone has to provide the data that the in-vehicle speed limiters use. Some day they're going to screw up and label a section of a 55mph road 15mph or something similar. In the first day, they will cause thousands of traffic accidents and probably a few deaths. Imaging if half the cars on the 405 in LA suddenly slowed to less than a quarter of the speed limit and THEY were panicking because they are as confused as they guy coming up behind them. After that day (and the lawsuits) no company will want to control the system. There goes the speed limiters and the police have already taken up more fruitful pursuits. Yea!!!
With a country that loves cars and lawsuits as much as we do, it couldn't happen any other way.
Re:This could be great...... (Score:3, Funny)
I believe those are called 'weekdays'
Yay! Finally!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the course of the session, each team had to submit a project outline. The only catch was that it had to be of interest to law enforcement. You can imagine the groans in the classroom when he said that...
Even though my team would have nothing of it, I proposed to the teacher a black-box that would automagically ticket bad driving.
When the teacher heard that, his face suddenly blank, and instead of his usually happy answers, he responded an extremely curt "no, anyway it's coming" that was so curt that it drew the air out of me.
I'm glad that it's finally there.
* * *
And now, time to repeat my usual hardass statement about driving:
Driving performed on **PUBLIC** roads being public, one shall not have any expectation of privacy whilst doing so.
Driving is a ***PRIVILEGE***, not a right, so your licenses can be pulled at will if you drive like stupid monkeys on drugs.
Re:Yay! Finally!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing is a privelege, you've been brainwashed by the Canadians too long. It's basically your inherent right to do whatever you damn well please, so long as it doesn't *directly* interfere with someone else doing whatever they damn well please. Anything else is an artificial control construct designed to keep powerful entities in power, directly or indirectly.
Government Employees... (Score:3, Insightful)
-Derek
but what IS "speeding"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Driving on the road involves an infinite amount of constant judgement and "the speed limit" is only but one..
Around here they fiddled with zone change no less than 3 times on the edge of country town in 18 months meaning that a stretch of 200 m changed it status UP *and* DOWN from 50->80->50 km/h and WHERE this changeover varied by that distance.
So without ANY change in road and traffic conditions (town hasn't changed in 16 years we've been here) you could be doing 80, which is fine here, but under change 1 you're suddenly deemed to be doing 30 km/h OVER.. so this is BAD right!!??
so if a cop pings you you're so much toast! Try arguing with roadside cop about that (happened to me!) let alone teh courts - who rely mightily on the comparison of is "speed A > limit B" ?
But THEN they change their mind and bit of road you got pinged for then changes BACK to being included in outside 80 zone by the signs being moved further BACK towards town..
So NEXT time you do 80 (your reasonable speed being a constant here under the conditions) then you're suddenly deemed to be OK!!!???!!
Yet the only thing that has changed is the damn numbering..
Now I would argue in genuine situations such as crowded areas, schools, shopping area etc OF COURSE you drive with total limit AND safety adherence..
It would be HORRIBLE to mixup GPS control with all this as the maps would be totally screwed up and the driver MUST take responsbility 100% of the time - no matter what this magic (money earning) (low) limit is...
Our govt here just issues licences and reaps big money in fines by engineering ridiculous limits and you rarely have a legal chance in hell of challenging it..
What about accuracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't work with most newer cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlike older cars which have an actuator to physically move the throttle cable when the cruise control is enabled, an actuator would have to be added to the accelerator pedal in order to provide any sort of force feedback to the driver indicating that he has exceeded the speed limit. The addition of an actuator to the accelerator pedal is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons:
Cost. ETC Acclerator pedals are fairly inexpensive to produce. Adding an actuator and control system will double or triple the cost of an accelerator pedal.
Space. The under-dash area of a vehicle is an extremely cramped space. This has pushed the size of accelerator pedals to the minimum practicle size. (Note: I'm talking about the size of the pedal housing which contains the pedal position sensors, return springs, hysteresis force mechanisms, etc, not the size of the pedal pad which your foot depresses) Adding an actuator will increase the size of the pedal so that it wouldn't fit in a modern vehicle.
Safety. The last thing you want to have happen is for any accelerator pedal (ETC or otherwise) to get stuck in any position other than idle. Adding a device to make it hard to push on the pedal seems like a real good way to accidently stick the pedal in an undesireable position (probably the position it was in when the vehicle was going to fast to begin with).
Stop your ranting!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
If the car begins to significantly exceed the speed limit for the road on which it's traveling the system responds by making it harder to depress the gas pedal
Point number one: it says "If the car begins to significantly exceed the speed limit", it does not say "if the car exceeds the speed limit by the teensiest amount". So it would only start functioning after you've passed 130 in a 100 zone (example numbers made up by me based on what is considered excessive speed under the law).
Point number two: it says "responds by making it harder to depress the gas pedal", it does not say prevents the car from increasing its speed. So you're doing 130 in a 100 zone you have to press the gas peddle harder to hit 140 than you would if the device wasn't there giving you terrific feedback that you're driving SIGNIFICANTLY above the speed limit.
Point number three: It says nothing about these devices being mandated (in most cases they would be easy to bypass), if you don't want one in your car don't install one.
Point number four: The number of accidents that could be avoided with excessive speed is vanishingly small. It's very rare that a person's best option to avoid an accident is to "gun it", which (see above) you can still do!
Point number five: For the miniscule number of accidents that speeding up will help you avoid -- the system is using GPS to calculate speed, it wouldn't be instantaneous, there would be a few second (at least) lag (latency for the geeks reading this) before the system kicks in. Plenty of time to avoid whatever accident you're almost part of.
And if it allowed speeding for short periods? (Score:3, Interesting)
Twister (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Full Monty (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Interesting)
It would, and my car (a 1989 Mercury Cougar) has the old-school (non-GPS) variant on that called a speed alarm. Basically, you set the alarm at your cruising speed and it tells you when you've gone 5 mph over the set speed with a little beep (it starts flashing as soon as you go over, if I remember correctly).
The problem with it is that it's not directly connected to the thought of speeding. There have been many-a-time that I've heard the beeping and thought "What the hell?", even though I personally set the speed I wanted to go not five minutes earlier.
If you're going to help people remember that pushing the gas pedal right now may not be the best of ideas, then the least distracting and most direct way to do it is to rig the gas pedal in this manner.
Besides, in order to get over the noise of the radio and cell phone, do you know how loud that sucker would have to be?
Although there's an idea... If you speed, you don't get any music or radio. Because, obviously, you need all your attention on the road right then.
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Informative)
What a bunch of fucking nonsense.
Look, traffic engineers know, and have known for a very long time, that the safest speed to set speed limits at is the 85% percentile speed: the speed which 85% of the free-flowing traffic on that particular road travels at or below. This is because the large majority of drivers are reasonable and prudent, and while they wish to reach their destination in a short amount of time, they also wish to remain alive and unwrecked.
If traffic engineers want this speed on a stretch of hypothetical road to drop, they do this by changing the road surface. Narrows, curves, crests, inclines, will all reduce the 85th percentile speed.
Setting a speed limit lower than the 85th percentile speed doesn't reduce the speed at which traffic flows. I'm going to repeat that again, because it sounds vaguely important:
Changing the speed limit doesn't change how fast people drive [state.tx.us]. The safe speed for a road is determined by the road design and the road conditions, and *not* by some arbitrary number on a sign.
The notion that traveling at the posted limit +5 is more dangerous than traveling at the posted limit, or than traveling at the posted limit -5, is reasonable only if the posted limit reflects the 85% percentile speed.
Sometimes it does. Some states even have it written into their laws that that's how speed limits are determined.
But more often it does not. More often, speed limits are set artificially low, in order to provide a source of revenue for the state. If you set a speed limit below the 85% percentile speed, people will generally ignore it, drive at the speed dictated by road conditions and their ability, and then you can ticket them for speeding.
Here are the actual conclusions of that study I linked to just above:
Re:Full Monty (Score:3, Interesting)
Three problems with this.
Firstly if a driver is unfamiliar with the road, and therefore unaware of the traffic calming measures coming up ahead and may speed on into a dangerous situation. You therefore create a hazard not just for that driver but everyone else around them.
Secondly those traffic calming measure
Re:Full Monty (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are not legitimate reasons to drive at excessive speeds. Accelerating out of a dangerous traffic situation: yes. Shaving fifty seconds off a ten minute drive to the emergency room at the risk of colliding with another car, rolling over in a ditch, or wrapping around a tree: absolutely fucking NOT. Look at how fast ambulances drive. They don't exceed the speed limit. Honestly, where do people get the idea that careening down city streets at 80mph is a smart way to transport people to the hospital?
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Informative)
This is absurd, as other factors can be at work:
political (the town I live in has 5mph lower speed limits on exactly the same roads and road conditions as the towns around it - and not coincidentally is the first town in the US to use photo-radar).
legal - in the US, every state (except perhaps one) has an absolute maximum for speed limits. Clearly some roads and vehicles are capable of being driven safely at much higher speeds on some road segments in those states. Not that long ago, the idiot Jimmy Carter forced a 55mph maximum speed limit throughout the US, that lasted until 1994. The interstate highway system was built for much higher speeds (I believe 75mph) and the Kansas Turnpike for 80mph, it's previous speed limit.
safety for non-familiar drivers - a road can have conditions which make the maximum safe speed lower than the apparent (to non-familiar drivers) safe speed. The authorities may choose to set the speed limit lower to compensate.
weather - the speed limit may be lowered to compensate for common but not continuous weather conditions such as high winds.
Traffic engineers used to set speed limits, in the absence of other factors, determining the 85th percentile speed of unconstrained drivers. In other words, presumably 85 percent of the drivers, based on their experience and perceptions, drove at or below the maximum safe speed. They would, of course, set them lower at hard to see hazards such as hidden curves.
If one is going to have such a system, soft but effective feedback seems much better than hard limits.
BTW... some cars have unadvertised built-in speed limits. My 2001 Toyota Sequoia appears to have a 100mph limit. One day on a storm chase, on a very good road with almost infinite visibility, we tried it, and at 100mph the engine refused to go faster, even though it clearly had the capacity. I suspect this may be because they didn't want to put bigger tables into the engine computer.
Re:Full Monty (Score:4, Insightful)
The bill mandating a 55mph speed limit had nothing to do with safety and everything to do with conserving fuel. There was this energy crisis around that time, you see.
Oh, and Richard Nixon signed the bill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon [wikipedia.org]
Re:Full Monty (Score:3, Insightful)
I never claimed it had anything to do with safety. I showed it as an example of a speed limit that was NOT related to safety! Good grief.
Oh, and as long as we are picking nits, I was wrong to say it was repealed in 1994. It was repealed, of course, by the Republican majority elected in 1994, who of course couldn't vote on anything until 1995 when they removed this onerous law. As a storm chaser, I was very pleased, as we need speed to get
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Informative)
Also, there are times (rare, yes) when speeding to the hospital is not the worst idea. The hospital where I live is slightly out of town, and to get there you have to go on a highway of sorts. The limit is 60km/h for part of it. Oh a straight road, no lights, no fast turns or merging traffic, if it was 4 in the morning and someone was dying in my backseat, going up to 100 would not be an issue.
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Informative)
The sick person being transported to the hospital is already sick, there is no exuse to jeopardize the public after the fact. The same holds true for responding to calls.
There have been quite a few case lately were EMTs or Paramedics have received jail time for their reckeless driving.
Re:Full Monty (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I know of emergency response within the state of Pennsylvania: Police, EMT, and firefighters get "carte blanche" access to the roads when their sirens/lights are on. Not only do they have unlimited speed limit & can run lights, but all traffic in front of them is legally required to yield as well. There is a tradeoff involved. If any of the above is involved in an accident while their sirens are on, t
Re:Full Monty (Score:5, Insightful)
To be a good driver, you need to know how your car reacts to your control inputs. You provide input X, it responds in manner Y.
Introducing a device which changes Y to, say, Y-5, will impair the ability of people to control their vehicle, because it will change the vehicle's response to their inputs to one they are unfamiliar with.
This is a really dumb idea.
Re:Wondering what to think (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of I40 through Arizona & New Mexico has a speed limit of 75mph, since there's not much there to get in the way. The only places things slow down are up and down through the mountain passes. In my loaded moving truck, I could maintain the 70mph speed up hill - while the 18 wheel trucks slowed to 50ish. Down hill on op
Re:Can we speed up the slowpokes? (Score:3, Insightful)