Just glossing over implementation. So every car will have to have wireless communications of some sort? Will there be some government system that all California cars will have to be integrated with that tracks where they are at all times so the car can know the correct speed limit? A tracking system that surely would never be abused or turned into a surveillance device.
“I don’t think it’s at all an overreach, and I don’t think most people would view it as an overreach, we have speed limits, I think most people support speed limits because people know that speed kills,” Wiener said.
Not unless they think about it for five seconds.
Be careful, or politicians are gonna draft a bill preventing your from applying too much braking force too quickly. Thats about in line with the logic on this bill.
Belter slingshot racers know this all too well. NOTE: Spoiler for an episode in the Expanse which everyone should watch if they haven’t already.
One of our cars uses GPS and a lookup to show the current speed limit on the dash. It’s often wrong. This will not go well.
You realize your car already knows what speed it’s driving without GPS, right?
Sure, the car knows its forward speed from its speedometer.
It doesn’t know the speed limit of the road it’s currently riding on, that’s not as easy to directly measure. Currently the most straightforward way to do this is have it look up its location using GPS, use that data to look up what road the car is driving on, and then look up the speed limit for that section of road. This is far from error prone; GPS isn’t perfect and could, for example, confuse your current position for another road nearby; it might think you’re on a slip road next to the interstate you’re driving on, or think you’re on rather than under an overpass, that sort of thing. The database might be out of date or in error, the data connection to that database might be unreliable…
The California legislative process: First, say something totally reasonable. “People should be able to tell if the products they buy contain poisonous or carcinogenic chemicals, let’s require consumer goods that contain hazardous chemicals to bear a label describing them as such.” Next, do absolutely no research, consult no technicians or engineers, only lawyers and yoga instructors get a say. Once you’ve got all the spelling errors ironed out, have it carved into adamantium so that it’s more permanent than god. Finally, strictly enforce the letter of the law in any way it could be interpreted. Which is why literally every single product that might get sold in California up to and including bottles of mineral water all say THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS CHEMICALS KNOWN IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER on the label, and since literally every manufactured good is labeled as hazardous, consumers have exactly no more information than they used to.
One way I could think to implement it without any tracking or data connection connection with no data being transmitted from the vehicle would be by placing infrared strobe lights periodically along the road, possibly at the same places we already have speed limit signs. The flashing is invisible to the human eye but could be picked up by cameras on the vehicle, vary the speed or pattern of the strobe to indicate a different speed limit.
Something pretty similar is already used by a lot of emergency vehicles to trigger green lights, just the arrangement is reversed with a strobe on the vehicle and a sensor on the traffic signal.
Of course such a system would potentially be vulnerable to things like power outages (strobe can’t strobe if it doesn’t have power) bad weather (heavy fog, or if the camera and/orr strobe are covered in snow,) and someone could potentially circumvent it by just mounting a strobe light on their car pointed at the camera.
You could probably address the snow/fog issue by locking the car to a lower speed if no strobe is detected, maybe 25 or 35mph, because in those conditions people should generally be driving slower anyway, and then you don’t have the expense of needing to put strobes around lower speed areas. And the power issue could be addressed with the kind of solar panels and/or backup batteries that already power some streetlights and such.
And for those who tamper with the system to circumvent it, we’re never going to stop speeders entirely, but we can increase the fines to make up for lost revenue to keep police departments happy, they make less traffic stops and rake in the same amount of money.
The infrastructure limitation could be resolved by using infrared reflectors along the road instead of lights. Have the car shine infrared light at the reflectors so it’s cameras can read the code on them (like an infrared QR code, maybe?)
If we’re going to use technically limitations on the vehicle side, we can simply continue to use optical recognition of speed signs instead of changing putting an IR transmitter on every speed sign. It’s gotten really good in recent years.
I haven’t read the article, so just spitballing here: I have to assume the approach here is to electronically govern the engine to go no faster than the highest speed limit. I don’t know what the limits are in California, but where I live that’d mean the car would be limited to 80mph. If it was electronic, it could be adjusted if then limits were changed.
Otherwise, it’d be insane, and require the crazy infrastructure you describe. And they simply don’t have the money or the wherewithal to build an actual coverage that would allow the limiter to dynamically scale all the time.
Alternatively, I suppose you could imagine a hybrid system—ie an overall limited engine to the max limit, and then some sort of transponder that would throttle the limit down if you were near an important speed limit zone, like a school, which they could manage to deploy a transmitter at… still seems technologically challenging for the state to really pull off consistently though.
Either way, yeah not a fan or including more required tracking tech in vehicles. I don’t think I’d really hate a reasonably limited car—I really can’t justify needing to drive over 80 ever really, even in an emergency, but it would drive me insane to have the car just magically throttling down whenever it thought it was time to. See
Every car I’ve hired in the last ten years has the current speed limit displayed on the dashboard. It does not require the car to communicate any information, only to receive it.
That is a different question from how car manufacturers could abuse the requirement to get more data to sell, of course. But there’s nothing in this bill that would require the car to collect any data that isn’t already publicly displayed by the roadside.
There is already a good amount of wireless in most cars. We’ve had standards since the Bush administration for cars to wirelessly communicate with each other.
I personally can’t wait to start hacking cars going by on the freeway to make their top speed a negative value.
That’s going to be so much fun.
Similar things have already been done.
https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/
So Uber already does this. Yes, you need to have GPS enabled, but Uber can tell when you’re speeding. Same with insurance companies and their apps. The technology to determine what street you’re on, what the limit is, and how fast you’re going already exists.
Mechanical governors for ICE vehicles have been around for over 120 years. It wouldn’t be hard to make an electronic version for e-vehicles.
Those are fixed speed governors for fleet fuel economy and/or manufacturer choice to prevent operators from turning their engine block into something externally ventilated. Not variable governors that require knowledge of where the car is to adapt to the local speed limit, a significantly more complex challenge, and one with a solution that is inherently insecure, privacy-violating, and almost guaranteed to instantly be abused.
Do you think GPS units are broadcasting their location to know where they are? They just download maps and use the signal to localize themselves. Too many people acting like they know how tech works without understanding the basics of the largely non-networked world that existed before smartphones and spyware apps absorbed every feature.
Yes, but speed limits change. There’s no way of reliably knowing what the current speed limit is without wireless communication.
As someone with an Audi that will adjust your cruise control automatically based on speed limit (or rather what it thinks the speed limit is) I couldn’t be more against this. I had to disable the feature after multiple times where it thought I was on some 15mph ramp rather than the freeway and slammed on the brakes in the middle of traffic going 70mph.
I am not a “muh freedom” guy, I don’t drive more than 10 over anyway. But this is just logistically a bad way to stop speeding.
Where does my car get the current speed limit information? How and when does it update as speed limits change? Will school systems around the country have to submit a list of which days are “school days” for school zone speed limits?
What if the GPS registers you on the 30mph road below or next to the 70mph highway, long term or even for a momentary glitch? Who is at fault if that causes you to be in an accident?
Will school systems around the country have to submit a list of which days are “school days” for school zone speed limits?
Story time!
There is an elementary school a few towns over from me which happens to straddle the only viable throughfare in that area. Note that this is out in the country, so it’s not like it’s on Main Street or anything. There is no other road. Well, it’s got one of those blinker signs that says “15 MPH speed limit when flashing.” It’s meant to be used during pick-up and drop-off times, for obvious reasons.
A few years ago some cantankerous asshole at the school with no real authority decided that people were “zOoMiNg ToO FaSt!!!” on “their” road and during summer vacation flipped the sign on and left it blinking all day and night. Then a bunch of “anonymous” calls starting coming in to the local PD about people exceeding the 15 MPH speed limit. They had to get somebody with keys to come out and turn the fucking sign off. And the next morning, lo and behold the sign was once again mysteriously turned on. This process repeated for several weeks until the culprit was finally caught, who unsurprisingly was some low-grade administrator for the local school district. Insofar as I am aware no actual punishment was meted out.
Tl;dr: If you give petty egos even a tiny amount of perceived control over people’s lives they absolutely will abuse it to the fullest extent they are physically or technically able to, without fail. It’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when.
What about in an emergency? What is someone needs to go over that limit for evasive maneuvers or something?
I get it, people speed, but put the cameras up and just fine them. That’s all.
What about in an emergency? What is someone needs to go over that limit for evasive maneuvers or something?
(Technologically speaking) Do it. Since we’re talking communication and electronics, you’ll be automatically reported. Present your excuse and let’s see what happens.
(I’m not saying that I’m in favour of this.)
Oh, and I’ve driven a car with speed limiter. It’s like cruise control, but it doesn’t let you go above the speed you choose. It was an amazing experience, I loved it. You press the accelerator, you get to that speed and it stays there. You feel a resistance on the pedal. If you want, simply force the pedal a bit more. It will turn the controller off and let you drive faster.
It says it allows the driver to temporarily override the speed restriction.
I saw a video yesterday of cars fleeing the 2011 tsunami in Japan, I’m willing to bet those people exceeded 10mph over the posted speed limit trying to get away from the water.
Limiting the speed of the vehicles isn’t going to improve driving skills or eliminate distractions. It isn’t going to make people drive safer, just slower.
I’m sure any situation where people need to go 10+ miles over the speed limit is going to be exceedingly rare and limited to things like fleeing forest fires or tsunamis, but limiting the speed isn’t going to have a huge impact on accidents.
It could decrease fuel consumption and emissions though 🤷♂️.
But it still seems like a problem that could be solved with better enforcement.
There are reasons other than natural disasters that happen all the time. Health emergencies are a fine example of this. Yes, ideally you’d wait for an ambulance but oft times that’s just not viable.
I’ll risk bleeding out in the highway trying to get to the hospital on my own than pay $15k for a five minute ride in the wee woo wagon
Here is something weird in my town. It’s about why I won’t call an ambulance again.
It’s about $800 in my town for a 5 minute slow ride. I’ve only taken it because I don’t want to pass out driving and endanger others. I’ve called an ambulance 2 times in 10 years. I didn’t know what was going on & if it’s serious then I gotta figure out how to get my car back home after I’m released also.
So anyway, twice now, one of the EMT guys was an absolute aggressive asshole. He kept accusing me of lying or making shit up or being high on cocaine the whole ride in. Imagine being constantly verbally berated the entire time you’re in a semi-panic state from out of the blue chest or abdominal pains.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy. The only thing I can think of to explain his behavior is that he’s a concealed carry guy & he wants an excuse to shoot someone & so he’s antagonistic as fuck hoping that he can goad the patient into getting physical with him. Then he gets to pull out his gun and shoot you.
So any way. Fuck engandering other people here. I’m driving myself in next time. Actually, it’s only a 20 minute walk so I’ll be doing that instead if I’m up to it.
As a somewhat recent arrival to NZ, I found it interesting — starting with our rental car — that the speed limit is displayed on your dashboard. It changes colour as soon as you go 1 km over the limit.
All very cool. The most notable issue with this is there are sections of roads where this doesn’t work at all.
That said, there is a LOT of traffic calming here.
There’s still the occasional assclown that goes way over the limit. Unsurprisingly, that usually happens on long, straight roads without traffic calming.
I actually quite dislike cars but this is fucking insane
