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How about "thou shalt drive safely".

This stuff gets ever more stupid

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Speed camera policy Kills

I'm actually 100% in favour of these devices. The number one obstacle to me, personally, sticking to the speed limit, is other drivers not sticking to it and getting right up behind me, trying to overtake at inappropriate times, forcing me to take evasive action to avoid a collision. I shouldn't have to have so much attention focused on my rear view mirrors so that I can take evasive action when necessary. If everyone were forced to drive at the speed limit, this problem simply wouldn't arise.

The devices could well also actually help improve travelling speeds. Take my road, for example. It used to be a 30mph limit on which everyone did 45-50mph. We know this because they did a speed survey. So what do they do in response to this? You'd think they would want to do something to keep speeds down to 30mph, but no, they install humps that are painful even at 15mph. If we had mandatory speed limiters, we could have avoided the humps and everyone could be driving along the road at 30mph.

And if everyone has these devices fitted, there will be no revenue incentive to reduce speed limits, which some people have suggested happens at the moment. If nobody is able to speed, no speeders will be caught, and the camera partnerships will be abolished. Presumably, speed limits can then be set on sensible grounds, safe in the knowledge that they will be adhered to, no more setting a limit lower because you know everyone will drive x mph above it.

So as far as I'm concerned, these devices would be very helpful in allowing people to get back to focusing on driving safely. No more concentrating on the tailgater trying to dive past you, no more wondering what the speed limit is, no more looking out for cameras, you can just focus on the road, pedestrians etc, exactly what you should be focusing on.

No, no, no, no and no again.
This harebrained scheme must never be allowed to see the light of day - ever.
How do you think it's going to eliminate tailgating, when every day you see speed-limited lorries driving bumper to bumper on the motorways?
With speed limiters you'll have three lanes of bunched-up traffic, all doing 70mph, noone able to go any faster and noone willing to give an inch.
Where's the safety in this?
And I won't even mention overtaking.

The current focus on speed has addled peoples brains.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

just put your foot flat to the floor and go to sleep. No need to worry, it must be safe cause the guv'ment wouldn't let us do anything dangerous. Yeah, great
idea. Just look at the disaster with speed limited trucks and their 5 mile overtakes and imagine what it would be like with a motorway full of cars with speed differences of only a few mph.
Actually, you can see this now. Just watch what happens next time Trafpol goes for his 65mph drive.

edited to add: I think I need to type faster. SNAP!

I sincerely hope they can do much better than that now, technologically. With GPS used to determine the speed, there should be no calibration variation between vehicles. We could perhaps also have some sort of device to force cars to keep a safe separation.


Not the same - the cars are catching up because they're going faster than the trafpol before catching up. This is in fact precisely what the limiters would eliminate.

The danger with these gadgets .. they remove the ability to think for oneself and thus if the gadget failed ...lost skill causes accident. Much better to train resposnibility and accountablity - and ensure we can recognise and cope with danger. That instinct "red alert" gene is in danger of receding - hence the silly accidnets which are now appearing in A&E - and some nor not motor vehicle related - but all apparently are STUPIDITY related and also related to the loss of the danger "instinct" red alert signal - result of over-relaince on gadgets and gimmicks.

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Nobody has explained how these can actually work.

GPS does not work in tunnels or under trees. It can not tell the difference between a load of trees and a piece of tin foil.
It can not stop you from being able to start your car or drive off because it could be in your garage.

GPS is owned by america and can be turned off by them whenever they feel like having another war or whatever.

And it has an override switch... So keep it pressed.

And I don't want my girlfriends knowing where I've been

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Andrew.

I assume the tin foil comment is suggesting people will use that to disable their system? Why would you want to disable it? All that will do is force you to start worrying about your speed again, surely it's more helpful to have the car automatically stick to the speed limit, one less thing to distract you from driving?

If I were in charge of legislation, and these things became mandatory to have fitted, I'd be setting very severe penalties for people who override them other than when it is essential to do so to avoid an immediate accident, and deliberate sabotage ought to be punished very severely, it's not like there's any excuse for it or you can accidentally stick some tin foil in the appropriate place.

There were people who didn't like being forced to wear seat belts, or being told they can't drink and drive, but by and large people seem to have accepted those impositions. In the case of drink driving, for example, there is a simple "override switch" because you can still choose to drink and drive, but the penalties are severe. I would expect the penalty for choosing to override or disable the limiter and then speeding to be as great as for drink driving.

There would be many different motivations for disabling it, but perhaps they are less vaild than the reasons for not wanting it in the first place.


But we WANT drivers to worry about their speed. Or to be more accurate we want drivers to be constantly considering their speed and it's suitability to the conditions. I'd say it's an essential driving skill and anything that removes or erodes it is to be avoided. The last thing we need is something that is going to take responsibility for setting a safe speed away from the driver because, people being people, many will immediately rely on it to keep them safe. Which of course it cannot do because the system works within the framework of legal limits rather than safety limits - it can only keep them legal, it cannot keep them safe. IMO safe trumps legal every day of the week and twice on Sundays.


Apples and oranges. There's a clear safety benefit in those cases. It's far from clear that the roads would be any safer if everybody, or even a significant number, drove about like stunned mullets, no longer giving any consideration to their speed having handed that responsiblity over to the limiter.

The counter argument is that drivers will still retain the ability to set speed within the limit and should continue to do so, but TBH I feel it's naive to imagine that enough people will do that to ensure a majority are setting a safe speed. I believe there's also a need to examine very carefully the effects of forcing drivers to drive at a speed much below that which they'd choose on their own. The important question is whether even a normally sharp driver will have his/her concentration levels eroded by the lack of stimulus. I think there's a good chance it will, and is another reason to fight the introduction of limiters tooth and nail. Why do I believe this? Because we already know it happens - white line fever! I've occasionally felt the effects myself when on long motorway journeys, but I can deal with it simply by taking a break at the next services or, more often, by leaving the motorway and putting some A-road mileage in. But if the lack of stimulus were to be caused by an inablity to drive at a speed we would otherwise choose then a white line fever effect could be felt everywhere. I find that a very scary thought.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

that's nice, but as roughly 97% of accidents occur below the speed limit shouldn't you be more worried about those? Or do you not care how many people die, as long as nobody is exceeding some artificial limit?


exactly why ABS equipped cars are involved in more rear-end shunts.

"stunned mullets"

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Fortunately it won't be possible to retro-fit this kit, especially to true classics like my 1964 Cooper 'S', so I'll just stick to driving older cars (with free road tax).

I wouldn't bet on it.

All you need is a GPS module and an black box in your ignition circuit. Go over the speed limit and it will retard your ignition to cut power.

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Speed camera policy Kills

on a carbie-fed car? Is this possible?

Yep. retard the ignition and you kill power. The trick has been used on some jap spec bikes that are have top-speed limiters fitted for their domestic market.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Maybe - they have electronic ignition systems.. But I'd like to see one working on a mechanically-retarded (bob-weight) distributor!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Yes, yes, yes, I totally agree. I believe that limiters will assist in this, as you can simply choose the appropriate speed, whilst not having to worry about exceeding the legal limit. At the moment, you can't simply drive at what seems like an appropriate speed, because you have two additional tasks to divert you from this:
1. You have to know what the speed limit is, which isn't always easy.
2. You have to know what speed you're driving at, which is a small distraction.

Speed limiters will simply remove these two distractions, as well as a host of other problems, such as the problem that people currently have whereby if they drive along at the speed limit, more and more cars will catch them up and they'll have impatient tailgaters behind them. If everyone had speed limiters, these people wouldn't catch them up in the first place, hence they couldn't tailgate them.

A far better way of removing those distractions would be to remove speed cameras.



er, even with a speed differential of less than 1mph it only takes a few minutes to reduce a 2-second gap to nothing.
You would have bunched-up traffic, interspersed with long stretches of virtually no traffic. You would have almost suicidal moves as people desperately attempt to make some space to change lanes so they can exit. You would have plenty of incidents when people can't move over to allow someone to enter the motorway because there's traffic next to them. You would have plenty more accidents caused by sideswiping, as vehicles would spend very long periods alongside other vehicles.

The only way to overcome some of these problems is to have everyone entering the motorway at a fixed rate, and at only one point.


Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Dead easy, you cut the wire from the distrubutor to the coil. You then splice in the controler that introduces a delay the trigger signal.

We used to use on on a turbocharged race car to give boost retard.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Far from assisting in this I believe limiters will make it many times worse. I've already pointed out that just because drivers can continue to choose the appropriate speed it noes not follow that they will. I'm quite sure that given the option of allowing the car to take care of their speed there'll be plenty of drivers more than happy to take it up. Result - loads of cars being driven with right feet planted on throttle pedals... hardly what I'd call choosing the correct speed. More like allowing the electronics to determine speed without any driver consideratoin at all as to its suitability.


You don't need to know either to drive safely. I could take you somewhere you've never been before, rip down all the speed limit signs and disable the speedo in your car. Even though you wouldn't know your speed or the limits I bet you wouldn't crash.

Thing is, all you really need to know to decide if your speed is appropriate is whether it's too slow, too fast or just right. Unfortunately neither your speedo, the limit, a satellite or any box of electronics can tell you what those three speeds actually are. But drivers learn to distinguish them instinctively. For example, I would consider my speed too fast if I'm scared and too slow if I'm bored.


I'm not really too fussed about that as I don't think they're a distraction. What I'm worried about is that limiters are also likely to remove things that are essential to the task of safe driving, things like concentration and attention and responsibility. They might also add undesirable elements like frustration and laziness. Frustration can lead to bad decisions so IMO it's always undesirable on the road, and the fact that the limiters may mitigate the outcome by possibly making the speed lower is pretty cold comfort. Personally I find laziness even more scary because I believe it's highly likely - almost inevitable in fact. It's part of human nature that people usually choose the path of least resistance, and in driving terms I fear this will mean that feet will be flat on the floor and the electronics will be relied upon to deal with speed. Mentally, drivers will start becoming more like passengers. How much attention do passengers need to pay to the road?


Sorry, but this will not make tailgating a thing of the past. At best it will prevent nutters from roaring up behind other drivers and slamming the anchors on, but those drivers who don't end up driving right-foot-planted style will probably end up being tailgated more often by those who do.


As an analogy, think of the task of safe driving as cooking a meal from scratch. You have to go to the shops, select the ingredients you want, get 'em home, chop the veggies, stick the meat in the oven, get the temperature right so it doesn't burn or poison anyone, do the same for the veggies so they don't get boiled soggy, taste and season it where necessary, and make sure you put the various foods on at different times so that they're all ready simultaneously, before finally plating it up and serving it without tripping over the cat and falling on your arse on the way to the table. By comparison the concentration required to make a slice of toast and drop microwaved beans on it is far less, and that's similar to what the limiter will do. If driving a car demands less attention then less attention is what you're going to end up with.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein