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The big problem in the US is the lack of automated speed enforcement. When you have officers doing traffic enforcement it inevitably turns into a corrupt shit s

The big problem in the US is the lack of automated speed enforcement. When you have officers doing traffic enforcement it inevitably turns into a corrupt shit show, and if you're black, you might not even live through it. Although its now 2020, where every 300 gram toy drone will automatically refuse to fly anywhere near an airport. It took 0 drones taking down 0 airplanes to do that. Modern cars can trivially enforce the speed limit, but we have ten thousands of deaths and counting every year and it's not happening.

donmcronald 6y ago
A 100% guarantee of getting caught would significantly reduce the number of people speeding. That eliminates something that functions like a regressive tax, so it's never going to happen.
nitrogen 6y ago
Modern cars can trivially enforce the speed limit Not sure about everywhere, but speed limits are first glance limits in at least some places, where other evidence can prove that a speed above the limit was not "speeding". Speed limits don't know what traffic is doing, they don't know road conditions, they don't know if you have an emergency. They're just a number set by ideally an engineer, or less ideally a party with conflicting interests (revenue). I had to drive someone to an emergency room once. There wasn't time or money for an ambulance. If my car was automatically enforcing speed limits, they might have died. Moreover there are far, far, far fewer no-fly zones than speed limit zones. A no-fly zone is a fairly simple polygon -- are you inside or outside. Every street has its own speed limit, which can vary from 5mph to 80mph in the US, and traffic on some freeways is consistently higher than 80. Some highways have dynamic speed limits, e.g. 65 at night and 55 during rush hour. School zones and pedestrian crossings have limits based on whether someone has switched on a light, or times of day, or even just the presence of children. So no, you cannot have, and do not want, automated in-vehicle enforcement of speed limits.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  No, the fact that US people can't call an ambulance for risk of bankruptcy is not a good reason to allow cars to accelerate to 120 mph in cities. That's the point here: you can add cities as simple convex polys and you are already 80% of the way there. Drones don't need to listen to air traffic either.
  - rurp 6y ago
    The ambulance emergency is just one example, there are many more that you aren't considering. As one more example there are many passing situations, such as pretty much any two lane highway, where it's perfectly acceptable to break the speed limit for a brief period. I can think of other exceptions too and this is just after thinking about it for a minute, there are probably thousands of real world situations neither of us could think of ahead of time. Plus, this is all assuming such a system could be implementing flawlessly. In practice, such a complicated and messy system would have a million bugs. Who keeps the speed limit database of every single road in country up to date? How are all of the precise boundaries of every single speed limit zone going to be defined and recognized by every vehicle?
    - stefan_ 6y ago
      No, of course you can not break the speed limit to pass, why would you think that? If you need to speed to pass, why would you pass in the first place? The reality of it is, as someone who has driven thousands of kilometres on unrestricted autobahns, speed is just a trick your ape brain is playing on you. It feels fast, but going 30 mph faster than everyone else just drains your tank excessively while the GPS is not fooled and ticks down the arrival time only by a few minutes by the end of it.
    - chki 6y ago
      > As one more example there are many passing situations, such as pretty much any two lane highway, where it's perfectly acceptable to break the speed limit for a brief period. That's not true legally speaking and I'm pretty sure it's not true from a driving standpoint. Why would it be acceptable to break the speed limit to overtake somebody? If you need to speed to be faster than somebody you shouldn't be passing them. If they speed up during the passing manoeuver you should probably slow down and fall back.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Wouldn't the emergency issue be solved by having a "emergency mode" where after that was activated you'd have to justify it within say 24h or so? Also the "no simple polygon" is more an issue of time, right? If I enter a 40mph zone and do 60+mph for a sustained 1min perhaps it should lower my max speed by 4mph per min or similar. I don't think these are simple problems, but I also think they are far from impossible and if it both makes traffic safer and removes a human corruption element it might be worth it.
holbrad 6y ago
Perhaps it's just my friend groups and family but most people I know would be vehemently against this. (UK) Most people speed (including myself), it's just not a big deal. I mean sure people die, it happens, but that's almost exclusively from distraction. The police waste far too much time on the issue, but it makes money so they do it. Fully automated enforcement around schools ? Sure. On a 4-lane motorway ? No (Germany has it right)
deleted 6y ago
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donmcronald 6y ago

A 100% guarantee of getting caught would significantly reduce the number of people speeding. That eliminates something that functions like a regressive tax, so it's never going to happen.

nitrogen 6y ago

Modern cars can trivially enforce the speed limit Not sure about everywhere, but speed limits are first glance limits in at least some places, where other evidence can prove that a speed above the limit was not "speeding". Speed limits don't know what traffic is doing, they don't know road conditions, they don't know if you have an emergency. They're just a number set by ideally an engineer, or less ideally a party with conflicting interests (revenue). I had to drive someone to an emergency room once. There wasn't time or money for an ambulance. If my car was automatically enforcing speed limits, they might have died. Moreover there are far, far, far fewer no-fly zones than speed limit zones. A no-fly zone is a fairly simple polygon -- are you inside or outside. Every street has its own speed limit, which can vary from 5mph to 80mph in the US, and traffic on some freeways is consistently higher than 80. Some highways have dynamic speed limits, e.g. 65 at night and 55 during rush hour. School zones and pedestrian crossings have limits based on whether someone has switched on a light, or times of day, or even just the presence of children. So no, you cannot have, and do not want, automated in-vehicle enforcement of speed limits.

stefan_ 6y ago
No, the fact that US people can't call an ambulance for risk of bankruptcy is not a good reason to allow cars to accelerate to 120 mph in cities. That's the point here: you can add cities as simple convex polys and you are already 80% of the way there. Drones don't need to listen to air traffic either.
- rurp 6y ago
  The ambulance emergency is just one example, there are many more that you aren't considering. As one more example there are many passing situations, such as pretty much any two lane highway, where it's perfectly acceptable to break the speed limit for a brief period. I can think of other exceptions too and this is just after thinking about it for a minute, there are probably thousands of real world situations neither of us could think of ahead of time. Plus, this is all assuming such a system could be implementing flawlessly. In practice, such a complicated and messy system would have a million bugs. Who keeps the speed limit database of every single road in country up to date? How are all of the precise boundaries of every single speed limit zone going to be defined and recognized by every vehicle?
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    No, of course you can not break the speed limit to pass, why would you think that? If you need to speed to pass, why would you pass in the first place? The reality of it is, as someone who has driven thousands of kilometres on unrestricted autobahns, speed is just a trick your ape brain is playing on you. It feels fast, but going 30 mph faster than everyone else just drains your tank excessively while the GPS is not fooled and ticks down the arrival time only by a few minutes by the end of it.
  - chki 6y ago
    > As one more example there are many passing situations, such as pretty much any two lane highway, where it's perfectly acceptable to break the speed limit for a brief period. That's not true legally speaking and I'm pretty sure it's not true from a driving standpoint. Why would it be acceptable to break the speed limit to overtake somebody? If you need to speed to be faster than somebody you shouldn't be passing them. If they speed up during the passing manoeuver you should probably slow down and fall back.
SahAssar 6y ago
Wouldn't the emergency issue be solved by having a "emergency mode" where after that was activated you'd have to justify it within say 24h or so? Also the "no simple polygon" is more an issue of time, right? If I enter a 40mph zone and do 60+mph for a sustained 1min perhaps it should lower my max speed by 4mph per min or similar. I don't think these are simple problems, but I also think they are far from impossible and if it both makes traffic safer and removes a human corruption element it might be worth it.

holbrad 6y ago

Perhaps it's just my friend groups and family but most people I know would be vehemently against this. (UK) Most people speed (including myself), it's just not a big deal. I mean sure people die, it happens, but that's almost exclusively from distraction. The police waste far too much time on the issue, but it makes money so they do it. Fully automated enforcement around schools ? Sure. On a 4-lane motorway ? No (Germany has it right)

deleted 6y ago

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