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Possibly unpopular idea here, but I want cars to enforce a speed cap inside cities. They have all the relevant speed limit and GPS data. And hopefully this woul

Possibly unpopular idea here, but I want cars to enforce a speed cap inside cities. They have all the relevant speed limit and GPS data. And hopefully this would stop those cars from going 45mph on my 20mph street. ebikes already have this, why not cars?

whalesalad 3y ago
Freedom is the reason.
- northisup 3y ago
  i'd like to be free from being hit by cars. its not freedom if its killing other people
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    they are not mutually exclusive
  - PKop 3y ago
    Why not pass a law to cut off the hands of speed violators? Would that not solve the problem? Why invade the cars of every single person. Absurdly heavy-handed, and not necessary nor likely as effective at stopping people speeding on your street. Narrow, targeted enforcement against violators of existing laws would suffice. Keep incrementally increasing the penalty until it works.
    - qbrass 3y ago
      >Would that not solve the problem? If it didn't work the first time, it's not going to work the second time.
      - PKop 3y ago
        Of course it would work. Harsh punishment in Singapore works fine. When has that been tried? We don't even do this to stop retail theft let alone residential speeding. What on Earth are you referring to re:the first time?
  - nikanj 3y ago
    That doesn't sound very american of you. A real patriot would solve the issue by buying a bigger car, so if you're hit, it's the other guy who gets hurt
JohnFen 3y ago
I wouldn't object to this as long as implementing it doesn't require the car to talk to any servers. Edit: I'm curious (not complaining) as to why this comment is being downvoted. Is it because people disagree with me about not objecting to the idea of speed-limiting in cities, or because people disagree with me about not wanting to talk to servers?
reaperman 3y ago
Sometimes it is legal to speed for emergency purposes. For example if you are escaping an attacker or taking a dying person to an emergency room.
- acdha 3y ago
  Unless you’re a character in an action movie, no. Your dying patient is going to be worse off when you get t-boned driving that aggressively or simply shaking them around. The primary limiting factor in a city are other vehicles, not speed, and not having a siren matters more there.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    It is legal to do it though.
    - acdha 3y ago
      No, it’s not legal: https://www.progressive.com/lifelanes/on-the-road/speeding-in-an-emergency/ https://www.progressive.com/lifelanes/on-the-road/speeding-i... What you’re hoping is that a police officer would agree with your decision and choose not to write you a ticket. That might work, but if you try this you are gambling on that and almost certainly not saving any meaningful amount of time.
      - drdaeman 3y ago
        Not debating the legality (it surely isn't), but I suspect in some cases a speeding ticket may end up costing less (even including the increased insurance premiums) than the ambulance fees.
        acdha 3y ago
        Likely but I was simply responding to the false assertion that it was legal. It’s a common lie people use to present the most positive spin for their unwillingness to drive safely in conditions which are exceedingly unlikely to be more serious than “didn’t feel like waking up prudently early”.
saalweachter 3y ago
You could do all sorts of technological enforcement of traffic laws. You could have cars not permit going above the speed limit on highways for more than X minutes [to facilitate overtaking]. You could dynamically lower the speed limit during inclement weather. You could lower the speed limit when approaching an emergency vehicle by the side of the road. I'm not sure we have accurate enough position info to somehow force people out of the passing lane after a certain amount of time. Hell, you don't even have to make it outright impossible to drive a car fast -- add a manual override switch, that removes the governor while logging your location and speed with the appropriate authorities. Audit after the fact to distinguish between "automatic speed limits were incorrect", "someone in the car was bleeding out on the way to the hospital" and "I wanted to go real fast".
jollyllama 3y ago
And this is why many of us will never, ever switch to electric/drive by wire cars.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  Like it's impossible to programmatically disable ICE cars? You've got a false sense of security. You'll have to buy used cars forever to be safe from such a law.
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    I certainly mourn the impending laws preventing end-users from modifying their cars in ways that undermine the nanny-locks.
- tensor 3y ago
  You do realize electric and drive by wire is completely orthogonal to the point here right? There are plenty of electric conversion kits for older vehicles that are "dumb", no internet connection and only enough intelligence to manage the battery and motor.
ggreer 3y ago
E-bikes have a speed cap so they don’t get classified as motorcycles, which would require insurance, registration, and extra licensing to use on public roads. The problem with dynamic speed caps is that they fail in very dangerous ways. If you’re on a freeway but your GPS thinks you’re on a residential street, you’re suddenly going much slower than surrounding traffic. A simpler solution would be to actually enforce traffic laws. It’s only a tiny fraction of drivers who endanger the public. The sooner we identify them and get them off the road, the safer we’ll be.
- acdha 3y ago
  > A simpler solution would be to actually enforce traffic laws. It’s only a tiny fraction of drivers who endanger the public. I don’t know where you live but in every city I’ve visited that fraction is close to half, and for certain behaviors like not stopping for a stop sign or turn on red it’s like 95%. With regards to speed, I think a lot of this could be addressed by having the vehicle do something like turn off the sound system and play a warning that you’re exceeding the limit when you do more than a certain percentage over for more than a short time. That’d take the fun out of it and interfere with someone’s Zoom call while still allowing them to ignore it if there’s some GPS bounce or something while leaving the freeway.
- forgotusername6 3y ago
  There are insurance providers in the UK that fit black boxes that work using GPS to check you are following the speed limit. They offer you a lower rate if you obey the law. There are numerous cases of this technology not working and people's policies being cancelled as a result. You couldn't ever attach a limiter to such a system, it would be far too dangerous.
  - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
    This exists in the US as well. In a situation where you need to make emergency maneuvers where you’re likely accelerating or decelerating quickly? Opps, your premium just went up.
PKop 3y ago
Enforcement of the law with harsher penalties and a few speed-bumps would stop this. Seems more reasonable than some expensive, dystopian back-door in every car.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  harsher penalties dont really matter. It all comes down to actual enforcement and general belief in the law. If nobody thinks they will get caught, penalties dont matter. If the majority decides not to follow the rules, the police cant enforce them meaningfully, there simply not enough police to enforce all the rules against all the people, all the time
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    [dead]
- tensor 3y ago
  Harsher penalties are vastly inferior in all cases to simply making a crime impossible or inconvenient or not have much payoff.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    It'd be cooler if this wasn't another Third Party Doctrine abuse violating the spirit of the 4th Amendment with telemetry shared around to insurers and anyone else who wants it.
distant_hat 3y ago
GPS is notoriously terrible inside cities with tall buildings and when you have overlapping roads, nearby roads with vastly different speed limits and so on. This would lead to way more accidents.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Just saying that the speed is limited to the maximum speed limit of any road within 1 mile would be a huge improvement. When nearby highways have speed limits of 55mph, there's no good reason to allow cars to drive 70 on surface streets.

whalesalad 3y ago

Freedom is the reason.

northisup 3y ago
i'd like to be free from being hit by cars. its not freedom if its killing other people
- whalesalad 3y ago
  they are not mutually exclusive
- PKop 3y ago
  Why not pass a law to cut off the hands of speed violators? Would that not solve the problem? Why invade the cars of every single person. Absurdly heavy-handed, and not necessary nor likely as effective at stopping people speeding on your street. Narrow, targeted enforcement against violators of existing laws would suffice. Keep incrementally increasing the penalty until it works.
  - qbrass 3y ago
    >Would that not solve the problem? If it didn't work the first time, it's not going to work the second time.
    - PKop 3y ago
      Of course it would work. Harsh punishment in Singapore works fine. When has that been tried? We don't even do this to stop retail theft let alone residential speeding. What on Earth are you referring to re:the first time?
- nikanj 3y ago
  That doesn't sound very american of you. A real patriot would solve the issue by buying a bigger car, so if you're hit, it's the other guy who gets hurt

JohnFen 3y ago

I wouldn't object to this as long as implementing it doesn't require the car to talk to any servers. Edit: I'm curious (not complaining) as to why this comment is being downvoted. Is it because people disagree with me about not objecting to the idea of speed-limiting in cities, or because people disagree with me about not wanting to talk to servers?

reaperman 3y ago

Sometimes it is legal to speed for emergency purposes. For example if you are escaping an attacker or taking a dying person to an emergency room.

acdha 3y ago
Unless you’re a character in an action movie, no. Your dying patient is going to be worse off when you get t-boned driving that aggressively or simply shaking them around. The primary limiting factor in a city are other vehicles, not speed, and not having a siren matters more there.
- reaperman 3y ago
  It is legal to do it though.
  - acdha 3y ago
    No, it’s not legal: https://www.progressive.com/lifelanes/on-the-road/speeding-in-an-emergency/ https://www.progressive.com/lifelanes/on-the-road/speeding-i... What you’re hoping is that a police officer would agree with your decision and choose not to write you a ticket. That might work, but if you try this you are gambling on that and almost certainly not saving any meaningful amount of time.
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      Not debating the legality (it surely isn't), but I suspect in some cases a speeding ticket may end up costing less (even including the increased insurance premiums) than the ambulance fees.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Likely but I was simply responding to the false assertion that it was legal. It’s a common lie people use to present the most positive spin for their unwillingness to drive safely in conditions which are exceedingly unlikely to be more serious than “didn’t feel like waking up prudently early”.

saalweachter 3y ago

You could do all sorts of technological enforcement of traffic laws. You could have cars not permit going above the speed limit on highways for more than X minutes [to facilitate overtaking]. You could dynamically lower the speed limit during inclement weather. You could lower the speed limit when approaching an emergency vehicle by the side of the road. I'm not sure we have accurate enough position info to somehow force people out of the passing lane after a certain amount of time. Hell, you don't even have to make it outright impossible to drive a car fast -- add a manual override switch, that removes the governor while logging your location and speed with the appropriate authorities. Audit after the fact to distinguish between "automatic speed limits were incorrect", "someone in the car was bleeding out on the way to the hospital" and "I wanted to go real fast".

jollyllama 3y ago

And this is why many of us will never, ever switch to electric/drive by wire cars.

plagiarist 3y ago
Like it's impossible to programmatically disable ICE cars? You've got a false sense of security. You'll have to buy used cars forever to be safe from such a law.
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  I certainly mourn the impending laws preventing end-users from modifying their cars in ways that undermine the nanny-locks.
tensor 3y ago
You do realize electric and drive by wire is completely orthogonal to the point here right? There are plenty of electric conversion kits for older vehicles that are "dumb", no internet connection and only enough intelligence to manage the battery and motor.

ggreer 3y ago

E-bikes have a speed cap so they don’t get classified as motorcycles, which would require insurance, registration, and extra licensing to use on public roads. The problem with dynamic speed caps is that they fail in very dangerous ways. If you’re on a freeway but your GPS thinks you’re on a residential street, you’re suddenly going much slower than surrounding traffic. A simpler solution would be to actually enforce traffic laws. It’s only a tiny fraction of drivers who endanger the public. The sooner we identify them and get them off the road, the safer we’ll be.

acdha 3y ago
> A simpler solution would be to actually enforce traffic laws. It’s only a tiny fraction of drivers who endanger the public. I don’t know where you live but in every city I’ve visited that fraction is close to half, and for certain behaviors like not stopping for a stop sign or turn on red it’s like 95%. With regards to speed, I think a lot of this could be addressed by having the vehicle do something like turn off the sound system and play a warning that you’re exceeding the limit when you do more than a certain percentage over for more than a short time. That’d take the fun out of it and interfere with someone’s Zoom call while still allowing them to ignore it if there’s some GPS bounce or something while leaving the freeway.
forgotusername6 3y ago
There are insurance providers in the UK that fit black boxes that work using GPS to check you are following the speed limit. They offer you a lower rate if you obey the law. There are numerous cases of this technology not working and people's policies being cancelled as a result. You couldn't ever attach a limiter to such a system, it would be far too dangerous.
- FrankoDelMar 3y ago
  This exists in the US as well. In a situation where you need to make emergency maneuvers where you’re likely accelerating or decelerating quickly? Opps, your premium just went up.

PKop 3y ago

Enforcement of the law with harsher penalties and a few speed-bumps would stop this. Seems more reasonable than some expensive, dystopian back-door in every car.

s1artibartfast 3y ago
harsher penalties dont really matter. It all comes down to actual enforcement and general belief in the law. If nobody thinks they will get caught, penalties dont matter. If the majority decides not to follow the rules, the police cant enforce them meaningfully, there simply not enough police to enforce all the rules against all the people, all the time
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  [dead]
tensor 3y ago
Harsher penalties are vastly inferior in all cases to simply making a crime impossible or inconvenient or not have much payoff.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  It'd be cooler if this wasn't another Third Party Doctrine abuse violating the spirit of the 4th Amendment with telemetry shared around to insurers and anyone else who wants it.

distant_hat 3y ago

GPS is notoriously terrible inside cities with tall buildings and when you have overlapping roads, nearby roads with vastly different speed limits and so on. This would lead to way more accidents.

Rebelgecko 3y ago
Just saying that the speed is limited to the maximum speed limit of any road within 1 mile would be a huge improvement. When nearby highways have speed limits of 55mph, there's no good reason to allow cars to drive 70 on surface streets.