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Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. And then there’s court

Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. And then there’s courts. If courts can force drunk drivers to add ignition interlocks to their cars, they can throttle the engines of chronic speeders too.

jstsch 3y ago
> Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. Standard Tesla feature.
jakub_g 3y ago
Just TIL from side comment [1] > Apart from the speed cap, every Volvo car will now also come with a Care Key, which allows Volvo drivers to set additional limitations on the car’s top speed, for example before lending their car to other family members or to younger and inexperienced drivers. [1] https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/268578/every-volvo-model-now-comes-with-a-180kph-speed-limit-and-care-key https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...
jpsouth 3y ago
Devils advocate here, if you limit the speed for your teen and then need to accelerate to get out of a dangerous situation, what will happen? I’m not saying it happens often, but I’ve had times when driving on the motorway when I simply need to accelerate past the normal legal limit to get some distance or swap lanes safely to get away from some one behind me or next to me.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Devils advocate here. If you don't let your send your kid out in the fastest car you can afford, with the highest acceleration possible, then it's your fault if the kid gets rear-ended or sideswiped by another car. You should start funeral planning if you buy the kid a Chevrolet Spark, with its 0-60 of 11 seconds and top speed of 90mph.
  - jpsouth 3y ago
    You should probably start funeral planning anyway if you can’t trust your kid in a vehicle without artificially limiting their speed. I didn’t use any hyperbole about the fastest car, with highest acceleration, I was merely pointing out that a hard cap at 65mph is (imo) a silly idea as there’s many reasons you would need to accelerate beyond that to get out of an unsafe situation. I could maybe advocate for a happy medium here, something like a black box given by your insurance company (they already do), insurance premiums for larger, more powerful vehicles being higher (they already are), traffic calming measures, or speed cameras (already exist) and punishments for speeding such as fines, points, bans or additional speed awareness courses (all already exist). If you’ve any additional input here, other than ‘plan a funeral if you don’t limit your kids speed’ then I’d appreciate the discussion as these things clearly don’t fix all the problems that we encounter on the road, but they certainly prevented me from being a dumb ass on the road when I was a teenager, and still manage to.
    - eesmith 3y ago
      It seems like you were only pretending when you said you were playing devil's advocate, when you were actually expressing your true viewpoints. I trust you weren't using "devil's advocate" as a way to say something while trying to avoid direct criticism. If 65 mph is too low, then what maximum speed do you think is appropriate? 70? 90? 120? The local maximum speed limit + 15mph? If you think any artificial limit is intrinsically less safe (bear in mind that high-end cars are already artificially limited to 155 mph), then the same logic says that, if price is not any issue, it's always safer for a kid to drive a faster car with good acceleration - the faster and more powerful, the safer it is. If you think a maximum of 90mph is too slow to be safe, what do you say to parents who buy their kid a car with a max speed of 90mph? Do you tell them you think that care is unsafe and they should get a faster car if they can afford it? (This reminds me of the Swedish A-Tractor, which lets 16+ year olds drive certain vehicles so long as they are limited to a max of 30km/h, including through electronic limiters. According to you, that's more unsafe than allowing faster speeds. Strange that the Swedish government feels otherwise.) Your examples were all on the motorway. I presume a parent wanting the 65 mph speed limit will also want the teen driver to stay off the interstate, motorway, or other highway. If the kid is only supposed to drive on roads with a max 45 mph speed limit, then a car limit of 65 mph should be just fine, yes? Many US states limit school buses carrying students to 55 mph, even on the interstate. Buses also have lower acceleration than a car. From what I can tell, the consensus by the relevant authorities is that raising the limit to better match the flow of traffic is more dangerous because of the increased deadliness of any crashes. How is it that the driver of a 15-passenger school bus is able to handle restrictions you think are so unsafe that you couldn't handle them? I don't understand the point of your last paragraph. Just because those things helped keep you from being a dumb-ass driver as a kid doesn't mean that another tool - a speed limiter - can't be an additional useful parental restriction on a beginning driver. For one, unlike everything you listed, it does not require third-party involvement.
- licebmi__at__ 3y ago
  Well, that they might die tragically. I mean, you are assuming a risk on a moving vehicle, why would that be different. The only meaningful question is “is it less risky to allow a teenager to speed than to limit the max velocity he can reach?”. I would bet the limiter is a net positive; and maybe data can prove me wrong, but definitely not a couple of anecdotes.
AdamN 3y ago
Any car can have a governor installed and some parents do it. I believe many modern cars have this integrated and can do things like notify the owner even if a limit is exceeded.
poiuyt098 3y ago
my 2012 ford edge has this built in https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/mykey/mykey/ https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/mykey/my...

jstsch 3y ago

> Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere. Standard Tesla feature.

jakub_g 3y ago

Just TIL from side comment [1] > Apart from the speed cap, every Volvo car will now also come with a Care Key, which allows Volvo drivers to set additional limitations on the car’s top speed, for example before lending their car to other family members or to younger and inexperienced drivers. [1] https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/268578/every-volvo-model-now-comes-with-a-180kph-speed-limit-and-care-key https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...

jpsouth 3y ago

Devils advocate here, if you limit the speed for your teen and then need to accelerate to get out of a dangerous situation, what will happen? I’m not saying it happens often, but I’ve had times when driving on the motorway when I simply need to accelerate past the normal legal limit to get some distance or swap lanes safely to get away from some one behind me or next to me.

eesmith 3y ago
Devils advocate here. If you don't let your send your kid out in the fastest car you can afford, with the highest acceleration possible, then it's your fault if the kid gets rear-ended or sideswiped by another car. You should start funeral planning if you buy the kid a Chevrolet Spark, with its 0-60 of 11 seconds and top speed of 90mph.
- jpsouth 3y ago
  You should probably start funeral planning anyway if you can’t trust your kid in a vehicle without artificially limiting their speed. I didn’t use any hyperbole about the fastest car, with highest acceleration, I was merely pointing out that a hard cap at 65mph is (imo) a silly idea as there’s many reasons you would need to accelerate beyond that to get out of an unsafe situation. I could maybe advocate for a happy medium here, something like a black box given by your insurance company (they already do), insurance premiums for larger, more powerful vehicles being higher (they already are), traffic calming measures, or speed cameras (already exist) and punishments for speeding such as fines, points, bans or additional speed awareness courses (all already exist). If you’ve any additional input here, other than ‘plan a funeral if you don’t limit your kids speed’ then I’d appreciate the discussion as these things clearly don’t fix all the problems that we encounter on the road, but they certainly prevented me from being a dumb ass on the road when I was a teenager, and still manage to.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    It seems like you were only pretending when you said you were playing devil's advocate, when you were actually expressing your true viewpoints. I trust you weren't using "devil's advocate" as a way to say something while trying to avoid direct criticism. If 65 mph is too low, then what maximum speed do you think is appropriate? 70? 90? 120? The local maximum speed limit + 15mph? If you think any artificial limit is intrinsically less safe (bear in mind that high-end cars are already artificially limited to 155 mph), then the same logic says that, if price is not any issue, it's always safer for a kid to drive a faster car with good acceleration - the faster and more powerful, the safer it is. If you think a maximum of 90mph is too slow to be safe, what do you say to parents who buy their kid a car with a max speed of 90mph? Do you tell them you think that care is unsafe and they should get a faster car if they can afford it? (This reminds me of the Swedish A-Tractor, which lets 16+ year olds drive certain vehicles so long as they are limited to a max of 30km/h, including through electronic limiters. According to you, that's more unsafe than allowing faster speeds. Strange that the Swedish government feels otherwise.) Your examples were all on the motorway. I presume a parent wanting the 65 mph speed limit will also want the teen driver to stay off the interstate, motorway, or other highway. If the kid is only supposed to drive on roads with a max 45 mph speed limit, then a car limit of 65 mph should be just fine, yes? Many US states limit school buses carrying students to 55 mph, even on the interstate. Buses also have lower acceleration than a car. From what I can tell, the consensus by the relevant authorities is that raising the limit to better match the flow of traffic is more dangerous because of the increased deadliness of any crashes. How is it that the driver of a 15-passenger school bus is able to handle restrictions you think are so unsafe that you couldn't handle them? I don't understand the point of your last paragraph. Just because those things helped keep you from being a dumb-ass driver as a kid doesn't mean that another tool - a speed limiter - can't be an additional useful parental restriction on a beginning driver. For one, unlike everything you listed, it does not require third-party involvement.
licebmi__at__ 3y ago
Well, that they might die tragically. I mean, you are assuming a risk on a moving vehicle, why would that be different. The only meaningful question is “is it less risky to allow a teenager to speed than to limit the max velocity he can reach?”. I would bet the limiter is a net positive; and maybe data can prove me wrong, but definitely not a couple of anecdotes.

AdamN 3y ago

Any car can have a governor installed and some parents do it. I believe many modern cars have this integrated and can do things like notify the owner even if a limit is exceeded.

poiuyt098 3y ago

my 2012 ford edge has this built in https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/mykey/mykey/ https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/mykey/my...