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CA bill to require all new cars to prevent them from going 10mph over speedlimit
- oh_sigh 3y agoWell, that seems like a horrible idea. I can imagine cars getting confused by where they are and forcing people to drive 30mph on a highway.
- lazide 3y agoI don’t think I’ve seen anyone in California willingly driving anything less than 15 over the speed limit - including the cops and CHP.
- bcrosby95 3y agoI like to drive 5 under the speed limit, in the right lane of course. I don't have to worry about swerving through traffic, slamming on my brakes, and generally jockying for position just to shave 30 seconds off of my 20 minute drive.
- sparker72678 3y agoI always wondered who y’all were and why you did this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Exoristos 3y agoHN in a nutshell.
- rcdemski 3y agoSame, well, I’ll do the speed limit. But the end result is the same. I get to where I’m going without stressing over navigating around aggressive drivers. They tend to avoid the right lane anyway. If my travels are so time sensitive that a couple minutes will make or break it the. I’m planning things wrong well before I leave the house.
- henriquez 3y agoI live in a rural area with a lot of straight/open roads with visibility and little traffic. Driving 98 mph (since 100 is a felony here lol) shaves nontrivial time off my trips vs. the speed limits which are far too low anyway. If it’s okay for you to drive 10mph over the speed limit then it’s also okay for me to drive 28mph over. Laws are just words written by people who are irrelevant to me. Reality is about risk vs. reward.
- cxr 3y ago> If it’s okay for you to drive 10mph over the speed limit That's not what they said.
- jaydz 3y agoI find right lane driving dangerous. Every week I see drivers slow down or come to a complete stop on the acceleration lane, others are risking it all to make their exit.
- singron 3y agoIf you drive 60mph for 20 minutes, you will go 20 miles. If you drove 65mph, then you would travel the same distance 1 minute 32 seconds sooner. At lower speeds, the effect is bigger, e.g. going 45 instead of 40 saves 2:13, and 35 instead of 30 saves 2:51. If my math is right, to only lose 30 seconds by going 5 under for 20 minutes, you would have to be going 195 in a 200.
- bcrosby95 3y agoIn theory, yes. In reality, you're ignoring the traffic lights at both ends of your trip.
- acdha 3y agoI grew up around the LA area and found that was common under a short interval but not for a long one. I had a diesel & sometimes tried to see how high I could keep the mileage on a tank (record was 52mpg), and one thing I noticed was that the guys blowing by at 90 were just burning cash: they’d fly by but then stomp on the brakes due to traffic over and over again, while I was having a much less stressful time going the average speed and rarely even touching the brakes.
- woodruffw 3y agoPosted limit detection seems reliable in existing cars, both self-driving and not; is there some reason to believe this will be any less reliable than other safety technologies?
- helen___keller 3y agoI live in Boston and my car’s HUD displays this information (speed limit and such). Sometimes it gets it wrong despite living in a major city center. Once my car even alerted me when I was going the wrong way on a one-way — except that I wasn’t. I can only imagine in deep suburbs / rural it is even less reliable.
- MarkSweep 3y agoBoston can really confuse a GPS. While driving in the underground freeway, the GPS was giving me turn-by-turn instructions for the city streets above.
- wtallis 3y agoIt sounds like you're describing a system based on GPS and map data, not one of the systems that read the actual signs posted as you drive by them. The only problems I've had with the speed limit sign reader in my car are conditional speed limits (e.g. school zones during certain hours, truck-specific limits). Otherwise, they're just limited by the prevalence of the physical signs.
- bloaf 3y agoEven reading the signs is non-trivial, I drive several stretches of road where an access road runs parallel to a highway, and the 20mph lower speed limit signs for the access road are clearly visible from the highway and only slightly farther off the shoulder than the correct signs.
- jonhohle 3y agoThis seems like a useful service for cities to provide: street maps and traffic rules for each segment in a standard format.
- Slow_Hand 3y agoThe first thought that comes to mind is that this would be a big problem in situations that arguably warrant speeding, such as accelerating out of a dangerous traffic situation, evading pursuers, or transporting a passenger in a life or death emergency.
- luplex 3y agoTrue, but it might still be worth the tradeoff. I would need to see some estimates of the numbers here
- acdha 3y agoThose happen in movies, but only very, very rarely in real life. Ambulances have flashing lights, sirens, and trained drivers and they still usually stay below the speed limit; Joe Soccer Dad is going to get t-boned trying the same thing on the way to the ER. In the vast majority of cases, the delays on those trips are caused by the other vehicles on the road. Driving aggressively will make that worse because it will cause cascades of other people doing unusual moves which increase the unpredictability and danger of the situation.
- nobodyandproud 3y ago> Joe Soccer Dad is going to get t-boned trying the same thing on the way to the ER. Depends on the zone and the speed limit. Going 35 mph in a 20 MPH zone isn’t even noticeable.
- alistairSH 3y agoIt is if you’re the pedestrian the negligent driver ran over.
- nobodyandproud 3y agoYes, but the objection is that an average driver cannot go beyond 10 MPH “in practice” without losing control. Which is nonsense. A driver who can control their car in 20 MPH can control it in 35 MPH; it happens all the time. As to your point: I suppose all is well if a pedestrian is hit at 40 mph in a 40 MPH local zone?
- thrill 3y agoWith exceptions for the special people, ya' know.
- bubbleRefuge 3y agoThe saudis are not going to like this.
- freecodyx 3y agoThe germans have the autobahn, it’s a better example
- judge2020 3y agoUnless it's added to the FMVSS, they often just temporarily import their own car: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/tempinfojuly2016.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/tempin...
- henriquez 3y agoFinally. There really hasn’t been enough developer interest around unlocking car PCMs and open-sourcing engine management software. A bill like this would take car tuning from a niche closet industry to a ubiquitous hacking community. Most cars come tuned from the factory for use with 87 octane gas. Pumping premium (91+ octane) gas doesn’t typically confer any performance advantage due to the factory-locked PCM software. By unlocking and tweaking this software you can tune the hardware to benefit from higher-grade fuels, enabling better performance _and_ fuel efficiency/emissions. Disabling the speed limiter would become table stakes. Passing this bill would backfire majorly and open a Pandoras Box of hacking advancement. What is niche now would become common practice for everyone who drives.
- M95D 3y agoNo, it won't. Modified cars won't pass periodic inspection (I don't know how is it called in your country, but you most certainly have a periodic inspection).
- henriquez 3y agoAre you serious? They don’t do checksums on your PCM firmware for any vehicle inspections I’ve ever heard of. I am talking about a software modification, not cutting catalytic converters off for 2 extra horsepower.
- neonlights84 3y agoTen bucks says that these cars are going to get rear-ended like crazy. And then the owners will get slapped with higher insurance premiums.
- acdha 3y agoIt won’t be their premiums going up: if you rear-end someone, you’re at fault.
- dsabanin 3y agoThat is logically correct, but it’s not how insurance companies think.
- plagiarist 3y agoThat would be a better bill: insurance cannot consider incidents one isn't at fault for when determining a rate. Absolute scumbags.
- gottorf 3y agoScumbaggery of insurance companies aside, if someone gets into ten accidents a year where they're deemed not at fault, I would still be very skeptical of that person as a driver. I would not find it immoral to apply higher rates in that situation.
- plagiarist 3y agoIf they are so reckless there would surely be a better signal alongside that one?
- Ekaros 3y agoOn some weird level actually insurances of the more expensive to repair or more often to repaired cars should go up. Even if their insurance is not paying for damage. This would be due to those cars affecting the outgoing costs. So if your car is expensive to repair, it should have higher liability part. As on population level it has higher cost for other insurances.
- gedy 3y agoIf CA is concerned about safety, how about cell phone jammers or screen blankers in all cars then. (No I don't support either this or speed governors)
- neilv 3y agoI stood on the corner at a major intersection during evening commute time, and counted drivers who were obviously looking at cellphones while they were going through the busy intersection. It was half of them. I'd start to address this with a two-pronged campaign: 1. Some kind of competent communications of how dangerous this is, and what the harm really means. 2. Technological measures like device behavior defaults for people who believe they're operating in good faith, to help them follow through in good faith, without being too onerous or authoritarian (nor pretext for more surveillance and control abused for other purposes). After that's settled in, and we've hopefully broken the widespread default bad behavior, so that people still doing it generally will have knowingly opted-in to reckless, I'm open to introducing criminal penalties commensurate with harm caused.
- gedy 3y agoI used to assume it's mostly "those darn kids" but damn if it's not also the older people staring into their laps on even the freeway. My neighbor was killed when a guy plowed into him on the sidewalk looking at his phone, so I'm extra pissed when I see this.
- mullingitover 3y agoThis would hit the signature count for a ballot measure to reverse it within hours of being signed into law.
- ArtemZ 3y agoCars are already ridiculously expensive thanks to all the mandates and many cars are not sold in the U.S due to prohibitive regulations (I wish I could buy a new Land Cruiser 76), this will only make things worse. What is the new cars endgame? Only the elites will be able to afford them?
- jll29 3y agoIn 20 years, no-one watching an action film will understand or believe a car race anymore...
- AlexCoventry 3y agoA huge number of people will go to great lengths to disable the governor.
- petra303 3y agoI drove a moving van once between to major cities. It was governed not to go over 65. On some two lane roads I would run come upon a slower moving vehicle. If I tried to pass the governor would kick in and make it really dangerous to pass safely. I would have to sit behind the car for a long time going 50 in a 65 before there was a huge gap in oncoming traffic to be able to pass.
- throwworhtthrow 3y agoIf you are driving a large vehicle that you are not used to or trained for, you should absolutely not be making high speed passes within narrow gaps in traffic. Also a 15mph difference in speed should be plenty to make a safe pass. Finally, going 50mph instead of 65mph for 10 minutes only adds 2 minutes 18 seconds to your trip time.
- gymbeaux 3y agoI’m not sure 15mph is necessarily enough to pass. I rarely pass in those passing zones where it’s one lane each way, but I think I kind of gun it for those few seconds… you want to spend as little time as possible in the opposite lane obviously
- endisneigh 3y agoI wish they’d make dash cams mandatory in new cars
- nomel 3y agoI'm surprised that insurance providers haven't jumped on this, with significant savings if you have one installed, with the assumption that handing over the data is voluntary (maybe if not, a retroactive fee).
- beej71 3y agoI had someone reverse into me unexpectedly while I waited at a roundabout. I was sure it was a scammer, but instead they just took off, hit and run. But if they had been a scammer, I'd likely have been screwed. I bought a 4k dash cam after that. As a side effect, I drive more carefully. If someone hits me, I want the record to show me blameless.
- Timothee 3y agoInteresting idea. I think most people will hate it and there are many technological reasons for it to be problematic. Can it be abused too? Say I have an old car without that limit, harass or attack someone then speed up by only going 15 over the limit? What about emergencies? What about motorbikes in that law? A ton of unintended consequences to consider. However, I don’t think any car needs to be able to go over certain speeds, and that could be a place to start. Would the limit be 90, 100mph? Maybe get a way to unlock on a race track, but beyond that, some advertised top speeds are absurd.
- floobertoober 3y agoI don't think we should be regulating things from a place of "I can't imagine ever needing X; we should mandate technological controls to prevent it." We should regulate things as a need arises, based on data
- Timothee 3y agoIt's not about not being able to imagine the need or not. It's from seeing people driving their cars at highly dangerous speeds all the time (easily 20mph faster than most people who are already driving 10-15mph over the limit). If it were only dangerous to the driver, it'd be one thing but they put others in danger. There are countless stories of speeding drivers killing bystanders. No one has ever a need to drive at 120+mph.
- acdha 3y agoThe “need arises” part are the thousands of people killed and orders of magnitude more with serious injuries who will never have the same quality of life as they had before the collision. In the case of cars an absolute cap at, say, 85mph would cover the maximum speed legal speed for the entire United States and still be at least 40mph lower than the top speed of almost all vehicles sold here.
- woodruffw 3y agoAmerican drivers' entitlement around speeding and other forms of unsafe driving is easily one of our least commendable qualities as a country. I'm not aware of any other developed country with a comparable culture of neglect; it's good to see a large state take steps towards addressing that culture. There's a valid point to be made about automation being a blunt tool, versus stronger enforcement of existing laws. My only response to that point is that vehicle unsafety is, at least in my state, remarkably resistant to human enforcement: the people tasked with enforcing these laws are often the ones who feel most entitled to violate them[1]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/nyregion/mathew-bianchi-nypd-traffic-tickets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/nyregion/mathew-bianchi-n...
- MarcoZavala 3y ago[dead]
- gottorf 3y ago> I'm not aware of any other developed country with a comparable culture of neglect In terms of road fatalities per vehicle-mile traveled[0],the US is on par with other developed nations like Belgium and New Zealand, fares substantially better than Korea or the Czech Republic, and is substantially worse than Norway or Switzerland. But you have to remember that driving is a much more fundamentally required part of life in much of the US than it is in many of those other countries. The culture of neglect comes from (among other things) the fact that if you make getting a driver's license too hard, or losing one too easy, you effectively cut off someone's livelihood. [0]: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/irtad-road-safety-annual-report-2018_2.pdf https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/irtad-road...
- woodruffw 3y agoFatalities per vehicle-mile is the only favorable metric here, which makes intuitive sense: the US is a big empty country with a lot of rural highways. If you look at fatalities per capita or by net car ownership, the numbers are much less rosy[1]. By those metrics, the US mostly peers with SE Asia and the Middle East. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y agoRegardless of whether this is good or bad, I'd be amazed if it were even feasible with many 9's. How would it even work?
- nomel 3y agoThe holy grail of vehicle road taxation, and state surveillance: GPS.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y agoMy GPS thinks I'm on the wrong street every time I miss an exit or start navigating under an overpass. There's no way GPS does this reliably.
- nomel 3y agoI cynically assume they'll still use it as another reason to get that GPS into your car, which they've wanted to do for years now [1]. 1. https://stateline.org/2021/09/28/california-expands-road-mileage-tax-pilot-program/ https://stateline.org/2021/09/28/california-expands-road-mil...
- dzhiurgis 3y agoYes GPS is behind times here. Galileo can do 1cm accuracy tho.
- freecodyx 3y agoSpeeding is one of the factors, but there are also other factors, bad drivers, roads conditions, alcohol/drugs, phones, sleep, car condition, eyesight, mood …
- mikewarot 3y agoHow, exactly would the car be expected to know the speed limit? What if the expected value is wrong? What if the database of speed limits is unavailable? What happens when a speed limit for a road changes? What about new roads? What happens when the car leaves California? What if California moves? (Earthquakes and Landslides are common there) How is the car supposed to cope with moving roads and landmarks? Is there some provision for over-riding the speed limiter in the event of emergency? What if Loran-C* is no longer available? Or GPS, or GLONASS. What if the Russians, Canadians, Nevadans or others Jam the signal? This bill strikes me as about as useful as the time my home state of Indiana tried to legislate the value of Pi.[1] Edit: *Yes, I know there are no longer any reliable long range ground-based navigation systems, which is a huge problem. While LORAN-C has been discontinued, it has never been properly replaced. Edit2: What about private property? If a parking lot has a posted speed limit, how does that information get into the database? Should it get into the database? There are far, far too many corner cases to seriously consider using a technical solution to what is obviously a social problem.
- stefan_ 3y agoThis is such incredible hyperbole, you haven't even realized Loran-C is long gone, not that any cars ever used it.
- a4000 3y agoThey are already doing this in the EU now (https://www.drive.com.au/news/new-cars-will-stop-drivers-from-speeding/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/new-cars-will-stop-drivers-fro...), albeit not with actual speed restriction as far as I know, but just bongs a warning instead. It mainly relies on the OCR reading speed signs which most new cars have had for a while now, although as anyone who has it will know, it's not that always that great. I have just this in my car and on one road where I live regularly that has a 60km/h limit my speed limit warning would always read 5km/h past a certain point and it took me a while to realise it was actually picking up a speed sign for 5km/h in a small car park off some way to the side. It also has trouble with mixed speed limits that I have in my area where both speeds are on the same sign, for example some roads are 80km/h in normal conditions but 60km/h when wet or 70km/h for cars but 40km/h for trucks and buses, usually it defaults to the lower limit. Luckily my car is a bit older so it just flashes red when you go over what it thinks is the speed limit, but more modern cars that will bong or even restrict speed would be infuriating.
- kj99 3y agoThe legislation aims to curb the epidemic of traffic deaths? When? In 20 years time when all the current cars have been replaced?
- tw04 3y agoThe title should probably be updated to accurately reflect that this is a proposal. The way it's phrased makes it sound like it's a bill that has already been passed. There are bills like this that have absolutely 0 chance of ever passing that are proposed all the time. Clickbait at its finest. The fact he couldn't even get a second senator to co-sponsor the bill tells you that it's DOA. https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB961/2023 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB961/2023
- judge2020 3y agoConventional wisdom is that a bill that has been passed is a law.
- tw04 3y agoSure...? But this bill hasn't been passed, it was INTRODUCED less than 24 hours ago.
- megabytemike 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto
- sgammon 3y agoI knew what this was before clicking. Beat me to it
- sgammon 3y agoA "bill" (proposal) being "passed" is the process by which it becomes a law.
- plorkyeran 3y agoA bill is by definition a proposal. It's no longer a bill once it has been passed.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoThe original title was better: > California could require car ‘governors’ that limit speeding to 10 mph over posted limits I’m not sure why op changed it to the more ambiguous > CA bill to require all new cars to prevent them from going over the speed limit The latter title could imply the bill had already been passed, whereas the original title makes clear that this is simply introduced legislation which may or may not pass
- sgammon 3y agoA bill is by definition a proposal.
- interestica 3y agoIs this determined by GPS data? Will it continuously update speed restriction data by road? Does it undo the governor if you're outside the state? This is just unfeasible. Especially for the 2027 model year. I've joked before that states will one day install devices for "microfines" -- eg, going over the speed limit for short sustained period results in $5 fine.
- DerekL 3y agoThe title is misspelled. Speed limit is two words.
- judge2020 3y agoThe title is exactly 80 characters long, the HN title submission limit.
- gottorf 3y agoCalifornia's road fatality rates are entirely unremarkable among the 50 states[0]. In 2021, a little over 4k people in California died from a traffic-related accident, compared to over 10k in the same year from drug overdoses[1]. I think Sen. Wiener probably could have other priorities on his plate. [0]: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/States/StatesFatalitiesFatalityRates.aspx https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/States/StatesFatalitiesFatali... [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mor...
- cratermoon 3y agoNow do per capita and per mile driven.
- gottorf 3y agoI was referring to the "fatality rate per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled" in my source, which puts California squarely in the middle. Entirely unremarkable. I'm sure per capita reveals a similar story.
- fasthands9 3y agoI think it is reasonable to tackle an issue that kills 4,000 people a year in your state. Especially when you can do both. I spent 10 seconds looking up Scott Weiner's proposals and looks like he has introduced at least two bills I can find that deal with drug overdoses https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20220112-senator-wiener%E2%80%99s-legislation-legalize-overdose-prevention-programs-%E2%80%94-also-known-safe https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20220112-senator-wiener%E2%8... https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20220630-senator-wiener%E2%80%99s-safe-consumption-sites-legislation-passes-assembly https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20220630-senator-wiener%E2%8... That being said I do not believe these speed governance or harm reduction policies are the best bang for your policy buck. I think in both cases they are complicated policies that would not be as necessary if "enforcement of current laws" was allowed in progressive policy debate. Granted I am not a believer that harm reduction has panned out as people would like, but looks like Scott Weiner has introduced multiple
- mrexroad 3y agoSeems like this bill was written to generate headlines more than anything else. There’s been a huge uptick in pedestrian/biker fatalities in my area (South Bay) over the past 5 years. Even in my neighborhood, a group of students got plowed through at a cross walk while they had right of way (my son bikes w/ them each morning, but was home sick that day; all lived, but bones broken and PT for some). Excessive speed was not a factor. In any event, very few of the pedestrian incidents were directly tied to speed. Lack of attention, not fit to drive (age), and DUI are almost always what’s listed in the police report. Either way, if the goal is simply to throw some regulations for a technical solution at a complex problem, then maybe focusing on inattention/distraction would be more useful. For instance, I’d be okay with being nagged by a chime (like w/ unbuckled belt) whenever my attention was not sufficiently on the road. Here’s my (biased) list of more productive suggestions to tackle: - make it legal for LE to pull over and cite cars for front window tint dark enough that pedestrians/bikers cannot see the drivers eyes (it’s now common for soccer moms at pickup to be rolling with 15-20% on fronts). And FFS just go ahead and impound anyone with a dark tint on their windshield. If repeat offender, impound vehicle. - Lifted trucks should require DOT-approved pedestrian-friendly bumpers or brush guards when driven on public roads. Additionally, inspect stamp during Smog testing to ensure they are DOT approved. If a lifted truck, or one w/o DOT-approved (off road) brush guard, is involved in accident that results in injury directly attributed to the modifications, charge owner with criminal negligence. - Require DMV road test every 10 years for license renewal; every 5 after age 60, and every 2 after 80. - Require cars to pass a basic headlight alignment test during smog testing. Aftermarket LEDs in halogen housings would be automatic fail. Registration cannot be renewed until corrected. - daytime sobriety checkpoints in neighborhoods. It doesn’t even need to be a test / checkpoint. It’s insane how often I see/smell cars driving by my house w/ drivers vaping cannabis to “take the edge off” after work (or whatever I’ve been told).
- M95D 3y agoMany of these are currently applied in Europe.
- acdha 3y ago> make it legal for LE to pull over and cite cars for front window tint dark enough that pedestrians/bikers cannot see the drivers eyes Isn't that already the case, but unenforced? I knew multiple guys in high school who were pulled over for failing to maintain their vehicle in safe working order for that exact reason.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoWhat was wrong with original title? Slightly edited to fit CA could require car ‘governors’ that limit speeding to 10 mph over limits
- k310 3y agoWhen autos are electric, it's just an OTA software update. (that you can't block) Just wait a few years. And "better yet" a speeding car can be remotely driven to the local CHP office, saving officers a stop or chase, and the driver can be booked, the in-car breathalyzer and drug detector read out (if not already done remotely.) Welcome to your 1984 auto.
- xnx 3y agoSetting a maximum speed of 85(?) Would be a good start. Impound/destroy any car exceeding that.
- sgammon 3y agoThis won't pass. It's legal to go any speed you want on private property you own; a challenge at the CA Supreme Court would likely eviscerate any bill like this that were to pass. Enforcing speed limits isn't a trivial problem. It only seems like one if you understand it from the very limited perspective of merely knowing the limit (kinda) at any time; once you start enforcing that limit, you create liability and danger where previously there was none. What about speeding to the emergency room? What about an open road on your own property within California's borders? What about a racetrack? There's just no amount of current infrastructure which can model this properly and without enormous holes, some of which would immediately conflict with rights most Americans consider sacrosanct.
- sgammon 3y agoNot to rant, but it also feels like a proposal that would only make sense within the limits of a large city. California is an enormous state. Lassen County cohabitates this state with San Francisco. It is ludicrous to think that your vehicle is just going to "know" the speed limit and be able to properly enforce it everywhere unless your perspective starts and ends with narrow and busy city streets. It's embarrassing; Scott Weiner may represent San Francisco, but he's a member of a State legislative body. It feels like this bill could never pass anyway so what's the point beyond political theater.