7 ms·

Mandatory speed limiters on EU cars from 2024

29 points by instagib 2y ago

instagib 2y ago
It will stop you from exceeding speed limits based on gps or cameras reading speed limit signs. Can disable with a hard acceleration or disable each time you start driving with a button press.
snvzz 2y ago
A sound alert is fine. Any actual interference with driving will not prevent, but cause, accidents. An example of this would be resistance on the pedal causing added latency on acceleration attempt.
- hgomersall 2y ago
  Why will it not prevent accidents? Most accidents are not caused by a lack of speed but rather, too much speed. Sure, one can hypothesise scenarios in which rapid acceleration is desirable to avoid an accident, but I'm sceptical those are very common in reality, and the obvious ones I can think of are around people performing dangerous manoeuvres (like overtaking with insufficient space).
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    >Most accidents are not caused by a lack of speed but rather, too much speed. Any evidence for that? Don't you think inattention from drivers or mechanical failures are more likely causes?
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      A stationary car is not going to cause a crash. Inattention from drivers might be why the speed is too high, but ultimately it's the vehicle moving at a speed at which there is insufficient time to mitigate any problems that results in crashes.
      - constantcrying 2y ago
        >A stationary car is not going to cause a crash. Plainly wrong. >Inattention from drivers might be why the speed is too high, but ultimately it's the vehicle moving at a speed at which there is insufficient time to mitigate any problems that results in crashes. That speed can easily be far below the speed limit. The speed is near irrelevant compared to the delay the driver causes by not paying proper attention. A drunk driver driving significantly below the speed limit is far more dangerous than an attentive driver, driving above the speed limit. This is pretty obvious I think.
        hgomersall 2y ago
        If all vehicles were stationary, there would be no crashes. I'm not sure how you can argue with that.
        fragmede 2y ago
        drunk bicyclists.
        hgomersall 2y ago
        The drunk cyclist presumably is moving? I.e. at speed?
- SonicPondered 2y ago
  Yeah, I'm trying to think of scenarios where I go over the speed limit, and they're all blatantly obvious cases of accident avoidance in my mind. Specially due to other people being really terrible drivers. For example, I'll sometimes go over the speed limit when overtaking someone, because they don't actually know that you should NEVER speed up (only maintain or lose speed) while you're being overtaken. Oh no, that's not common sense, that's LAW almost everywhere. But the worst of all cases: 3 lane highway. Me (car A) and another guy (Car B) in an acceleration lane (so 4th) trying to merge in. A car (C) in lane 3 is trying to weave between us two, as the lane is also an exit. All fine. I'll merge in, the Car C will too, and Car B will do so a bit behind. Car (D) speeding up on lane 2 quickly turns and clearly shows themselves meaning to go to the exit lane, but noooooo, not behind anyone, he MUST go ahead of Car C. There are three outcomes in this mongoloid's cerebral physics puzzle. He crashes me if I don't get out of the way, he crashes C if they don't give way, or he panics, does something weird and either of them crash into B. I slammed the pedal faster than I could even process what was up. If some stupid retarded automated system got in the way of that moment, I'd be in the workshop and considering my position on political activism a bit more than before.
  - USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago
    Two wrongs don't make a right. If everyone around you is driving like a maniac you shouldn't try to best them.
    - snvzz 2y ago
      You should definitely read that again. There's no "besting". Those were examples in which the ability to accelerate prevented actual accidents.
      - USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago
        Oh believe me I read the second scenario several times. For the first one it's "blatantly obvious" that you should just stop overtaking if someone is being hostile against you. Even if you have a rally cross situation behind you, the physics works out to be safer if you abort. Second one is rather confusing, but it would appear that this driver of D having realized intentions of C decided to brute force the situation with speed, making driver of A to solve everything again with even more speed. This mentality of speeding just ends up amplifying until something gives.
ermir 2y ago
Next step: have a speed tracker on the car that will report speeding straight to the cops, no need for them to see you with a radar or anything like that. In general there's lots of politicians and "administrators" who salivate at tech like this that constrain people and make them manageable. I find these attempts very undignified and totalitarian.
- _Wintermute 2y ago
  You're operating fast moving heavy machinery in a public space, an activity that kills thousands each year. If you want freedom then do it elsewhere.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - redrove 2y ago
    > If you want freedom then do it elsewhere. EU in a nutshell.
  - ermir 2y ago
    Well, why not have alcohol breath sensors in all cars? Why not have the car not start at all without the seatbelts being in place, and not just have the annoying alarm? Why not have the car stop going over 20 km/h if it's unregistered?
- akmarinov 2y ago
  Overall limiting cars to a maximum of 160 km/h seems like a good idea. Apart from some stretches of the Autobahn - there's not much reason cars should go that fast.
  - TomK32 2y ago
    Less reason for them to accelerate like they do. 0-100 km/h in 5 seconds will kill people in a city if you do it by accident, which already happens.
demondemidi 2y ago
It is set by .. . The driver???
- larschdk 2y ago
  The entire purpose is to remind, not prevent.
  - eru 2y ago
    Though I can imagine over time, when an accident happens and you had your limiter off, that the burden of proof for who's at fault shifts. Similar to how on much of the German Autobahn you can drive as fast as you want, but if you are significantly above 130km/h and an accident happens, the fast party is the one deemed guilty (unless clearly proven otherwise).
  - demondemidi 2y ago
    That makes sense. I would really like it if my car would warn me that I'm exceeding the speed limit of a stretch of road, and update dynamically. Google displays the speed limit, but doesn't warn me, and is wrong ~40% of the time.
deergomoo 2y ago
My understanding was that some sort of warning system was mandatory, but that physical speed limitation is not. (Edit: it does clarify this in the article—not sure how I missed that) In any case: I hate this. Having an intuitive understanding of the handling characteristics of your vehicle is critical to driving safely, and if you go to overtake someone or try to merge, only to discover that the car isn’t accelerating because it’s decided the speed limit is lower than it is, accidents will happen. I have an older Civic which will read road signs but doesn’t do anything but display them on the dash—and thank god, because it’s constantly getting it wrong. Modern cars have so many beeps and bongs and touch controls that I can’t help wonder if the extra distraction is a net negative. It’s also a bit of a trope that the various lane keep assist features on modern cars will repeatedly try to drive you into a hedge or oncoming traffic the second you take them on a twisty British country road. It’s quite common for motoring enthusiasts to tune ECUs for performance; I suspect hacking the thing to make them remember that you’ve turned them off will be equally popular.
prepend 2y ago
In my area, everyone goes about 10mph above the limit. Police don’t ticket. Will this system limit exactly at the speed limit? Or will it have some buffer threshold? This seems like pretty bad tech that I don’t want. And the way it’s written seems very gaslighty… “ the speed limiter technology is simply there to prevent ‘momentary lapses of concentration’ that could result in speeding” I don’t think my speeding is the result of momentary lapses of concentration, but calculated decisions about immediate road conditions or long term travel goals (eg, if I go 9 over the limit on a 10 hour trip, it reduces the trip by an hour).
- akmarinov 2y ago
  You can turn it off, but you have to do it every time you start a drive, like the auto start/stop system does at the moment
- kristo 2y ago
  The system is also supposed to discourage you from breaking the law intentionally, yes.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  That seems like a problem with your police force, not the tech. In the part of Dublin I live in, there's a 30km/h speed limit (dense urban centre - travel times didn't really change when it came in as the traffic is horrendous anyway). It's somewhat common for people (generally visitors) to ignore this completely, barreling along far too fast and putting people in danger. I'd be quite keen on anything that would stop that.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  I think this was tried in the US a very long time ago. Not as a law but as a limited experiment. I do not remember much, but I think it was abandoned due to a couple of safety issues. One I can think of is long steep down hills with a large truck in back of you. Cases could exist were you could not get out of the way and you cannot speed up. I do not remember the details. In many places in the US, this scenario does exist.
HPsquared 2y ago
Could be very unsafe if this kicks in unexpectedly during an overtaking manoeuvre on a single carriageway. Less speed during the overtake is less margin to oncoming traffic (more time spent in the oncoming lane), and a small speed difference can have a big effect. Edit: another comment mentioned merging- this too can be huge. If your car isn't keeping up with the flow of traffic, or unable to move faster, that could also directly cause accidents if there's a space in front but no space behind.
- syrgian 2y ago
  The article mentions it is not a limiter, but rather a speed limit warning. So none of your hypothetical scenarios apply, other than drivers might learn not to overtake if breaking the speed limit is necessary because the warning is annoying.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    It does limit engine power but I see further down there's an emergency override (by pressing hard on the accelerator) which would get around these issues.
    - anymouse123456 2y ago
      I'm curious about this user experience and whether most people would be comfortable with it, especially while merging. When I press hard on the accelerator to cancel a speed limit, does the car accelerate hard too? Or is this signal trapped for the cancel operation?
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      This is only of the options which are being evaluated, there are others which amount to only warning.
- DopplerSmell 2y ago
  Any kind of real physical restrictions will initially be geofenced to grade seperated roads.
robocat 2y ago
> The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has said the move will reduce collisions by 30%. At least they have given an almost measurable outcome. If only they would choose some measurable metric that had a clear cause and effect and link the legislation to scientific outcomes. Unlike the other bullshit statement "The European Commission has said the speed limiters could prevent 140,000 serious road traffic injuries"... Dangerous drivers speed. Reducing top speeds should prevent some serious crashes, but I am curious whether it would be as effective as hoped. And sure as shit it is nobodies job to check reality against hopes.
- vidarh 2y ago
  I wish measurable intended outcomes were a requirement for laws and regulations, and that they could be nullified in court if it could be proven the intended outcome wasn't met. Partly it'd force people to state the intent more clearly, and partly it'd mean that if they were trying to mislead and indicate the wrong targets, the laws might get stricken off. It'd be hard to do it in ways that couldn't be gamed by e.g. promising too little (though presumably that'd make it easier politically to oppose as well) or making it something hard to objectively measure, though.
HPsquared 2y ago
I hope there is some kind of emergency override, like applying full accelerator input, to get out of danger spots. (Edit: article says it would indeed have this)
mihemihe 2y ago
After living for 15 years in the Middle East and frequently traveling to other countries around the world, including the US, Egypt, Thailand, and more, I trust European traffic and car regulators and their policies 100%. Landing back in my home country in Europe makes me marvel at how fast, yet safe and organized, the traffic is. So, I am pretty sure this system will be effective in the long run. Right now, it just seems like a trial, which may require fine-tuning, but fast forward a few years, and everyone will be completely accustomed to it.
- nxm 2y ago
  I have to disagree - the mental load to process all the traffic signs + narrow roads + roundabouts makes driving in Europe much more tiring and somewhat error prone.
  - piva00 2y ago
    Statistics don't really lie though, European countries are amongst the safest for road traffic in the world.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > Right now, it just seems like a trial, which may require fine-tuning, but fast forward a few years, and everyone will be completely accustomed to it. I'm quite doubtful about the latter statement: - I know quite some people (in Germany) who still complain about the mandatory seat belt laws that were introduced in 1976 in Germany for front seats (and since 1984 for back seats if they had seat belts). - Another example: in 2009 light bulbs were banned in the EU. I know quite a lot of people who still deeply hate the EU for this. As I feel the current political climate, the hate against the EU in the wider public is insane. Every new such legislation is another kindled fuse for the powder keg of the fury in the public against the EU.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Another example: in 2009 light bulbs were banned in the EU For the sake of anyone confused by this, incandescent lightbulbs, and even then a phase-out — Halogen was 2018 according to Wikipedia, but this news doesn't seem to have reached my local hardware store in Berlin: https://www.obi.de/search/halogen/ https://www.obi.de/search/halogen/ Plenty of light bulbs for sale, they're just different than the ones I had as a kid.
yaris 2y ago
In addition to Intelligent Speed Assistance the same regulation mandates automakers to equip cars with "black boxes" akin to those in planes. On the other hand, I could not find anything in there saying that manufacturers will have only four options to inform the driver about speeding, this must come from somewhere else (hard to say from the article almost without references).
davidwritesbugs 2y ago
I'm hoping backstreet reprogrammers will be able to patch the ECUs to ignore this tosh. I'm the person best placed to decide how fast I drive.
- rpacut 2y ago
  [dead]
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
That means that the Northern Ireland will be united with Ireland. That's really good news. It's long time overdue.
- HeckFeck 2y ago
  A bit of a leap to go from EU-mandated speed limiters to a transfer of sovereignty. If anything it shows how little control NI, and indeed the Republic, has over its own laws.
RedShift1 2y ago
Speed limiters? I think I'm gonna keep my 12 year old do-whatever-you-want mad max driving machine as long as humanly possible.
- DopplerSmell 2y ago
  First the speed limiter, then massive fines for speeding, then limited registration for legacy cars. As long as possible might be shorter than you would like.
  - TomK32 2y ago
    I can't think of any country that limits registration of older cars, can you?
ale42 2y ago
I hope that a device that prevents people from tapping on their phones while driving will also be made and become mandatory. I see people doing that literally every single day, and it's proven it can kill people (because it did actually happen). And those who do, they are not driving fancy cars with some limited self-driving capability, just regular cars that you need to actually drive.
aspyct 2y ago
I have a so-called "intelligent speed limited" in my 2 year old car. It's absolutely terrible. On the highway it picks up the 50km/h panel intended for the bus lanes. Close to where I live it hallucinates a 5km/h limit. In random places it will miss limitations. Right now it simply decreases engine power. On a highway that's already dangerous enough. Can't wait till they use the same visual/audio warnings as they do for the pre-collision assistant... By the way, that's bullshit too. Triggering for no good reason and scary enough to take my eyes off the road. Love it.
red_admiral 2y ago
The article seems to mix up several systems. On the one hand, there's the limiter set by the driver (that you can override by pushing the pedal down hard), which is usually activated by the same lever or buttons as cruise control but works differently - you accelerate to 50mph in a 50 zone, activate the limiter, and the car will not accelerate above that limit. You can just push the gas pedal down and hold your speed as long as the road is free. The other system is the sign detection (sometimes GPS assisted) which displays a limit sign on your dashboard and beeps at you if you go over it. My experiences as a passenger in the UK in a 2016 registration car: - It does not recognise that "chopsticks" (start of motorway) raises the limit to 70 mph unless stated otherwise. - It does not recognise a National Speed Limit sign built into an "end of roadworks" sign (which is the normal UK way to end a roadworks-based speed restriction on a motorway). - When one lane is out for works, there's usually big 60 (sometimes 50) signs for the cars and a very small 15 sign for the works vehicles. Sometimes, the camera picks up the 15 sign and beeps at you about that. I don't know if the technology has got better since. Maybe we can use AI or something.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  > chopsticks I’ve been driving for a long time but I’ve never heard this term until today https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Chopsticks https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Chopstic...
isoprophlex 2y ago
beeps when you turn the corner. beeps when you change lanes. beeps when you take your hands off the wheel. beeps when the engine starts. beeps when you open the door with the engine running. beeps when you don't have your seatbelt on before the engine is started. beeps when you open the trunk. beeps when you close the trunk. beeps when you stop the engine and it's not in neutral. beeps when you drive with something heavy resting on the back seats. i guess i won't notice these beeps when you speed too much.
fellerts 2y ago
Everywhere I’ve driven people go ~10% above the limit because everyone knows the speedometer isn’t accurate (confirmed by those radar stations that report your speed live). Will this limiter use the true speed or the car's reported speed? I fear we will see many more overtakes as this limiter makes its way onto the roads.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  My Nissan was like this. My Tesla seems to match the speed on the signs however.
rpacut 2y ago
[dead]
multimoon 2y ago
I can think of so many ways this can go terribly wrong, for little to no pay off. If they ever attempt this in America looks like I’ll be driving older vehicles for the rest of my life. Edit: looks like it’s a warning not a limiter - so that’s still just as silly, it’s not going to really stop anyone from speeding, it’s just going to become another annoying non-feature of new cars that everyone hates like auto start-stop.

29 points by instagib 2y ago

It will stop you from exceeding speed limits based on gps or cameras reading speed limit signs. Can disable with a hard acceleration or disable each time you start driving with a button press.

snvzz 2y ago

A sound alert is fine. Any actual interference with driving will not prevent, but cause, accidents. An example of this would be resistance on the pedal causing added latency on acceleration attempt.

hgomersall 2y ago
Why will it not prevent accidents? Most accidents are not caused by a lack of speed but rather, too much speed. Sure, one can hypothesise scenarios in which rapid acceleration is desirable to avoid an accident, but I'm sceptical those are very common in reality, and the obvious ones I can think of are around people performing dangerous manoeuvres (like overtaking with insufficient space).
- constantcrying 2y ago
  >Most accidents are not caused by a lack of speed but rather, too much speed. Any evidence for that? Don't you think inattention from drivers or mechanical failures are more likely causes?
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    A stationary car is not going to cause a crash. Inattention from drivers might be why the speed is too high, but ultimately it's the vehicle moving at a speed at which there is insufficient time to mitigate any problems that results in crashes.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      >A stationary car is not going to cause a crash. Plainly wrong. >Inattention from drivers might be why the speed is too high, but ultimately it's the vehicle moving at a speed at which there is insufficient time to mitigate any problems that results in crashes. That speed can easily be far below the speed limit. The speed is near irrelevant compared to the delay the driver causes by not paying proper attention. A drunk driver driving significantly below the speed limit is far more dangerous than an attentive driver, driving above the speed limit. This is pretty obvious I think.
      - hgomersall 2y ago
        If all vehicles were stationary, there would be no crashes. I'm not sure how you can argue with that.
        fragmede 2y ago
        drunk bicyclists.
        hgomersall 2y ago
        The drunk cyclist presumably is moving? I.e. at speed?
SonicPondered 2y ago
Yeah, I'm trying to think of scenarios where I go over the speed limit, and they're all blatantly obvious cases of accident avoidance in my mind. Specially due to other people being really terrible drivers. For example, I'll sometimes go over the speed limit when overtaking someone, because they don't actually know that you should NEVER speed up (only maintain or lose speed) while you're being overtaken. Oh no, that's not common sense, that's LAW almost everywhere. But the worst of all cases: 3 lane highway. Me (car A) and another guy (Car B) in an acceleration lane (so 4th) trying to merge in. A car (C) in lane 3 is trying to weave between us two, as the lane is also an exit. All fine. I'll merge in, the Car C will too, and Car B will do so a bit behind. Car (D) speeding up on lane 2 quickly turns and clearly shows themselves meaning to go to the exit lane, but noooooo, not behind anyone, he MUST go ahead of Car C. There are three outcomes in this mongoloid's cerebral physics puzzle. He crashes me if I don't get out of the way, he crashes C if they don't give way, or he panics, does something weird and either of them crash into B. I slammed the pedal faster than I could even process what was up. If some stupid retarded automated system got in the way of that moment, I'd be in the workshop and considering my position on political activism a bit more than before.
- USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago
  Two wrongs don't make a right. If everyone around you is driving like a maniac you shouldn't try to best them.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    You should definitely read that again. There's no "besting". Those were examples in which the ability to accelerate prevented actual accidents.
    - USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago
      Oh believe me I read the second scenario several times. For the first one it's "blatantly obvious" that you should just stop overtaking if someone is being hostile against you. Even if you have a rally cross situation behind you, the physics works out to be safer if you abort. Second one is rather confusing, but it would appear that this driver of D having realized intentions of C decided to brute force the situation with speed, making driver of A to solve everything again with even more speed. This mentality of speeding just ends up amplifying until something gives.

ermir 2y ago

Next step: have a speed tracker on the car that will report speeding straight to the cops, no need for them to see you with a radar or anything like that. In general there's lots of politicians and "administrators" who salivate at tech like this that constrain people and make them manageable. I find these attempts very undignified and totalitarian.

_Wintermute 2y ago
You're operating fast moving heavy machinery in a public space, an activity that kills thousands each year. If you want freedom then do it elsewhere.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- redrove 2y ago
  > If you want freedom then do it elsewhere. EU in a nutshell.
- ermir 2y ago
  Well, why not have alcohol breath sensors in all cars? Why not have the car not start at all without the seatbelts being in place, and not just have the annoying alarm? Why not have the car stop going over 20 km/h if it's unregistered?
akmarinov 2y ago
Overall limiting cars to a maximum of 160 km/h seems like a good idea. Apart from some stretches of the Autobahn - there's not much reason cars should go that fast.
- TomK32 2y ago
  Less reason for them to accelerate like they do. 0-100 km/h in 5 seconds will kill people in a city if you do it by accident, which already happens.

demondemidi 2y ago

It is set by .. . The driver???

larschdk 2y ago
The entire purpose is to remind, not prevent.
- eru 2y ago
  Though I can imagine over time, when an accident happens and you had your limiter off, that the burden of proof for who's at fault shifts. Similar to how on much of the German Autobahn you can drive as fast as you want, but if you are significantly above 130km/h and an accident happens, the fast party is the one deemed guilty (unless clearly proven otherwise).
- demondemidi 2y ago
  That makes sense. I would really like it if my car would warn me that I'm exceeding the speed limit of a stretch of road, and update dynamically. Google displays the speed limit, but doesn't warn me, and is wrong ~40% of the time.

deergomoo 2y ago

My understanding was that some sort of warning system was mandatory, but that physical speed limitation is not. (Edit: it does clarify this in the article—not sure how I missed that) In any case: I hate this. Having an intuitive understanding of the handling characteristics of your vehicle is critical to driving safely, and if you go to overtake someone or try to merge, only to discover that the car isn’t accelerating because it’s decided the speed limit is lower than it is, accidents will happen. I have an older Civic which will read road signs but doesn’t do anything but display them on the dash—and thank god, because it’s constantly getting it wrong. Modern cars have so many beeps and bongs and touch controls that I can’t help wonder if the extra distraction is a net negative. It’s also a bit of a trope that the various lane keep assist features on modern cars will repeatedly try to drive you into a hedge or oncoming traffic the second you take them on a twisty British country road. It’s quite common for motoring enthusiasts to tune ECUs for performance; I suspect hacking the thing to make them remember that you’ve turned them off will be equally popular.

prepend 2y ago

In my area, everyone goes about 10mph above the limit. Police don’t ticket. Will this system limit exactly at the speed limit? Or will it have some buffer threshold? This seems like pretty bad tech that I don’t want. And the way it’s written seems very gaslighty… “ the speed limiter technology is simply there to prevent ‘momentary lapses of concentration’ that could result in speeding” I don’t think my speeding is the result of momentary lapses of concentration, but calculated decisions about immediate road conditions or long term travel goals (eg, if I go 9 over the limit on a 10 hour trip, it reduces the trip by an hour).

akmarinov 2y ago
You can turn it off, but you have to do it every time you start a drive, like the auto start/stop system does at the moment
kristo 2y ago
The system is also supposed to discourage you from breaking the law intentionally, yes.
rsynnott 2y ago
That seems like a problem with your police force, not the tech. In the part of Dublin I live in, there's a 30km/h speed limit (dense urban centre - travel times didn't really change when it came in as the traffic is horrendous anyway). It's somewhat common for people (generally visitors) to ignore this completely, barreling along far too fast and putting people in danger. I'd be quite keen on anything that would stop that.
jmclnx 2y ago
I think this was tried in the US a very long time ago. Not as a law but as a limited experiment. I do not remember much, but I think it was abandoned due to a couple of safety issues. One I can think of is long steep down hills with a large truck in back of you. Cases could exist were you could not get out of the way and you cannot speed up. I do not remember the details. In many places in the US, this scenario does exist.

HPsquared 2y ago

Could be very unsafe if this kicks in unexpectedly during an overtaking manoeuvre on a single carriageway. Less speed during the overtake is less margin to oncoming traffic (more time spent in the oncoming lane), and a small speed difference can have a big effect. Edit: another comment mentioned merging- this too can be huge. If your car isn't keeping up with the flow of traffic, or unable to move faster, that could also directly cause accidents if there's a space in front but no space behind.

syrgian 2y ago
The article mentions it is not a limiter, but rather a speed limit warning. So none of your hypothetical scenarios apply, other than drivers might learn not to overtake if breaking the speed limit is necessary because the warning is annoying.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  It does limit engine power but I see further down there's an emergency override (by pressing hard on the accelerator) which would get around these issues.
  - anymouse123456 2y ago
    I'm curious about this user experience and whether most people would be comfortable with it, especially while merging. When I press hard on the accelerator to cancel a speed limit, does the car accelerate hard too? Or is this signal trapped for the cancel operation?
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    This is only of the options which are being evaluated, there are others which amount to only warning.
DopplerSmell 2y ago
Any kind of real physical restrictions will initially be geofenced to grade seperated roads.

robocat 2y ago

> The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has said the move will reduce collisions by 30%. At least they have given an almost measurable outcome. If only they would choose some measurable metric that had a clear cause and effect and link the legislation to scientific outcomes. Unlike the other bullshit statement "The European Commission has said the speed limiters could prevent 140,000 serious road traffic injuries"... Dangerous drivers speed. Reducing top speeds should prevent some serious crashes, but I am curious whether it would be as effective as hoped. And sure as shit it is nobodies job to check reality against hopes.

vidarh 2y ago
I wish measurable intended outcomes were a requirement for laws and regulations, and that they could be nullified in court if it could be proven the intended outcome wasn't met. Partly it'd force people to state the intent more clearly, and partly it'd mean that if they were trying to mislead and indicate the wrong targets, the laws might get stricken off. It'd be hard to do it in ways that couldn't be gamed by e.g. promising too little (though presumably that'd make it easier politically to oppose as well) or making it something hard to objectively measure, though.

HPsquared 2y ago

I hope there is some kind of emergency override, like applying full accelerator input, to get out of danger spots. (Edit: article says it would indeed have this)

mihemihe 2y ago

After living for 15 years in the Middle East and frequently traveling to other countries around the world, including the US, Egypt, Thailand, and more, I trust European traffic and car regulators and their policies 100%. Landing back in my home country in Europe makes me marvel at how fast, yet safe and organized, the traffic is. So, I am pretty sure this system will be effective in the long run. Right now, it just seems like a trial, which may require fine-tuning, but fast forward a few years, and everyone will be completely accustomed to it.

nxm 2y ago
I have to disagree - the mental load to process all the traffic signs + narrow roads + roundabouts makes driving in Europe much more tiring and somewhat error prone.
- piva00 2y ago
  Statistics don't really lie though, European countries are amongst the safest for road traffic in the world.
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> Right now, it just seems like a trial, which may require fine-tuning, but fast forward a few years, and everyone will be completely accustomed to it. I'm quite doubtful about the latter statement: - I know quite some people (in Germany) who still complain about the mandatory seat belt laws that were introduced in 1976 in Germany for front seats (and since 1984 for back seats if they had seat belts). - Another example: in 2009 light bulbs were banned in the EU. I know quite a lot of people who still deeply hate the EU for this. As I feel the current political climate, the hate against the EU in the wider public is insane. Every new such legislation is another kindled fuse for the powder keg of the fury in the public against the EU.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Another example: in 2009 light bulbs were banned in the EU For the sake of anyone confused by this, incandescent lightbulbs, and even then a phase-out — Halogen was 2018 according to Wikipedia, but this news doesn't seem to have reached my local hardware store in Berlin: https://www.obi.de/search/halogen/ https://www.obi.de/search/halogen/ Plenty of light bulbs for sale, they're just different than the ones I had as a kid.

yaris 2y ago

In addition to Intelligent Speed Assistance the same regulation mandates automakers to equip cars with "black boxes" akin to those in planes. On the other hand, I could not find anything in there saying that manufacturers will have only four options to inform the driver about speeding, this must come from somewhere else (hard to say from the article almost without references).

davidwritesbugs 2y ago

I'm hoping backstreet reprogrammers will be able to patch the ECUs to ignore this tosh. I'm the person best placed to decide how fast I drive.

rpacut 2y ago
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cynicalsecurity 2y ago

That means that the Northern Ireland will be united with Ireland. That's really good news. It's long time overdue.

HeckFeck 2y ago
A bit of a leap to go from EU-mandated speed limiters to a transfer of sovereignty. If anything it shows how little control NI, and indeed the Republic, has over its own laws.

RedShift1 2y ago

Speed limiters? I think I'm gonna keep my 12 year old do-whatever-you-want mad max driving machine as long as humanly possible.

DopplerSmell 2y ago
First the speed limiter, then massive fines for speeding, then limited registration for legacy cars. As long as possible might be shorter than you would like.
- TomK32 2y ago
  I can't think of any country that limits registration of older cars, can you?

ale42 2y ago

I hope that a device that prevents people from tapping on their phones while driving will also be made and become mandatory. I see people doing that literally every single day, and it's proven it can kill people (because it did actually happen). And those who do, they are not driving fancy cars with some limited self-driving capability, just regular cars that you need to actually drive.

aspyct 2y ago

I have a so-called "intelligent speed limited" in my 2 year old car. It's absolutely terrible. On the highway it picks up the 50km/h panel intended for the bus lanes. Close to where I live it hallucinates a 5km/h limit. In random places it will miss limitations. Right now it simply decreases engine power. On a highway that's already dangerous enough. Can't wait till they use the same visual/audio warnings as they do for the pre-collision assistant... By the way, that's bullshit too. Triggering for no good reason and scary enough to take my eyes off the road. Love it.

red_admiral 2y ago

The article seems to mix up several systems. On the one hand, there's the limiter set by the driver (that you can override by pushing the pedal down hard), which is usually activated by the same lever or buttons as cruise control but works differently - you accelerate to 50mph in a 50 zone, activate the limiter, and the car will not accelerate above that limit. You can just push the gas pedal down and hold your speed as long as the road is free. The other system is the sign detection (sometimes GPS assisted) which displays a limit sign on your dashboard and beeps at you if you go over it. My experiences as a passenger in the UK in a 2016 registration car: - It does not recognise that "chopsticks" (start of motorway) raises the limit to 70 mph unless stated otherwise. - It does not recognise a National Speed Limit sign built into an "end of roadworks" sign (which is the normal UK way to end a roadworks-based speed restriction on a motorway). - When one lane is out for works, there's usually big 60 (sometimes 50) signs for the cars and a very small 15 sign for the works vehicles. Sometimes, the camera picks up the 15 sign and beeps at you about that. I don't know if the technology has got better since. Maybe we can use AI or something.

thebruce87m 2y ago
> chopsticks I’ve been driving for a long time but I’ve never heard this term until today https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Chopsticks https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Chopstic...

isoprophlex 2y ago

beeps when you turn the corner. beeps when you change lanes. beeps when you take your hands off the wheel. beeps when the engine starts. beeps when you open the door with the engine running. beeps when you don't have your seatbelt on before the engine is started. beeps when you open the trunk. beeps when you close the trunk. beeps when you stop the engine and it's not in neutral. beeps when you drive with something heavy resting on the back seats. i guess i won't notice these beeps when you speed too much.

fellerts 2y ago

Everywhere I’ve driven people go ~10% above the limit because everyone knows the speedometer isn’t accurate (confirmed by those radar stations that report your speed live). Will this limiter use the true speed or the car's reported speed? I fear we will see many more overtakes as this limiter makes its way onto the roads.

thebruce87m 2y ago
My Nissan was like this. My Tesla seems to match the speed on the signs however.

rpacut 2y ago

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multimoon 2y ago

I can think of so many ways this can go terribly wrong, for little to no pay off. If they ever attempt this in America looks like I’ll be driving older vehicles for the rest of my life. Edit: looks like it’s a warning not a limiter - so that’s still just as silly, it’s not going to really stop anyone from speeding, it’s just going to become another annoying non-feature of new cars that everyone hates like auto start-stop.