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New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

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dangus 2y ago
From the article: "To put it simply, the system is dangerous." And then it proceeds to spend zero time at all describing exactly what is dangerous about it. Seriously, the article doesn't even hypothesize about what makes this dangerous, it just says that it's bad. The car I drove about 10 years ago had trouble exceeding the speed limit at times because it was a diesel! It was never dangerous. Trucks including rental trucks are already governed to very low speeds and they don't cause a problem. Articles like this feel to me a little bit like the seat belt deniers of the past. They'll all have to sheepishly eat their words when passenger and pedestrian deaths go down after the program is implemented. Cars aren't toys. They are transportation devices. They kill people. They really aren't about freedom or whatever, not when I'm trying not to get killed by a maniac.
- toast0 2y ago
  I think there's a fundamental issue here that the posted speed limit is often not the same thing as a reasonable maximum speed that's appropriate for conditions. Speed limits are set for all sorts of reasons that don't often match up with safety, and even then, they're usually set for normal conditions; when you have great visibility, dry pavement, and low traffic, it's often not unsafe to exceed the posted limit; just the same as when there's poor visibility, wet or icy pavement, or heavy traffic, following the posted limit is unsafe. Having an alarm that distracts the driver when they're driving a safe and reasonable speed is an unnecessary distraction. And it won't help drivers maintain a safe and reasonable speed in unfavorable conditions, unless this also comes with real time updates for pavement conditions, visibility, construction, etc. For cars that have trouble exceeding the speed limit, it can be dangerous --- sometimes there are scenarios where exceeding the speed limit is the safest course of action; but experience with the vehicle would help you anticipate its capabilities, and it is what it is. Usually there's pretty clear feedback that the vehicle isn't going to go much faster, so you will tend to avoid putting yourself in situations where you need lots of speed. Rental trucks governors aren't necessarily as obvious, but that's also more of a statement that trucks should have a lower maximum limit regardless of conditions and that the rental company doesn't trust renters to be aware of safe speeds for trucks.
  - stoneman24 2y ago
    There is also many places where there are extremely few posted speed signs. The A9 in Scotland from Perth to Inverness is a notoriously dangerous road (it has large sections of single carriageway [60mph] with occasional dual carriage [70mph]). It has many junctions where cars can cross lanes to leave on minor roads. So bad, it has a large system of average speed cameras to hopefully control the traffic. Driving slowly (40-50) on this long road will cause cars, buses and trucks to try and overtake even on the single carriageway sections which is risky for everybody. But very few actual speed signs, so you end confused and wondering exactly what is the correct value for that section and anxious about the next average speed camera. And that’s for experienced uk drivers, I hate to think how stressed the tourists are ?
  - dangus 2y ago
    I'm confused at your argument. You're talking about inclement conditions where you're supposed to be driving below the speed limit anyway. If everyone is at or below the speed limit, there is no situation where the reasonable maximum that exceeds the speed limit. Perhaps you could safely drive faster, but nobody actually has to drive faster. And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics.
    - toast0 2y ago
      > And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics. The faster we travel, the less time we spend traveling. The posted limit is not necessarily a reasonable maximum speed; that's my point in both directions.
      - dangus 2y ago
        The math does not work that way. If you’re going 70mph you travel 16.6% further in the same amount of time. But your average stopping distance increases 240 to 315 feet, 31% increase. This also stresses your reaction time. Risk of severe injury in pedestrian accidents goes like this: 16mph: 10% 23mph: 25% 31mph: 50% So if you slow down in a pedestrian heavy area from 31mph to 23mph, you travel 30% slower but if you hit someone you’ve cut the chance of seriously injuring them in half. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/learning-to-drive/stopping-distances/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/learning-to-drive/stoppin... https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/ https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve...
- falcolas 2y ago
  If you are accelerating, particularly in an EV, and your car starts screwing with your controls while pelting you with a high decibal alarm you used to only hear in an imminent collision, your chances of losing control are going to skyrocket. It happens all the time with inexperienced drivers and high performance vehicles, and consumer EVs are also high performance vehicles. Hyundai - one of the manufacturers mentioned in the article - makes an EV with a sub-3s 0-60 time.
  - dangus 2y ago
    I'm confused at this argument. It sounds like the driver has already lost control? Or is this just making an excuse for assholes who accelerate too fast? Or making excuses for cars that are sold as dangerous toys instead of transportation devices? Like, yeah, maybe there should be a 0-60 limit imposed on manufacturers, too. I would think that this would be complimentary to my argument. I think it's also potentially strange to think that a chime is going to cause people to dramatically lose control of their vehicle in this imagined scenario.
sparker72678 2y ago
Once it goes beyond alerting, this is going to kill someone. A driver will be on a 2-lane road (1 lane each way), and attempt to pass the driver in front of them. A car will be coming the other way, and they won't be able to get in front in time. They'll try to slow and get back in, but the other cars will have filled the space. They'll have nowhere to go. Perhaps in this example the driver shouldn't have tried to pass in the first place, but removing an "out" from this situation, in which everyone gets to go home to their families, is a horrible idea.
- taeric 2y ago
  This scenario is terribly specified. If you don't have clear time to pass a car in front of you without going an absurd amount over the posted speed limit, you almost certainly are putting yourself in danger already? I'll go further and say that people that take excess speeds in this scenario are already causing more accidents today, than a limiter would cause in the future. Edit: I should say I think it would be a bad idea to have the car force you to go slower than 1km over a limit. Having it visually alert that you are speeding, though, seems far more reasonable.
  - imoverclocked 2y ago
    It is poorly specified but also pretty common with the obvious variations. Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      > Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up. Happens all the time to me. It's usually people in big trucks who get angy that a car dares to pass them. They'll go up over 80mph in a 45mph zone if you don't (or can't) finish the pass, or give up. And if you give up, they'll brake check you for your audacity. Having your controls start misbehaving while accelerating, or loud beeping (which is currently reserved for "you're about to hit something" while driving) is asking for a driver to lose control.
shermozle 2y ago
Drove a rented Kia in Central Australia recently that had this. It was fine: just stick below the speed limit. "Dangerous" to someone who continuously rides the speed limit perhaps.
- taneq 2y ago
  The speed limit is the speed you should be driving in most circumstances, and is set far below the maximum safe speed for the road. Driving significantly below the pasted speed is as dangerous driving significantly above it.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    Some roads have ridiculously low posted limits. Everyone goes well over, yet those roads are not noted for accidents. If they set the speed limit according to how everyone drives there, then I'd be in more in favor of alerting those who go even 1 km/h over that.
  - stoneman24 2y ago
    Driving significantly below the pasted speed Without good reason will get you failed in the UK driving test for not making adequate progress. As my office colleague found out recently.
- mrkpdl 2y ago
  I own one, unfortunately it is often wrong about what the speed limit is. So it’s not quite so straightforward.
  - glenngillen 2y ago
    We’ve a fairly new car with a similar system (that can be ignored/disabled thankfully). It seems to have both a some GPS/location based awareness of what the speed is meant to be that it falls back to as well as a camera based detection. I find it useful as a reference incase I don’t know what the speed is and missed the previous sign, but it’s also regularly wrong and not to be entirely trusted. For example the on ramp to the closest freeway near us it consistently reports as 10km/h when it’s actually 100km/h. I don’t know what it is about that sign specifically it can’t read as it looks fine to the human eye, but it would try to cap our speed on the freeway to >=90 km/h slower than the rest of the traffic (most are traveling slightly above) if we were to have the system enabled. As others in the comments have suggested it also can’t be trusted to get the speed right in school zones or for the correct distance for variable recommendations (e.g., speed bumps, roundabouts, etc.)
AcerbicZero 2y ago
An overly sensitive speed alert system that triggers warnings for even 1 km/h over the limit is a misguided approach to road safety. It fails to account for minor fluctuations in speed that naturally occur during normal driving, potentially causing more distraction and stress than it prevents. This system could lead to drivers constantly focusing on their speedometer rather than the road, ironically decreasing overall safety. Additionally, it ignores the context-dependent nature of safe driving speeds and the small margins of error in both vehicle speedometers and speed limit postings. Ultimately, such a system risks creating overly anxious drivers and diminishing respect for speed limits, rather than promoting genuinely safer driving practices. This will either be ignored after the first week, or more likely, removed via the aftermarket.
Apreche 2y ago
We have many studies that show speeding is dangerous. Sounds like this system is very effective at discouraging speeding. Until I see studies showing more people are dying on road because of this system than because of speeding, sounds like it’s working as intended.
- tazu 2y ago
  I frequently pass cars that have signs of an impaired driver. Usually the driver is texting, but the signs are usually failure to maintain lane, frequent (unnecessary) brake tapping, and sporadic acceleration. Something that impedes my ability to pass unsafe drivers is unsafe.
  - mrob 2y ago
    If you're following close enough for them to be a danger to you then your driving is already unsafe.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      Close enough to be a danger in a car is "visible" (even if the view of them is blocked). More specific to the example is someone going 20 under the ambient traffic. They are someone you should get past safely, not stay behind.
    - StanislavPetrov 2y ago
      I regularly see drivers who are obviously drunk and intoxicated and swerving all over the road, variously speeding up and slowing down. The safest thing to do is to accelerate well clear of these drivers and leave them far behind, not slow down to an absurdly slow speed and drive behind them for miles and miles.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    An unsafe driver ahead of you is safer than one behind you. (If you're not keeping enough of a distance, then the unsafe driver is you.)
tazu 2y ago
One place this would definitely be dangerous is in my city in the US. There's an interstate highway with a posted limit of 55mph, but everyone does 70mph+ (there is no police enforcement, because it's too dangerous---pulling people over here causes more accidents due to rubbernecking and traffic). If you were to actually go the speed limit, you'd be constantly passed (on both sides) by aggressive drivers and cause unnecessary lane switching behind you.
- timbit42 2y ago
  Where I live, the police won't pull you over for speeding if everyone is doing that speed because it wouldn't be safe for you to drive the posted speed limit as it would cause accidents.
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mrkpdl 2y ago
I have one of the cars with this system and I believe it is dangerous, as the car is beeping for your attention, it causes regular split second distractions from your situational awareness. The main issue is that these aren’t the only beeps the car does, it has many other beeps, including one for when it notices the speed limit has changed. So you have to spend some mental power figuring out which beep you’re getting. It’s very distracting. Not to mention the fact that the system is wrong just as often as it is right. It often mistakes speed bump speeds for whole street speeds and beeps at you for not going 20 the full length of the street. It also has about 33% accuracy with school zones. Sometimes it knows it’s a school zone but mostly it will beep if you go over 40 in a school zone even at times when the limit is not 40. I do think it is a dangerous system as it aggressively draws your attention away from the road. Also for what it’s worth I’m actually on the slightly slow side of driving! I don’t push the limit, and this system is still an issue.
- brnt 2y ago
  My car is from before this time but I've driven a few rentals with these features and it is absolutely terrible. Feels like you're driving a theme park ride, with all that flashing and beeping. What's also terrible is how they're constantly correcting the steering wheel because of invariably incorrect lane detection and one car would even happily overcorrect but then steer me right over the opposite line because it would never correct its own manoeuvres. I will never buy a car like this and I will happily drive second hand vehicles instead. No way. Car manufacturers just suck at software, always have and always will, and these systems make everything worse and less safe.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    You can drive without lane assist in most cases. Many models require you to explicitly turn it on each time you want to use it (like cruise control).
    - brnt 2y ago
      I'm in Europe, so no, it's mandatory that it is on and impossible to disable for new models.
switch007 2y ago
People defending the system: are you presupposing it is perfect? Because let me tell you: - Start-stop when it first came out was not perfect, still isn't * - Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal - Crash detection systems are horrendously bad - My car thinks it knows the speed limits of the road I'm on but it's often wrong I'd love to know what new modern cars you drive with perfect 'safety' systems (I've driven a lot of modern cars) * I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars. At least on manuals you can keep the clutch pressed to pause it. Need to pull away quickly? Sorry, wait a second for the engine to turn back on...
- toast0 2y ago
  > - Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal I've had these in three cars, they're not too bad; other than the ones without an easy way to turn them off are terrible for ferries and drive-in movies. Automatic high-beams are pretty terrible though, but IMHO, you should rarely have your high beams on if you're within 2 miles of another car. > I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars I've rented a variety of cars with different systems. Some of them are truly awful, but the ones that sense when you start to pull your foot off the brake, and have a short start time aren't awful. Probably I'm not buying anything with start-stop; my last new vehicle was half a model year before they added it, and my next new vehicle is going to be a hybrid, and I if I buy more old vehicles, they're likely to predate start-stop, probably by a significant amount. I will also add that existing cars that report the speed limit to me are often wrong in both directions, so I wouldn't trust anything other than a very mild warning. You want to show the speed limit in black when I'm under it, and red when I'm above it (preferably by at least 3-5 mph), go for it... that sounds nice and useful. You want to beep at me once gently if I go 10 mph over and maybe once more at 15-25 over? Reasonable, I suppose; maybe even a reminder beep every 5 minutes. Anything more and your data had better be completely accurate.
throwaway22032 2y ago
I feel as if the fundamental issue with speed limits is that they often feel arbitrary and infantilizing. If the roads are designed properly then you don't really need them except perhaps as a warning (e.g. the German autobahn isn't unlimited on sections that have tight corners). My residential street in London is a 20mph limit. But it doesn't need a limit because it has speed bumps frequently enough that if you care about your suspension at all your max speed is average 15ish anyway. Then there's the main roads leading into town which are also 20mph limits, but are double lane roads with fairly wide lanes. Some of them even have metal dividers. It fundamentally makes no sense for the limit to be the same on both of those roads. One of them is a proper thoroughfare with a high design limit that was 30 until very recently (probably 40 or higher "back in the day"). The other is a neighbourhood that only really the residents and visitors have any business driving on.
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motohagiography 2y ago
hard caps and mandating enforcement like this makes me yearn for the meteor. speed limits make more sense as average speeds, but I suspect I may be of a different species than somone of such a literal mind who holds the opposite view where they would advocate for this sort of thing. I don't see how this is reconcilable.
DominikPeters 2y ago
I'm generally strongly in favor of technical system for making speeding impossible -- for example I don't think it should be legal to sell cars that are able to go 100km/h on city streets. But this implementation seems designed to elicit backlash. Beeping is bad, and setting the tolerance at zero is not friendly given general driver behavior. I'd find it much more sensible to have "smooth" systems, such as a constant "buzzing" sound whose volume increases with the square of the speed excess, or translating pedal pressure into speed in such a way that convexly increasing amounts of pressure are required to go further above the limit.
- reportgunner 2y ago
  What about ambulances, police cars and firetrucks, would you prevent them from speeding as well ?
  - DominikPeters 2y ago
    No.
    - reportgunner 2y ago
      How do you stop people making speeding vehicles for firemen and medics from making speeding cars for themselves and their friends then ?
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maxrumpf 2y ago
This comment section is scary. Hacker news advocating FOR nanny technology?!
imoverclocked 2y ago
> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature. So much so it has net effect on our mental health. There are dozens and dozens of peer reviewed studies that correlate the capacity to choose with happiness. For many people, a car is a phenomenon of personal freedom. Like any freedom, some people abuse it. Taking freedoms away (even perceived ones) is dangerous. My big issue with attempts like this are that they fail to encompass the whole experience of driving. An obvious one: if it’s speed that you want to control, then you need lower and upper limits. Lower limits means that some cars need to be stopped from entering certain roads at all. A tractor that can only go 15 mph should never be on an interstate… unless, of course, it’s working on the interstate. Good luck with that! The system of driving was made with fairly simple rules for humans to abide by. It wasn’t designed for and isn’t made strictly safer by partially automating portions of driving. I have yet to see any implementation that lacks downsides.
cromulen 2y ago
I for one support this system. I drive a VW with this feature and it's fine. It recognizes signs well enough. There's a built in grace of about 5km/h. The only thing the car does is that it produces a few gentle dinging sounds that are completely different from other warning sounds like parking sensors, when someone hasn't buckled in, door is open, etc. I have no intention of speeding and welcome the warning to consider I may have missed a sign. And if it is wrong, or I wish to ignore it, it's only like three subtle dings before it shuts up. It's fine. Perhaps the issue is not in the law, but the specific car manufacturer in the article.
seniorsassycat 2y ago
I don't see anything wrong with this and hope that countries and manufacturers start to cut power or refuse to exceed limits. At the very least within cities and towns. New modes of transit have geofenced speed govenors, I don't think we should grandfather cars exceptions.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I rode in a waymo for the first time yesterday, and it was going the speed limit in downtown SF (20 MPH) while cars were speeding around us. It seems like in the future if all cars are driven by robots, traffic would go much slower, maybe to the detriment of intended capacity (the roads still felt really busy, I assume if all the cars were going 20 it would quickly jam to much less than that).
bigfatkitten 2y ago
So I've got a new Ford does this, and it can operate in one of three modes selectable by the driver: 1. An advisory mode, where it dings at you if you bust the speed limit. 2. Speed limiting mode, where it won't accelerate past the limit unless you override the limiter by flooring the accelerator. 3. Adaptive cruise control, where the cruise control will speed up and slow down to suit what it thinks the speed limit is The system uses a combination of speed sign recognition and and its satnav database. The speed sign recognition could be best described as "ok". What it really struggles with is construction and other temporary speed limits such as school zones, particularly on side roads. There is a spot near me on a 100km/h arterial road where if I'm using adaptive cruise, the car will detect the 40km/h construction limit on a side road and then brake hard to slow from 100 to 40 for no proper reason. This is very dangerous, tantamount to brake checking, which is a traffic offence that I otherwise could properly be fined for.
dividefuel 2y ago
In my experience driving (in the US), I don't think I've ever seen an attentive driver going consistently 5-10% above the speed limit as a prime safety issue. Far more often the issues I see are (1) distracted drivers (e.g. on their phone) or (2) aloof/aggressive drivers (e.g. abrupt lane changes, tailing cars, switching lanes without checking blind spots, blatant speeding, driving significantly slower than surrounding traffic, etc). I do think a warning system for exceeding the speed limit can make sense, but it needs to have the right threshold and mitigations to avoid being ignored, a distraction, or (worse yet) putting the driver in a more dangerous situation. The right threshold is clearly not at 1km/h above the speed limit. I think a more reasonable one would be 10mph/15km/h over the posted limit. EDIT: I'll add that I think a looser threshold would still hit the low hanging fruit of egregious speeders, but without burning public goodwill towards car safety features. Let the features demonstrate value first, then discuss whether the thresholds should be tighter.
pawelduda 2y ago
I have Toyota that does it and the first thing I do after starting the engine is to turn it off. It will turn itself on always, can't be changed. This feature is not only annoying and out of touch with reality, but also has a bug that in the very worst case could cause an accident. It beeps whenever the speed limit changes. If at the time you are connected via Android Auto with Google maps, it will instantly disconnect without any warning nor error. 90% of time. Imagine navigating through a dense area like a city you don't know, suddenly you lose GPS, and to get it back you have to go all the way into connections menu and wait for reconnect. Worst that happened to me were missed turns or going slightly past no entry sign. Nice "safety" feature. Disabled it and never had a disconnect since. Every now and then I start to drive with it and have to stop to turn it off (not disableable while you drive). Considering calling dealership to ask if they can turn it off permanently for me - but probably all I'll hear will be "it's mandated by law, can't do". It is a bug in Toyota software. I found out because there are more people posting about it online.
animal_spirits 2y ago
Makes me think of the videos I saw of the 2011 Japanese tsunami and cars driving to escape it. Imagine the same scenario today but your car stops you from going over 25mph when water is coming directly behind you at 50moh.
nunez 2y ago
> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature. Not when it kills people, which speeding does.

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From the article: "To put it simply, the system is dangerous." And then it proceeds to spend zero time at all describing exactly what is dangerous about it. Seriously, the article doesn't even hypothesize about what makes this dangerous, it just says that it's bad. The car I drove about 10 years ago had trouble exceeding the speed limit at times because it was a diesel! It was never dangerous. Trucks including rental trucks are already governed to very low speeds and they don't cause a problem. Articles like this feel to me a little bit like the seat belt deniers of the past. They'll all have to sheepishly eat their words when passenger and pedestrian deaths go down after the program is implemented. Cars aren't toys. They are transportation devices. They kill people. They really aren't about freedom or whatever, not when I'm trying not to get killed by a maniac.

toast0 2y ago
I think there's a fundamental issue here that the posted speed limit is often not the same thing as a reasonable maximum speed that's appropriate for conditions. Speed limits are set for all sorts of reasons that don't often match up with safety, and even then, they're usually set for normal conditions; when you have great visibility, dry pavement, and low traffic, it's often not unsafe to exceed the posted limit; just the same as when there's poor visibility, wet or icy pavement, or heavy traffic, following the posted limit is unsafe. Having an alarm that distracts the driver when they're driving a safe and reasonable speed is an unnecessary distraction. And it won't help drivers maintain a safe and reasonable speed in unfavorable conditions, unless this also comes with real time updates for pavement conditions, visibility, construction, etc. For cars that have trouble exceeding the speed limit, it can be dangerous --- sometimes there are scenarios where exceeding the speed limit is the safest course of action; but experience with the vehicle would help you anticipate its capabilities, and it is what it is. Usually there's pretty clear feedback that the vehicle isn't going to go much faster, so you will tend to avoid putting yourself in situations where you need lots of speed. Rental trucks governors aren't necessarily as obvious, but that's also more of a statement that trucks should have a lower maximum limit regardless of conditions and that the rental company doesn't trust renters to be aware of safe speeds for trucks.
- stoneman24 2y ago
  There is also many places where there are extremely few posted speed signs. The A9 in Scotland from Perth to Inverness is a notoriously dangerous road (it has large sections of single carriageway [60mph] with occasional dual carriage [70mph]). It has many junctions where cars can cross lanes to leave on minor roads. So bad, it has a large system of average speed cameras to hopefully control the traffic. Driving slowly (40-50) on this long road will cause cars, buses and trucks to try and overtake even on the single carriageway sections which is risky for everybody. But very few actual speed signs, so you end confused and wondering exactly what is the correct value for that section and anxious about the next average speed camera. And that’s for experienced uk drivers, I hate to think how stressed the tourists are ?
- dangus 2y ago
  I'm confused at your argument. You're talking about inclement conditions where you're supposed to be driving below the speed limit anyway. If everyone is at or below the speed limit, there is no situation where the reasonable maximum that exceeds the speed limit. Perhaps you could safely drive faster, but nobody actually has to drive faster. And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics.
  - toast0 2y ago
    > And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics. The faster we travel, the less time we spend traveling. The posted limit is not necessarily a reasonable maximum speed; that's my point in both directions.
    - dangus 2y ago
      The math does not work that way. If you’re going 70mph you travel 16.6% further in the same amount of time. But your average stopping distance increases 240 to 315 feet, 31% increase. This also stresses your reaction time. Risk of severe injury in pedestrian accidents goes like this: 16mph: 10% 23mph: 25% 31mph: 50% So if you slow down in a pedestrian heavy area from 31mph to 23mph, you travel 30% slower but if you hit someone you’ve cut the chance of seriously injuring them in half. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/learning-to-drive/stopping-distances/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/learning-to-drive/stoppin... https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/ https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve...
falcolas 2y ago
If you are accelerating, particularly in an EV, and your car starts screwing with your controls while pelting you with a high decibal alarm you used to only hear in an imminent collision, your chances of losing control are going to skyrocket. It happens all the time with inexperienced drivers and high performance vehicles, and consumer EVs are also high performance vehicles. Hyundai - one of the manufacturers mentioned in the article - makes an EV with a sub-3s 0-60 time.
- dangus 2y ago
  I'm confused at this argument. It sounds like the driver has already lost control? Or is this just making an excuse for assholes who accelerate too fast? Or making excuses for cars that are sold as dangerous toys instead of transportation devices? Like, yeah, maybe there should be a 0-60 limit imposed on manufacturers, too. I would think that this would be complimentary to my argument. I think it's also potentially strange to think that a chime is going to cause people to dramatically lose control of their vehicle in this imagined scenario.

sparker72678 2y ago

Once it goes beyond alerting, this is going to kill someone. A driver will be on a 2-lane road (1 lane each way), and attempt to pass the driver in front of them. A car will be coming the other way, and they won't be able to get in front in time. They'll try to slow and get back in, but the other cars will have filled the space. They'll have nowhere to go. Perhaps in this example the driver shouldn't have tried to pass in the first place, but removing an "out" from this situation, in which everyone gets to go home to their families, is a horrible idea.

taeric 2y ago
This scenario is terribly specified. If you don't have clear time to pass a car in front of you without going an absurd amount over the posted speed limit, you almost certainly are putting yourself in danger already? I'll go further and say that people that take excess speeds in this scenario are already causing more accidents today, than a limiter would cause in the future. Edit: I should say I think it would be a bad idea to have the car force you to go slower than 1km over a limit. Having it visually alert that you are speeding, though, seems far more reasonable.
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  It is poorly specified but also pretty common with the obvious variations. Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    > Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up. Happens all the time to me. It's usually people in big trucks who get angy that a car dares to pass them. They'll go up over 80mph in a 45mph zone if you don't (or can't) finish the pass, or give up. And if you give up, they'll brake check you for your audacity. Having your controls start misbehaving while accelerating, or loud beeping (which is currently reserved for "you're about to hit something" while driving) is asking for a driver to lose control.

shermozle 2y ago

Drove a rented Kia in Central Australia recently that had this. It was fine: just stick below the speed limit. "Dangerous" to someone who continuously rides the speed limit perhaps.

taneq 2y ago
The speed limit is the speed you should be driving in most circumstances, and is set far below the maximum safe speed for the road. Driving significantly below the pasted speed is as dangerous driving significantly above it.
- kazinator 2y ago
  Some roads have ridiculously low posted limits. Everyone goes well over, yet those roads are not noted for accidents. If they set the speed limit according to how everyone drives there, then I'd be in more in favor of alerting those who go even 1 km/h over that.
- stoneman24 2y ago
  Driving significantly below the pasted speed Without good reason will get you failed in the UK driving test for not making adequate progress. As my office colleague found out recently.
mrkpdl 2y ago
I own one, unfortunately it is often wrong about what the speed limit is. So it’s not quite so straightforward.
- glenngillen 2y ago
  We’ve a fairly new car with a similar system (that can be ignored/disabled thankfully). It seems to have both a some GPS/location based awareness of what the speed is meant to be that it falls back to as well as a camera based detection. I find it useful as a reference incase I don’t know what the speed is and missed the previous sign, but it’s also regularly wrong and not to be entirely trusted. For example the on ramp to the closest freeway near us it consistently reports as 10km/h when it’s actually 100km/h. I don’t know what it is about that sign specifically it can’t read as it looks fine to the human eye, but it would try to cap our speed on the freeway to >=90 km/h slower than the rest of the traffic (most are traveling slightly above) if we were to have the system enabled. As others in the comments have suggested it also can’t be trusted to get the speed right in school zones or for the correct distance for variable recommendations (e.g., speed bumps, roundabouts, etc.)

AcerbicZero 2y ago

An overly sensitive speed alert system that triggers warnings for even 1 km/h over the limit is a misguided approach to road safety. It fails to account for minor fluctuations in speed that naturally occur during normal driving, potentially causing more distraction and stress than it prevents. This system could lead to drivers constantly focusing on their speedometer rather than the road, ironically decreasing overall safety. Additionally, it ignores the context-dependent nature of safe driving speeds and the small margins of error in both vehicle speedometers and speed limit postings. Ultimately, such a system risks creating overly anxious drivers and diminishing respect for speed limits, rather than promoting genuinely safer driving practices. This will either be ignored after the first week, or more likely, removed via the aftermarket.

Apreche 2y ago

We have many studies that show speeding is dangerous. Sounds like this system is very effective at discouraging speeding. Until I see studies showing more people are dying on road because of this system than because of speeding, sounds like it’s working as intended.

tazu 2y ago
I frequently pass cars that have signs of an impaired driver. Usually the driver is texting, but the signs are usually failure to maintain lane, frequent (unnecessary) brake tapping, and sporadic acceleration. Something that impedes my ability to pass unsafe drivers is unsafe.
- mrob 2y ago
  If you're following close enough for them to be a danger to you then your driving is already unsafe.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    Close enough to be a danger in a car is "visible" (even if the view of them is blocked). More specific to the example is someone going 20 under the ambient traffic. They are someone you should get past safely, not stay behind.
  - StanislavPetrov 2y ago
    I regularly see drivers who are obviously drunk and intoxicated and swerving all over the road, variously speeding up and slowing down. The safest thing to do is to accelerate well clear of these drivers and leave them far behind, not slow down to an absurdly slow speed and drive behind them for miles and miles.
- kazinator 2y ago
  An unsafe driver ahead of you is safer than one behind you. (If you're not keeping enough of a distance, then the unsafe driver is you.)

tazu 2y ago

One place this would definitely be dangerous is in my city in the US. There's an interstate highway with a posted limit of 55mph, but everyone does 70mph+ (there is no police enforcement, because it's too dangerous---pulling people over here causes more accidents due to rubbernecking and traffic). If you were to actually go the speed limit, you'd be constantly passed (on both sides) by aggressive drivers and cause unnecessary lane switching behind you.

timbit42 2y ago
Where I live, the police won't pull you over for speeding if everyone is doing that speed because it wouldn't be safe for you to drive the posted speed limit as it would cause accidents.

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mrkpdl 2y ago

I have one of the cars with this system and I believe it is dangerous, as the car is beeping for your attention, it causes regular split second distractions from your situational awareness. The main issue is that these aren’t the only beeps the car does, it has many other beeps, including one for when it notices the speed limit has changed. So you have to spend some mental power figuring out which beep you’re getting. It’s very distracting. Not to mention the fact that the system is wrong just as often as it is right. It often mistakes speed bump speeds for whole street speeds and beeps at you for not going 20 the full length of the street. It also has about 33% accuracy with school zones. Sometimes it knows it’s a school zone but mostly it will beep if you go over 40 in a school zone even at times when the limit is not 40. I do think it is a dangerous system as it aggressively draws your attention away from the road. Also for what it’s worth I’m actually on the slightly slow side of driving! I don’t push the limit, and this system is still an issue.

brnt 2y ago
My car is from before this time but I've driven a few rentals with these features and it is absolutely terrible. Feels like you're driving a theme park ride, with all that flashing and beeping. What's also terrible is how they're constantly correcting the steering wheel because of invariably incorrect lane detection and one car would even happily overcorrect but then steer me right over the opposite line because it would never correct its own manoeuvres. I will never buy a car like this and I will happily drive second hand vehicles instead. No way. Car manufacturers just suck at software, always have and always will, and these systems make everything worse and less safe.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  You can drive without lane assist in most cases. Many models require you to explicitly turn it on each time you want to use it (like cruise control).
  - brnt 2y ago
    I'm in Europe, so no, it's mandatory that it is on and impossible to disable for new models.

switch007 2y ago

People defending the system: are you presupposing it is perfect? Because let me tell you: - Start-stop when it first came out was not perfect, still isn't * - Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal - Crash detection systems are horrendously bad - My car thinks it knows the speed limits of the road I'm on but it's often wrong I'd love to know what new modern cars you drive with perfect 'safety' systems (I've driven a lot of modern cars) * I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars. At least on manuals you can keep the clutch pressed to pause it. Need to pull away quickly? Sorry, wait a second for the engine to turn back on...

toast0 2y ago
> - Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal I've had these in three cars, they're not too bad; other than the ones without an easy way to turn them off are terrible for ferries and drive-in movies. Automatic high-beams are pretty terrible though, but IMHO, you should rarely have your high beams on if you're within 2 miles of another car. > I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars I've rented a variety of cars with different systems. Some of them are truly awful, but the ones that sense when you start to pull your foot off the brake, and have a short start time aren't awful. Probably I'm not buying anything with start-stop; my last new vehicle was half a model year before they added it, and my next new vehicle is going to be a hybrid, and I if I buy more old vehicles, they're likely to predate start-stop, probably by a significant amount. I will also add that existing cars that report the speed limit to me are often wrong in both directions, so I wouldn't trust anything other than a very mild warning. You want to show the speed limit in black when I'm under it, and red when I'm above it (preferably by at least 3-5 mph), go for it... that sounds nice and useful. You want to beep at me once gently if I go 10 mph over and maybe once more at 15-25 over? Reasonable, I suppose; maybe even a reminder beep every 5 minutes. Anything more and your data had better be completely accurate.

throwaway22032 2y ago

I feel as if the fundamental issue with speed limits is that they often feel arbitrary and infantilizing. If the roads are designed properly then you don't really need them except perhaps as a warning (e.g. the German autobahn isn't unlimited on sections that have tight corners). My residential street in London is a 20mph limit. But it doesn't need a limit because it has speed bumps frequently enough that if you care about your suspension at all your max speed is average 15ish anyway. Then there's the main roads leading into town which are also 20mph limits, but are double lane roads with fairly wide lanes. Some of them even have metal dividers. It fundamentally makes no sense for the limit to be the same on both of those roads. One of them is a proper thoroughfare with a high design limit that was 30 until very recently (probably 40 or higher "back in the day"). The other is a neighbourhood that only really the residents and visitors have any business driving on.

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motohagiography 2y ago

hard caps and mandating enforcement like this makes me yearn for the meteor. speed limits make more sense as average speeds, but I suspect I may be of a different species than somone of such a literal mind who holds the opposite view where they would advocate for this sort of thing. I don't see how this is reconcilable.

DominikPeters 2y ago

I'm generally strongly in favor of technical system for making speeding impossible -- for example I don't think it should be legal to sell cars that are able to go 100km/h on city streets. But this implementation seems designed to elicit backlash. Beeping is bad, and setting the tolerance at zero is not friendly given general driver behavior. I'd find it much more sensible to have "smooth" systems, such as a constant "buzzing" sound whose volume increases with the square of the speed excess, or translating pedal pressure into speed in such a way that convexly increasing amounts of pressure are required to go further above the limit.

reportgunner 2y ago
What about ambulances, police cars and firetrucks, would you prevent them from speeding as well ?
- DominikPeters 2y ago
  No.
  - reportgunner 2y ago
    How do you stop people making speeding vehicles for firemen and medics from making speeding cars for themselves and their friends then ?

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maxrumpf 2y ago

This comment section is scary. Hacker news advocating FOR nanny technology?!

imoverclocked 2y ago

> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature. So much so it has net effect on our mental health. There are dozens and dozens of peer reviewed studies that correlate the capacity to choose with happiness. For many people, a car is a phenomenon of personal freedom. Like any freedom, some people abuse it. Taking freedoms away (even perceived ones) is dangerous. My big issue with attempts like this are that they fail to encompass the whole experience of driving. An obvious one: if it’s speed that you want to control, then you need lower and upper limits. Lower limits means that some cars need to be stopped from entering certain roads at all. A tractor that can only go 15 mph should never be on an interstate… unless, of course, it’s working on the interstate. Good luck with that! The system of driving was made with fairly simple rules for humans to abide by. It wasn’t designed for and isn’t made strictly safer by partially automating portions of driving. I have yet to see any implementation that lacks downsides.

cromulen 2y ago

I for one support this system. I drive a VW with this feature and it's fine. It recognizes signs well enough. There's a built in grace of about 5km/h. The only thing the car does is that it produces a few gentle dinging sounds that are completely different from other warning sounds like parking sensors, when someone hasn't buckled in, door is open, etc. I have no intention of speeding and welcome the warning to consider I may have missed a sign. And if it is wrong, or I wish to ignore it, it's only like three subtle dings before it shuts up. It's fine. Perhaps the issue is not in the law, but the specific car manufacturer in the article.

seniorsassycat 2y ago

I don't see anything wrong with this and hope that countries and manufacturers start to cut power or refuse to exceed limits. At the very least within cities and towns. New modes of transit have geofenced speed govenors, I don't think we should grandfather cars exceptions.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I rode in a waymo for the first time yesterday, and it was going the speed limit in downtown SF (20 MPH) while cars were speeding around us. It seems like in the future if all cars are driven by robots, traffic would go much slower, maybe to the detriment of intended capacity (the roads still felt really busy, I assume if all the cars were going 20 it would quickly jam to much less than that).

bigfatkitten 2y ago

So I've got a new Ford does this, and it can operate in one of three modes selectable by the driver: 1. An advisory mode, where it dings at you if you bust the speed limit. 2. Speed limiting mode, where it won't accelerate past the limit unless you override the limiter by flooring the accelerator. 3. Adaptive cruise control, where the cruise control will speed up and slow down to suit what it thinks the speed limit is The system uses a combination of speed sign recognition and and its satnav database. The speed sign recognition could be best described as "ok". What it really struggles with is construction and other temporary speed limits such as school zones, particularly on side roads. There is a spot near me on a 100km/h arterial road where if I'm using adaptive cruise, the car will detect the 40km/h construction limit on a side road and then brake hard to slow from 100 to 40 for no proper reason. This is very dangerous, tantamount to brake checking, which is a traffic offence that I otherwise could properly be fined for.

dividefuel 2y ago

In my experience driving (in the US), I don't think I've ever seen an attentive driver going consistently 5-10% above the speed limit as a prime safety issue. Far more often the issues I see are (1) distracted drivers (e.g. on their phone) or (2) aloof/aggressive drivers (e.g. abrupt lane changes, tailing cars, switching lanes without checking blind spots, blatant speeding, driving significantly slower than surrounding traffic, etc). I do think a warning system for exceeding the speed limit can make sense, but it needs to have the right threshold and mitigations to avoid being ignored, a distraction, or (worse yet) putting the driver in a more dangerous situation. The right threshold is clearly not at 1km/h above the speed limit. I think a more reasonable one would be 10mph/15km/h over the posted limit. EDIT: I'll add that I think a looser threshold would still hit the low hanging fruit of egregious speeders, but without burning public goodwill towards car safety features. Let the features demonstrate value first, then discuss whether the thresholds should be tighter.

pawelduda 2y ago

I have Toyota that does it and the first thing I do after starting the engine is to turn it off. It will turn itself on always, can't be changed. This feature is not only annoying and out of touch with reality, but also has a bug that in the very worst case could cause an accident. It beeps whenever the speed limit changes. If at the time you are connected via Android Auto with Google maps, it will instantly disconnect without any warning nor error. 90% of time. Imagine navigating through a dense area like a city you don't know, suddenly you lose GPS, and to get it back you have to go all the way into connections menu and wait for reconnect. Worst that happened to me were missed turns or going slightly past no entry sign. Nice "safety" feature. Disabled it and never had a disconnect since. Every now and then I start to drive with it and have to stop to turn it off (not disableable while you drive). Considering calling dealership to ask if they can turn it off permanently for me - but probably all I'll hear will be "it's mandated by law, can't do". It is a bug in Toyota software. I found out because there are more people posting about it online.

animal_spirits 2y ago

Makes me think of the videos I saw of the 2011 Japanese tsunami and cars driving to escape it. Imagine the same scenario today but your car stops you from going over 25mph when water is coming directly behind you at 50moh.

nunez 2y ago

> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature. Not when it kills people, which speeding does.