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First-in-Nation Bill Requiring Cars to Warn Speeding Drivers Goes to CA Governor

14 points by rntn 2y ago

foxyv 2y ago
Or we could build our roads so that people can't comfortably drive 100MPH with zero feeling of danger. I've seen people drag racing on residential streets because they are 50 feet wide with clear zones on each side. We need more than just fancy gadgets. We also need traffic calming.
- speedchess 2y ago
  > Or we could build our roads so that people can't comfortably drive 100MPH with zero feeling of danger. What about emergencies? If cops, firefighters or ambulances need to get somewhere quick? > I've seen people drag racing on residential streets because they are 50 feet wide with clear zones on each side. People drag race in residential areas because they feel they can do so with impunity. If politicians decided to take on this problem head on, we can solve it easily. Make drag racing and noise pollution with cars/motorcycles/etc in residential areas a serious crime ( that includes prison time ). Problem solved.
  - macintux 2y ago
    Unfortunately prohibition in other contexts hasn’t proved all that effective, and most police forces have much higher priorities.
  - mgraczyk 2y ago
    Ambulances do not go 100mph, and cops almost never do that unless they are chasing somebody who is also going very fast Drag racing is unfortunately impossible to stop with force because we lack the political will to do anything like that in California. Narrowing streets and making it difficult to race or do donuts is more politically realistic
    - radley 2y ago
      Or perhaps we could figure out a way to provide an accessible, legal venue for those activities. Like how skateboarding was a crime for a while (or still is??).
      - mgraczyk 2y ago
        There are plenty of legal venues, and they are popular and widely used. The problem is that the value participants get comes from doing it in the city. It's not the same if they aren't rebelling
      - obscuretone 2y ago
        I used to volunteer at a race track. The amount of bureaucratic shit to even get your car on the track makes it not worth it to most people, myself included. Used to find back corners of industrial parks to have fun. Cops were cool with it. More than a few were there off duty doing the same.
        Zak 2y ago
        I've gone to drag strips and autocross events in more than one US state and the extent of "bureaucratic shit" was roughly "Do you have a driver's license and a helmet? Is the car leaking fluids? Sign here that you won't sue us." I have the impression things are a bit tighter for road courses.
        obscuretone 2y ago
        very much so. I dealt with tech inspections and people would try to go on the track with worn out brakes and suspension all the time. Which is dumb but. So are people. Even getting to that point means you've gone through the local amateur licence process, shown up to training days, etc. You have to prove to a bunch of gatekeeping boomers you deserve to race.
        Zak 2y ago
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    When I was stationed in Sacramento I saw a few neighborhoods that tackled this physically and it worked more effectively than I had assumed. They installed double and sometimes triple undulations think smooth short speed bumps that exponentially amplify lift when traveling over them over the speed limit. If traveling over them at the speed limit they are barely noticeable. Speed in a vehicle low to the ground most of the modded street race cars and it will wreck the under carriage, suspension, other things. I've seen it rip the exhaust system, undercarriage lights, spoilers / diffusers right off. Emergency vehicles did not appear to be affected.
    - obscuretone 2y ago
      With the exception of assholes, people drive for conditions. Period. The flow of traffic is always the safest speed. NHTSA and German authorites have papers on this. It is possible to physically slow cars down with narrower roads, speed bumps, one lane chicanes, etc. It works. Very well. Four lane split highway with a 30mph sign next to a police station? That's a speed trap and everyone knows it.
    - speedchess 2y ago
      > They installed double and sometimes triple undulations think smooth short speed bumps that exponentially amplify lift when traveling over them over the speed limit. You must have dumb drag racers where you live but then again, most drag racers are dumb to begin with. Our drag racers remember where these speed bumps are and just adjust to them. You literally hear these morons slow down and rev up again in the middle of the night. Frankly, it's the noise that's the biggest issue with me. I wouldn't care that much if they raced quietly. I'd prefer extremely heavy fines, loss of license and even prison for anyone causing excessive noise pollution in residential neighborhoods. Especially at night.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    Multi-use paths, bus lanes, and bike lanes are excellent for emergency vehicles. Also, generally speaking, emergency vehicles aren't supposed to speed. A lot of ambulances have speed governors to prevent going too fast. Also, a lot of the streets where you would use traffic calming are your destination. By the time you hit the traffic calming you are already there pretty much.
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  Traffic calming is a recent term I've seen which seems to mean do things that won't fix any of the outlier behavior we don't like. In Seattle they have "safe streets" where people should only drive on them for local traffic.... So the streets will still have cars on them. These ideas are ridiculously ineffective and sometimes actively annoying for people who live there. You want to reduce speed? Add speed bumps.
  - maxwellg 2y ago
    Speed bumps are a type of traffic calming, but traffic calming can include a variety of other techniques that can have other benefits. For example, extending sidewalks in residential areas or adding protective bollards to bike lanes - both encourage drivers to slow down by reducing the size of the lane.
  - dinkumthinkum 2y ago
    You’re being by downvoted but I’m not sure why (though I can guess). Anyway, you might be happy to know that speed bumps are what is referred to as a traffic calming device; it might seem like an odd new term but it is a normal term in traffic engineering.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    Mode filters are a great way to fix this problem. No one will use a private street as a through road if they can't get anywhere outside the neighborhood. Bonus points if you make it so emergency vehicles can get through them.
- quantified 2y ago
  Speed bumps are a boon for auto maintenance shops. They force cars to go 10mph or more under the limit to avoid damage. And they greatly affect emergency vehicles. Build the people so they don't do 100mph in a residential street.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    I personally prefer chicanes, bump outs, and roundabouts. Speed bumps suck.
    - quantified 2y ago
      Real roundabouts are great. Circles stuck in a regular intersection that also has stop signs suck.
      - foxyv 2y ago
        Agreed, especially the ones with slip lanes. I keep seeing people make left turns at roundabouts going the wrong way or just going straight through.
- acdha 2y ago
  Yes, but that’s a do both situation. Many cars are sold which can exceed 150% of the highest speed limit anywhere in the state, and while there are hard problems in designing speed limiters (e.g. urban interstate sections with GPS bounce) it’s pretty much trivial to say that the advanced computer in your new car can refuse to go over 75mph anywhere in the state if California, or reasonable caps in urban cores where there’s no legal place to go >45mph, etc. The problem here is that changing built infrastructure is expensive and challenging: the most aggressive drivers will fight every change tooth and nail, there will be impassioned arguments about freedom (except for the freedom to be a pedestrian and live, of course) and you’ll hear a million fantasies about how you sometimes need to LARP being an ambulance driver during emergencies in highly improbable situations where driving 90mph to the hospital is a) medically necessary and b) doesn’t result in more injuries. We are seeing improvements but that’s a huge lift, whereas California telling car manufacturers to enable a feature they already have much of the hardware and data for from all of the assist/navigation/self-driving work has the very convenient aspect of not requiring thousands of CalTrans and local projects to be planned, survive approval, and be built to start saving lives. What I would like is to pair this with mandatory improvements as part of routine maintenance: every urban road resurfacing, ADA upgrade, etc. project could include safety improvements so those don’t require expensive new projects which might involve ripping up roads worked on just a few years earlier. One example I like are continuous sidewalks / raised crosswalks where cars have to go up an incline to pass through a pedestrian space or bulbing out corners so drivers have to slow down. You can’t easily deploy those everywhere but there are a ton of areas where it’d be easy and important around schools, parks, etc. and if you could flip it so the planners would have to get an exception approved _not_ to use a safe design, cities could roll that into normal maintenance and be much safer a decade later.
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    > Many cars are sold which can exceed 150% of the highest speed limit anywhere in the state Is there any popular new car that can't do 106 mph on level ground, no wind? I can find a few extra-wheezy cars with published top speeds lower than that, but even a Prius, base Civic, or base Corolla can exceed 110 mph.
- cornstalks 2y ago
  So the way to make driving safer is to make roads more dangerous so people feel afraid of going too fast? Edit since there are multiple similar replies: I took parent comment to include freeways.
  - mlavrent 2y ago
    Counter-intuitively, yes, in fact. See the great article from Strong Towns, which does a lot of advocacy around building healthy towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slow...
    - cornstalks 2y ago
      That works for residential, but how about freeways?
      - sokoloff 2y ago
        Raise the speed limits such that they're closer to the actual typical speed of traffic, which will reduce the dangers posed to (and by) the "I drive the speed limit" crowd.
  - acdha 2y ago
    It’s not more dangerous. It’s clearly limited: your driveway or a roundabout isn’t dangerous, but you don’t speed because it’s not super wide and you don’t expect it to be completely clear of people or things you don’t want to hit. Most traffic calming measures are similar: break up long sight lines, narrow the lanes, and tighten the corners so people look at the road and think “I’m driving past homes where pedestrians are” rather than “freeway, time to see if I can avoid dropping under the speed limit the whole way!”
  - hyrix 2y ago
    The way to reduce speeds is not to make the road more dangerous but rather to signal the expected speed correctly. The article a sibling commenter linked makes this point: > [...] The premise is simple: drivers will make occasional mistakes—veer a bit out of their lane, fail to brake hard enough, etc.—-and if the street is wide, with high visibility in all directions, and free of immediate obstacles such as trees and fences, those mistakes won’t be catastrophic. The problem: this street feels too forgiving to a driver. Too safe and comfortable. So drivers speed up. The engineers didn’t account for this aspect of human psychology. Drivers behave as expected when they can't see around obstacles, the lane feels tight, and there are curves and other features that reduce visibility. These roads aren't inherently more dangerous, they just give drivers less margin for taking excessive risks.
- dinkumthinkum 2y ago
  I know it might seem like a radical idea but we could try something very strange … what if we prosecuted people? I mean I know we are led to believe people only commit crimes like this to get bread for their families but I think we could change sone behavior with just accountability (I know, it’s a kind word f kryptonite). It’s pretty odd for communities to appear helpless because of a loss of common sense.
  - radley 2y ago
    Perhaps some kind of ticket or official organization that could compel speeders to pay a fine or show up to court?
  - foxyv 2y ago
    I had a friend who would be caught regularly and ticketed. Suspended license and everything. He still drove everywhere and did so like a D-Bag. I love the idea of making traffic enforcement way more strict, but it would be better if we could just give people like him viable alternatives to driving and make it impossible to drive in such a manner using good street design.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- r00fus 2y ago
  Speed bumps, roundabouts, chokers and chicanes are very useful traffic calming methods for residential streets.
- scruple 2y ago
  Or maybe we could design society in a way which limits the dependence on automobiles in the first place?
  - foxyv 2y ago
    That's my next suggestion, just ban private vehicles from streets, enforce with automated bollards and bang! No speeding.
obscuretone 2y ago
Just make it illegal to go faster.
ranger_danger 2y ago
Finally.
ronsor 2y ago
This is going to be useless in practice because almost everyone is speeding on every road and highway, save for residential streets.
- raldi 2y ago
  I think most drivers would find it quite useful to hear a quick tone when they hit 10mph over the speed limit.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Imagine if the entertainment system / phone turned off when you hit the limit and all you could see or hear was the navigation if active. In an actual emergency situation, you’d accept that in a heartbeat but I think it’d be surprisingly effective for all of the people who just crank up the workout music and try to get to work fast enough not to be late.
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    Around town? Absolutely (though I would still oppose a law that mandates it, despite having bought a car with a configurable feature of that sort). On a highway that's posted 55 mph but designed for 80+? Beyond useless. And also the reason I have disabled the tone in the car that I did buy with a similar feature, because there are plenty of 80 mph freeways around me that are posted 55 and I'm not going to deal with hearing that tone every time I drive 65 on such a freeway.
    - raldi 2y ago
      It goes ding once at 65 and once at 75. Seems fine.
      - sokoloff 2y ago
        Once per drive? Agree that's fine. Or once every time you cross from 64 to 65 in a 55 and from 74 to 75 in a 65 (which is how I read it)? That's getting turned off/disabled (or may perversely encourage drivers to vary their speed from 78-82 instead of 74-78).
cornstalks 2y ago
Does this also come with a requirement that manufacturers provide free updates in perpetuity to the car's internal map of streets with speed limits? Changes to roads and speed limits do happen occasionally, and it would drive me crazy to have my car complain I'm speeding when I'm really following the new speed limit for that road.
- LeftHandPath 2y ago
  Google maps was putting my speed in red today because it still had a road marked as 35 MPH, that had been re-rated to 50 MPH after construction ended. Honestly it seems dystopian. Like requiring a breathalyzer before you can turn the key in every car. Treatment like this is supposed to be reserved for those who lost their freedom through egregious actions -- not the entirety of society.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    To be honest, having a breathalyzer on every car wouldn't be a horrible thing. This thing just pops up a warning like your TPMS sensors, it doesn't prevent you from going faster.
- AviationAtom 2y ago
  Fairly sure the way it will identify speed limits is based on the last sign the cameras have identified. I had a rental car that showed the speed limits in this manner and it was pretty nifty. "Low tech" yet high tech.
ensignavenger 2y ago
How do the cars know what the speed limit is? Is the state providing this data in a standard format that cars are expected to download? Are they using transponders on road signs to send signals to cars to tell them what the limit is?
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  Visual traffic-sign recognition (TSR) have been in cars since 2008 and mandatory since 2022.
  - ensignavenger 2y ago
    Do you have any source for information on that? I couldn't find anything and as far as I can tell my 23 Subaru has no such feature.
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
      Do you have it turned off? The eyesight in even my sister's 2016 captures speed limit signs. This is not a new technology.
      - ensignavenger 2y ago
        As far as I am aware, everything is turned on. I know the EyeSight feature is on. I will have to take another look at the user manual and see if I am missing something.
  - MissTake 2y ago
    Good luck finding speed limit signs in the USA. I’ve lost track the number of times I’ve exited a construction and not known what the hell the speed limit is because previously it changed somewhere within the zone before the construction started. Or worse, a total lack of signs on rural roads. Just had a case today in WI where I left one road at 55 MPH onto a county road, and had no idea that the new limit was 45 until we checked Google Maps.
  - 2y ago
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
Yet another reason to avoid buying a "smart" (read: new) car, in addition to them selling your driving habits to data brokers, having cameras that record the drivers and passengers inside, and tracking your location at all times. I guess I'm destined to become a classic car aficionado by necessity.
- obscuretone 2y ago
  As much as I hate carbs, let alone 4 of them, I always felt like I truly owned my '82 Seca
LeftHandPath 2y ago
I think a better solution would be to re-evaluate how we set speed limits. Clearly, the design of the road has an incredible influence over what speeds drivers feel comfortable - and uncomfortable - going. There is a road near me (SWFL) where everyone routinely goes about 50 MPH, despite a 35MPH limit. The road has three lanes on each side, ditches on either side, a wide median, and dedicated turn lanes to get on and off. It's uncomfortable - and often dangerous - to follow the posted speed. For any major road, it seems like the best approach would be to build it, then test what speed the majority of traffic goes on it before setting the limit. Get the average speed, add 5, and post the sign. If the speed is too high for the type of road, it should be redesigned. Surely it'd only take a couple of tries at the process before we figured out how to make a road where most people would drive the speed we intend. -- As for electronic speed monitoring, there is another nearby road that's posted at 50 MPH that google maps insists is still 35 MPH. If electronic speed monitoring goes to its natural extent, that sort of mistake could result in hefty, unjustified fines or even jail time. In any case, I have a feeling that this is a band-aid solution that will further discourage the average consumer from purchasing new cars.
- acdha 2y ago
  The problem with that approach is that it only considers drivers, and it lets the aggressive drivers influence the speed limit by bullying safer drivers. Outside of freeways, we shouldn’t dedicate millions of dollars in public space to private car drivers, so we should be looking at the rest of the community and ensuring that cities aren’t built around the idea that everyone needs a private vehicle. That’s a financial hardship for many people (where I live, cars are neck and neck with food as a household expense, behind only housing) and it freezes out the roughly ⅓ of the population who can’t drive. It also locks in significant health and environmental costs and we don’t tax driving to pay for those.
  - LeftHandPath 2y ago
    See the Solomon Curve - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve We absolutely should consider the entirety of drivers and their existing behaviors when we design roads, instead of wishing they would behave differently. Moreover, reducing accommodation for motor vehicles in cities leaves the non-urban population behind - and neglects that private vehicles aren't the only users of the roadway. Truck deliveries, garbage collection, and mail become a lot more difficult if roadways are reduced.
Alupis 2y ago
Ah yes, everyone knows that when people ignore existing laws, the correct response is to just create more new laws. Now it's double-illegal to speed! Ha, that'll teach 'em! In all seriousness - there are vastly more effective ways to deal with the very small subset of the population that speeds recklessly than to install a "frustration chime" into every new vehicle that happens to be sold in California.
quantified 2y ago
He won't sign it unless he's retiring after this term.
sam29681749 2y ago
If you're going to use tech to warn drivers not to speed, why not use that same technology to prevent the car from speeding? Theres probably some instances where the ability to speed is a safety feature (eg, needing to exceed the speed limit while overtaking due to oncoming traffic), but maybe the tech can somehow cater for these instances. Regardless, I suspect the danger this introduces is less than the danger caused by speeding in general.
- jq-r 2y ago
  I’m sure that’s the second part of the plan. You don’t do both at the same time, as the law would be unlikely to pass. Like with all unpopular policies you first start with something which is relatively acceptable, then you turn up the screws. Boiling the frog and all that. Story as old as time.
Molitor5901 2y ago
I would find this annoying and turn it off.. If I can't turn it off then it's going to make me angry, and hell bent on turning it off..
DarkOneZ 2y ago
I think fixing the DUI issue is more pressing than speeding. They want to make a breathalyzer mandatory for anyone with a dui. Is there a reason why they can't nip the problem with drinking to begin with. Use the same laws they use for buying and owning a gun to be mimicked for alcohol purchases, etc - thats stopped alot of bad things from happening already in California. Alcohol is also unhealthy for you - cancer - so it would also be two birds with one stone.

14 points by rntn 2y ago

Or we could build our roads so that people can't comfortably drive 100MPH with zero feeling of danger. I've seen people drag racing on residential streets because they are 50 feet wide with clear zones on each side. We need more than just fancy gadgets. We also need traffic calming.

speedchess 2y ago
> Or we could build our roads so that people can't comfortably drive 100MPH with zero feeling of danger. What about emergencies? If cops, firefighters or ambulances need to get somewhere quick? > I've seen people drag racing on residential streets because they are 50 feet wide with clear zones on each side. People drag race in residential areas because they feel they can do so with impunity. If politicians decided to take on this problem head on, we can solve it easily. Make drag racing and noise pollution with cars/motorcycles/etc in residential areas a serious crime ( that includes prison time ). Problem solved.
- macintux 2y ago
  Unfortunately prohibition in other contexts hasn’t proved all that effective, and most police forces have much higher priorities.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Ambulances do not go 100mph, and cops almost never do that unless they are chasing somebody who is also going very fast Drag racing is unfortunately impossible to stop with force because we lack the political will to do anything like that in California. Narrowing streets and making it difficult to race or do donuts is more politically realistic
  - radley 2y ago
    Or perhaps we could figure out a way to provide an accessible, legal venue for those activities. Like how skateboarding was a crime for a while (or still is??).
    - mgraczyk 2y ago
      There are plenty of legal venues, and they are popular and widely used. The problem is that the value participants get comes from doing it in the city. It's not the same if they aren't rebelling
    - obscuretone 2y ago
      I used to volunteer at a race track. The amount of bureaucratic shit to even get your car on the track makes it not worth it to most people, myself included. Used to find back corners of industrial parks to have fun. Cops were cool with it. More than a few were there off duty doing the same.
      - Zak 2y ago
        I've gone to drag strips and autocross events in more than one US state and the extent of "bureaucratic shit" was roughly "Do you have a driver's license and a helmet? Is the car leaking fluids? Sign here that you won't sue us." I have the impression things are a bit tighter for road courses.
        obscuretone 2y ago
        very much so. I dealt with tech inspections and people would try to go on the track with worn out brakes and suspension all the time. Which is dumb but. So are people. Even getting to that point means you've gone through the local amateur licence process, shown up to training days, etc. You have to prove to a bunch of gatekeeping boomers you deserve to race.
        Zak 2y ago
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  When I was stationed in Sacramento I saw a few neighborhoods that tackled this physically and it worked more effectively than I had assumed. They installed double and sometimes triple undulations think smooth short speed bumps that exponentially amplify lift when traveling over them over the speed limit. If traveling over them at the speed limit they are barely noticeable. Speed in a vehicle low to the ground most of the modded street race cars and it will wreck the under carriage, suspension, other things. I've seen it rip the exhaust system, undercarriage lights, spoilers / diffusers right off. Emergency vehicles did not appear to be affected.
  - obscuretone 2y ago
    With the exception of assholes, people drive for conditions. Period. The flow of traffic is always the safest speed. NHTSA and German authorites have papers on this. It is possible to physically slow cars down with narrower roads, speed bumps, one lane chicanes, etc. It works. Very well. Four lane split highway with a 30mph sign next to a police station? That's a speed trap and everyone knows it.
  - speedchess 2y ago
    > They installed double and sometimes triple undulations think smooth short speed bumps that exponentially amplify lift when traveling over them over the speed limit. You must have dumb drag racers where you live but then again, most drag racers are dumb to begin with. Our drag racers remember where these speed bumps are and just adjust to them. You literally hear these morons slow down and rev up again in the middle of the night. Frankly, it's the noise that's the biggest issue with me. I wouldn't care that much if they raced quietly. I'd prefer extremely heavy fines, loss of license and even prison for anyone causing excessive noise pollution in residential neighborhoods. Especially at night.
- foxyv 2y ago
  Multi-use paths, bus lanes, and bike lanes are excellent for emergency vehicles. Also, generally speaking, emergency vehicles aren't supposed to speed. A lot of ambulances have speed governors to prevent going too fast. Also, a lot of the streets where you would use traffic calming are your destination. By the time you hit the traffic calming you are already there pretty much.
rockemsockem 2y ago
Traffic calming is a recent term I've seen which seems to mean do things that won't fix any of the outlier behavior we don't like. In Seattle they have "safe streets" where people should only drive on them for local traffic.... So the streets will still have cars on them. These ideas are ridiculously ineffective and sometimes actively annoying for people who live there. You want to reduce speed? Add speed bumps.
- maxwellg 2y ago
  Speed bumps are a type of traffic calming, but traffic calming can include a variety of other techniques that can have other benefits. For example, extending sidewalks in residential areas or adding protective bollards to bike lanes - both encourage drivers to slow down by reducing the size of the lane.
- dinkumthinkum 2y ago
  You’re being by downvoted but I’m not sure why (though I can guess). Anyway, you might be happy to know that speed bumps are what is referred to as a traffic calming device; it might seem like an odd new term but it is a normal term in traffic engineering.
- foxyv 2y ago
  Mode filters are a great way to fix this problem. No one will use a private street as a through road if they can't get anywhere outside the neighborhood. Bonus points if you make it so emergency vehicles can get through them.
quantified 2y ago
Speed bumps are a boon for auto maintenance shops. They force cars to go 10mph or more under the limit to avoid damage. And they greatly affect emergency vehicles. Build the people so they don't do 100mph in a residential street.
- foxyv 2y ago
  I personally prefer chicanes, bump outs, and roundabouts. Speed bumps suck.
  - quantified 2y ago
    Real roundabouts are great. Circles stuck in a regular intersection that also has stop signs suck.
    - foxyv 2y ago
      Agreed, especially the ones with slip lanes. I keep seeing people make left turns at roundabouts going the wrong way or just going straight through.
acdha 2y ago
Yes, but that’s a do both situation. Many cars are sold which can exceed 150% of the highest speed limit anywhere in the state, and while there are hard problems in designing speed limiters (e.g. urban interstate sections with GPS bounce) it’s pretty much trivial to say that the advanced computer in your new car can refuse to go over 75mph anywhere in the state if California, or reasonable caps in urban cores where there’s no legal place to go >45mph, etc. The problem here is that changing built infrastructure is expensive and challenging: the most aggressive drivers will fight every change tooth and nail, there will be impassioned arguments about freedom (except for the freedom to be a pedestrian and live, of course) and you’ll hear a million fantasies about how you sometimes need to LARP being an ambulance driver during emergencies in highly improbable situations where driving 90mph to the hospital is a) medically necessary and b) doesn’t result in more injuries. We are seeing improvements but that’s a huge lift, whereas California telling car manufacturers to enable a feature they already have much of the hardware and data for from all of the assist/navigation/self-driving work has the very convenient aspect of not requiring thousands of CalTrans and local projects to be planned, survive approval, and be built to start saving lives. What I would like is to pair this with mandatory improvements as part of routine maintenance: every urban road resurfacing, ADA upgrade, etc. project could include safety improvements so those don’t require expensive new projects which might involve ripping up roads worked on just a few years earlier. One example I like are continuous sidewalks / raised crosswalks where cars have to go up an incline to pass through a pedestrian space or bulbing out corners so drivers have to slow down. You can’t easily deploy those everywhere but there are a ton of areas where it’d be easy and important around schools, parks, etc. and if you could flip it so the planners would have to get an exception approved _not_ to use a safe design, cities could roll that into normal maintenance and be much safer a decade later.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  > Many cars are sold which can exceed 150% of the highest speed limit anywhere in the state Is there any popular new car that can't do 106 mph on level ground, no wind? I can find a few extra-wheezy cars with published top speeds lower than that, but even a Prius, base Civic, or base Corolla can exceed 110 mph.
cornstalks 2y ago
So the way to make driving safer is to make roads more dangerous so people feel afraid of going too fast? Edit since there are multiple similar replies: I took parent comment to include freeways.
- mlavrent 2y ago
  Counter-intuitively, yes, in fact. See the great article from Strong Towns, which does a lot of advocacy around building healthy towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slow...
  - cornstalks 2y ago
    That works for residential, but how about freeways?
    - sokoloff 2y ago
      Raise the speed limits such that they're closer to the actual typical speed of traffic, which will reduce the dangers posed to (and by) the "I drive the speed limit" crowd.
- acdha 2y ago
  It’s not more dangerous. It’s clearly limited: your driveway or a roundabout isn’t dangerous, but you don’t speed because it’s not super wide and you don’t expect it to be completely clear of people or things you don’t want to hit. Most traffic calming measures are similar: break up long sight lines, narrow the lanes, and tighten the corners so people look at the road and think “I’m driving past homes where pedestrians are” rather than “freeway, time to see if I can avoid dropping under the speed limit the whole way!”
- hyrix 2y ago
  The way to reduce speeds is not to make the road more dangerous but rather to signal the expected speed correctly. The article a sibling commenter linked makes this point: > [...] The premise is simple: drivers will make occasional mistakes—veer a bit out of their lane, fail to brake hard enough, etc.—-and if the street is wide, with high visibility in all directions, and free of immediate obstacles such as trees and fences, those mistakes won’t be catastrophic. The problem: this street feels too forgiving to a driver. Too safe and comfortable. So drivers speed up. The engineers didn’t account for this aspect of human psychology. Drivers behave as expected when they can't see around obstacles, the lane feels tight, and there are curves and other features that reduce visibility. These roads aren't inherently more dangerous, they just give drivers less margin for taking excessive risks.
dinkumthinkum 2y ago
I know it might seem like a radical idea but we could try something very strange … what if we prosecuted people? I mean I know we are led to believe people only commit crimes like this to get bread for their families but I think we could change sone behavior with just accountability (I know, it’s a kind word f kryptonite). It’s pretty odd for communities to appear helpless because of a loss of common sense.
- radley 2y ago
  Perhaps some kind of ticket or official organization that could compel speeders to pay a fine or show up to court?
- foxyv 2y ago
  I had a friend who would be caught regularly and ticketed. Suspended license and everything. He still drove everywhere and did so like a D-Bag. I love the idea of making traffic enforcement way more strict, but it would be better if we could just give people like him viable alternatives to driving and make it impossible to drive in such a manner using good street design.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
r00fus 2y ago
Speed bumps, roundabouts, chokers and chicanes are very useful traffic calming methods for residential streets.
scruple 2y ago
Or maybe we could design society in a way which limits the dependence on automobiles in the first place?
- foxyv 2y ago
  That's my next suggestion, just ban private vehicles from streets, enforce with automated bollards and bang! No speeding.

obscuretone 2y ago

Just make it illegal to go faster.

ranger_danger 2y ago

Finally.

ronsor 2y ago

This is going to be useless in practice because almost everyone is speeding on every road and highway, save for residential streets.

raldi 2y ago
I think most drivers would find it quite useful to hear a quick tone when they hit 10mph over the speed limit.
- acdha 2y ago
  Imagine if the entertainment system / phone turned off when you hit the limit and all you could see or hear was the navigation if active. In an actual emergency situation, you’d accept that in a heartbeat but I think it’d be surprisingly effective for all of the people who just crank up the workout music and try to get to work fast enough not to be late.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  Around town? Absolutely (though I would still oppose a law that mandates it, despite having bought a car with a configurable feature of that sort). On a highway that's posted 55 mph but designed for 80+? Beyond useless. And also the reason I have disabled the tone in the car that I did buy with a similar feature, because there are plenty of 80 mph freeways around me that are posted 55 and I'm not going to deal with hearing that tone every time I drive 65 on such a freeway.
  - raldi 2y ago
    It goes ding once at 65 and once at 75. Seems fine.
    - sokoloff 2y ago
      Once per drive? Agree that's fine. Or once every time you cross from 64 to 65 in a 55 and from 74 to 75 in a 65 (which is how I read it)? That's getting turned off/disabled (or may perversely encourage drivers to vary their speed from 78-82 instead of 74-78).

cornstalks 2y ago

Does this also come with a requirement that manufacturers provide free updates in perpetuity to the car's internal map of streets with speed limits? Changes to roads and speed limits do happen occasionally, and it would drive me crazy to have my car complain I'm speeding when I'm really following the new speed limit for that road.

LeftHandPath 2y ago
Google maps was putting my speed in red today because it still had a road marked as 35 MPH, that had been re-rated to 50 MPH after construction ended. Honestly it seems dystopian. Like requiring a breathalyzer before you can turn the key in every car. Treatment like this is supposed to be reserved for those who lost their freedom through egregious actions -- not the entirety of society.
- foxyv 2y ago
  To be honest, having a breathalyzer on every car wouldn't be a horrible thing. This thing just pops up a warning like your TPMS sensors, it doesn't prevent you from going faster.
AviationAtom 2y ago
Fairly sure the way it will identify speed limits is based on the last sign the cameras have identified. I had a rental car that showed the speed limits in this manner and it was pretty nifty. "Low tech" yet high tech.

ensignavenger 2y ago

How do the cars know what the speed limit is? Is the state providing this data in a standard format that cars are expected to download? Are they using transponders on road signs to send signals to cars to tell them what the limit is?

HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
Visual traffic-sign recognition (TSR) have been in cars since 2008 and mandatory since 2022.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  Do you have any source for information on that? I couldn't find anything and as far as I can tell my 23 Subaru has no such feature.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Do you have it turned off? The eyesight in even my sister's 2016 captures speed limit signs. This is not a new technology.
    - ensignavenger 2y ago
      As far as I am aware, everything is turned on. I know the EyeSight feature is on. I will have to take another look at the user manual and see if I am missing something.
- MissTake 2y ago
  Good luck finding speed limit signs in the USA. I’ve lost track the number of times I’ve exited a construction and not known what the hell the speed limit is because previously it changed somewhere within the zone before the construction started. Or worse, a total lack of signs on rural roads. Just had a case today in WI where I left one road at 55 MPH onto a county road, and had no idea that the new limit was 45 until we checked Google Maps.
- 2y ago

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago

Yet another reason to avoid buying a "smart" (read: new) car, in addition to them selling your driving habits to data brokers, having cameras that record the drivers and passengers inside, and tracking your location at all times. I guess I'm destined to become a classic car aficionado by necessity.

obscuretone 2y ago
As much as I hate carbs, let alone 4 of them, I always felt like I truly owned my '82 Seca

LeftHandPath 2y ago

I think a better solution would be to re-evaluate how we set speed limits. Clearly, the design of the road has an incredible influence over what speeds drivers feel comfortable - and uncomfortable - going. There is a road near me (SWFL) where everyone routinely goes about 50 MPH, despite a 35MPH limit. The road has three lanes on each side, ditches on either side, a wide median, and dedicated turn lanes to get on and off. It's uncomfortable - and often dangerous - to follow the posted speed. For any major road, it seems like the best approach would be to build it, then test what speed the majority of traffic goes on it before setting the limit. Get the average speed, add 5, and post the sign. If the speed is too high for the type of road, it should be redesigned. Surely it'd only take a couple of tries at the process before we figured out how to make a road where most people would drive the speed we intend. -- As for electronic speed monitoring, there is another nearby road that's posted at 50 MPH that google maps insists is still 35 MPH. If electronic speed monitoring goes to its natural extent, that sort of mistake could result in hefty, unjustified fines or even jail time. In any case, I have a feeling that this is a band-aid solution that will further discourage the average consumer from purchasing new cars.

acdha 2y ago
The problem with that approach is that it only considers drivers, and it lets the aggressive drivers influence the speed limit by bullying safer drivers. Outside of freeways, we shouldn’t dedicate millions of dollars in public space to private car drivers, so we should be looking at the rest of the community and ensuring that cities aren’t built around the idea that everyone needs a private vehicle. That’s a financial hardship for many people (where I live, cars are neck and neck with food as a household expense, behind only housing) and it freezes out the roughly ⅓ of the population who can’t drive. It also locks in significant health and environmental costs and we don’t tax driving to pay for those.
- LeftHandPath 2y ago
  See the Solomon Curve - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve We absolutely should consider the entirety of drivers and their existing behaviors when we design roads, instead of wishing they would behave differently. Moreover, reducing accommodation for motor vehicles in cities leaves the non-urban population behind - and neglects that private vehicles aren't the only users of the roadway. Truck deliveries, garbage collection, and mail become a lot more difficult if roadways are reduced.

Alupis 2y ago

Ah yes, everyone knows that when people ignore existing laws, the correct response is to just create more new laws. Now it's double-illegal to speed! Ha, that'll teach 'em! In all seriousness - there are vastly more effective ways to deal with the very small subset of the population that speeds recklessly than to install a "frustration chime" into every new vehicle that happens to be sold in California.

quantified 2y ago

He won't sign it unless he's retiring after this term.

sam29681749 2y ago

If you're going to use tech to warn drivers not to speed, why not use that same technology to prevent the car from speeding? Theres probably some instances where the ability to speed is a safety feature (eg, needing to exceed the speed limit while overtaking due to oncoming traffic), but maybe the tech can somehow cater for these instances. Regardless, I suspect the danger this introduces is less than the danger caused by speeding in general.

jq-r 2y ago
I’m sure that’s the second part of the plan. You don’t do both at the same time, as the law would be unlikely to pass. Like with all unpopular policies you first start with something which is relatively acceptable, then you turn up the screws. Boiling the frog and all that. Story as old as time.

Molitor5901 2y ago

I would find this annoying and turn it off.. If I can't turn it off then it's going to make me angry, and hell bent on turning it off..

DarkOneZ 2y ago

I think fixing the DUI issue is more pressing than speeding. They want to make a breathalyzer mandatory for anyone with a dui. Is there a reason why they can't nip the problem with drinking to begin with. Use the same laws they use for buying and owning a gun to be mimicked for alcohol purchases, etc - thats stopped alot of bad things from happening already in California. Alcohol is also unhealthy for you - cancer - so it would also be two birds with one stone.