6 ms·

I guess it would work as a breath alcohol ignition interlock device when reselling. I.e. you just remove it.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
That's what happens if you sell the car. What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Machines should never enforce laws because they don't have the ability to know when doing so would be unreasonable.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- brailsafe 1y ago
  > What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? I'd presume the state would need to update its GIS record, in the meantime you'd put your hazard lights on and move over to the right lane. > Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Suddenly while driving, or something that you'd need to use the car for in order to travel fast? In the latter case, you'd just return to the wild and live like anyone else does without the ability to travel at arbitrarily sufficient speeds to deal with any personal emergency. These situations could be accounted for prior to repeatedly breaking speed laws and moving to some backwoods area where you'd also be screwed if it broke down.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > I'd presume the state would need to update its GIS record, in the meantime you'd put your hazard lights on and move over to the right lane. The problem isn't the GIS record, it's that the highway is directly adjacent to a mountain and the GPS isn't accurate enough there to distinguish between the highway and the lower speed roads near it, so they can't fix it. Or maybe they just don't care to because it's a bureaucracy. Also, the highway is the only road that goes over the bridge, so it's not a one-time problem because you can't avoid using it on a regular basis. > Suddenly while driving, or something that you'd need to use the car for in order to travel fast? Why isn't the issue. The hurricane comes and the phones are down and you need to get the kid to the hospital before they bleed out. You're the on-call service tech for something which is going to result in human tragedy if you don't get there first. You're not even involved but a firefighter had to commandeer your vehicle. Stuff shouldn't be strictly enforcing rules in an emergency. > These situations could be accounted for prior to repeatedly breaking speed laws. How is the dying kid supposed to account for the only car in the area belonging to a stranger with one too many speeding tickets?
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      I not infrequently see my GPS decide that I’ve taken an exit and am on the parallel local road rather than still on the expressway.
    - brailsafe 1y ago
      > Why isn't the issue. The hurricane comes and the phones are down and you need to get the kid to the hospital before they bleed out. You're the on-call service tech for something which is going to result in human tragedy if you don't get there first. You're not even involved but a firefighter had to commandeer your vehicle. Why is definitely the issue, it's one of the first questions you might be asked when pulled over, and in this case if you don't have a good enough answer quick enough, it seems you could lose the freedom to make a determination about whether it's an issue or not.
      - brailsafe 1y ago
        Additionally, since the bill proposes a minimum speed of 100 m/hr, it's a matter of determining whether the driver is likely to be found speeding over a fairly high threshold. I'm not one to judge, but if you're likely to find yourself in a position where the edge cases of how the device works matter, idk maybe sell your damn car
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death Can you describe such a situation? I can't think of anything other than completely unrealistic action movie scenarios.
  - cowfarts 1y ago
    [dead]
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    Medical emergencies are not "unrealistic action movie scenarios". If my family member is bleeding and I'm driving them to the ER, I don't and shouldn't have to care about precise speed limits.
    - crooked-v 1y ago
      If you're in that situation and you've already broken the speed limit so flagrantly multiple times that the courts have installed a speed limiter, that family member may well be safer waiting for the ambulance.
      - jakeogh 1y ago
        The typical "it's not incrementalism" response.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Is there any correlation between speeding tickets and the probability of getting into an accident at a given speed? If you have to exceed the speed limit by 20 MPH today, better the person who does it all the time than the person who isn't used to it, no?
        bdangubic 1y ago
        speed limits, if majority of cases are not about public safety but generators of revenue. if we all started driving the speed limit the number of accidents would not be significantly reduced while many, many cities/counties/… would fully go bankrupt. I have spent more than a decade in state&local courts records management business and can tell you this first-hand. you can cool deals if you just pay the fine and don’t come to court at all and neat stuff like that. speed limits never were and never will be about public safety
- Esophagus4 1y ago
  > Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Can you provide such a scenario? Or, more importantly... can you provide a reason why this hypothetical, extremely unusual edge case should take precedence over the 12,000 speeding deaths per year in our calculation? For example, I'm willing to wager more people get hurt speeding TO the hospital while their wife is in labor than preventing any sort of injury due to out of hospital birth. Even EMTs know this implicitly: ground transport is one of the most dangerous parts of their job.[1] Machines are absolutely capable of enforcing laws, and they do a pretty good job of it in many cases. Speed cameras reduce crashes and fatalities, and car breathalyzers reduce the incidences of drunk driving.[2][3][4] Even still, humans (judges) review these cases individually and decide which offenders' cars to put breathalyzers / speed limiters on. Also of note - presumably if you're a decent driver using your speeding card just this once to get your pregnant wife to the hospital, you wouldn't have repeated 100+ MPH speeding convictions on your record, so you wouldn't have a limited speed, anyway. In the US, these limiters are only installed for repeated offenses. This affects the guy who has a history of reckless driving, the same way car breathalyzers affect the guy who has a history of drunk driving. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140524001683 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221414052... [2] https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2025/nyc-dot-speed-cameras.shtml https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2025/nyc-dot-speed-camer... [3] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury-crashes-in-maryland-county-iihs-study-shows https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury... [4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879393/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879393/
  - 1970-01-01 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - strken 1y ago
    I agree with you that the road deaths caused by repeat offenders outweigh their personal safety, but if a b-double decides to side-swipe you when you're next to its cabin then you're going to need to accelerate past the speed limit for a few seconds.
  - 1970-01-01 1y ago
- zip1234 1y ago
  Here's a solution--in an emergency, you can override it but you get a massive fine that can be removed if deemed to be true emergency.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 1y ago
  > What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? A couple thoughts on that. 1. I would expect that they won't be developing their own system for finding out speed limits and monitoring for changes. They will most likely use the same commercial sources that are used by many mapping and navigation apps and built-in car navigation systems. Those sources do occasionally have errors, but the only roads with speed limits above 55 mph there are interstates and some major divided highways. Those are all high traffic roads with plenty of drivers using navigation apps on them, so a speed limit being too low in the data is going to get quickly noticed by a lot of people and reported. Less frequently traveled roads might have data errors that last longer, which would be annoying, but the limiter does let you go 10 mph over what it thinks is the posted limit. I expect that the most common error will be missing when the type of zone changes. For example you have a 40 mph road and the data mistakenly says it goes through a business zone when actually it goes around that business zone. Business zones typically have a 25 mph limit, so you'd be stuck going 35 mph (25 mph it thinks is the limit plus 10 mph) instead of 40 mph until you get past what it thinks is the business zone. That's annoying but it is not so slow compared to the real limit that you'll be a danger to other drivers. 2. Route around the error if it is too annoying. Virginia law only gives judges the authority to require someone to use this if they have been convicted of speeding over 100 mph. That's 30 mph faster than the highest speed limit in Virginia, which is 70 mph on interstates and a few major divided highways. The limit everywhere else is 55 mph or less. 20 mph or more above the posted limit or over 85 mph in Virginia is reckless driving which is a criminal offense (a class 1 misdemeanor, which is the highest level of misdemeanor) rather than a mere infraction, with up to a year in jail and/or a $2500 fine. There should only be a few people who are forced to get one of these limiters, and they are people who arguably should be getting their driving privileges suspended for a few months at least. If they are given one of these limiters instead of their license being suspended and so driving will be inconvenient for a few months, I'm having trouble dredging up much sympathy for them. It's kind of like when someone in prison is paroled two years before their sentence is up, and then complains about the burden of having to check in with their parole officer periodically for the next two years. My feelings on people with that kind of problem are nicely summed up by Frasier's response on an episode of "Frasier" when a caller named Roger on his radio show wanted advice on something completely stupid: > Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the tunneling electron microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building block of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now... I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem. Thank you for your call.
- UncleMeat 1y ago
  Almost all decisions have downsides. This is not by itself a reason to avoid the decision. We compare the costs against the benefits. Where are these emergency situations you describe? Not only have I never needed to speed for some emergency situation, I don't even think I know a single person who has had to do this. How often is "this person would have died if they got to the hospital five minutes later but the highway was clear and somebody drove them there 30mph over the limit and got there in time?"

That's what happens if you sell the car. What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Machines should never enforce laws because they don't have the ability to know when doing so would be unreasonable.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
brailsafe 1y ago
> What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? I'd presume the state would need to update its GIS record, in the meantime you'd put your hazard lights on and move over to the right lane. > Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Suddenly while driving, or something that you'd need to use the car for in order to travel fast? In the latter case, you'd just return to the wild and live like anyone else does without the ability to travel at arbitrarily sufficient speeds to deal with any personal emergency. These situations could be accounted for prior to repeatedly breaking speed laws and moving to some backwoods area where you'd also be screwed if it broke down.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > I'd presume the state would need to update its GIS record, in the meantime you'd put your hazard lights on and move over to the right lane. The problem isn't the GIS record, it's that the highway is directly adjacent to a mountain and the GPS isn't accurate enough there to distinguish between the highway and the lower speed roads near it, so they can't fix it. Or maybe they just don't care to because it's a bureaucracy. Also, the highway is the only road that goes over the bridge, so it's not a one-time problem because you can't avoid using it on a regular basis. > Suddenly while driving, or something that you'd need to use the car for in order to travel fast? Why isn't the issue. The hurricane comes and the phones are down and you need to get the kid to the hospital before they bleed out. You're the on-call service tech for something which is going to result in human tragedy if you don't get there first. You're not even involved but a firefighter had to commandeer your vehicle. Stuff shouldn't be strictly enforcing rules in an emergency. > These situations could be accounted for prior to repeatedly breaking speed laws. How is the dying kid supposed to account for the only car in the area belonging to a stranger with one too many speeding tickets?
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    I not infrequently see my GPS decide that I’ve taken an exit and am on the parallel local road rather than still on the expressway.
  - brailsafe 1y ago
    > Why isn't the issue. The hurricane comes and the phones are down and you need to get the kid to the hospital before they bleed out. You're the on-call service tech for something which is going to result in human tragedy if you don't get there first. You're not even involved but a firefighter had to commandeer your vehicle. Why is definitely the issue, it's one of the first questions you might be asked when pulled over, and in this case if you don't have a good enough answer quick enough, it seems you could lose the freedom to make a determination about whether it's an issue or not.
    - brailsafe 1y ago
      Additionally, since the bill proposes a minimum speed of 100 m/hr, it's a matter of determining whether the driver is likely to be found speeding over a fairly high threshold. I'm not one to judge, but if you're likely to find yourself in a position where the edge cases of how the device works matter, idk maybe sell your damn car
Dylan16807 1y ago
> some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death Can you describe such a situation? I can't think of anything other than completely unrealistic action movie scenarios.
- cowfarts 1y ago
  [dead]
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  Medical emergencies are not "unrealistic action movie scenarios". If my family member is bleeding and I'm driving them to the ER, I don't and shouldn't have to care about precise speed limits.
  - crooked-v 1y ago
    If you're in that situation and you've already broken the speed limit so flagrantly multiple times that the courts have installed a speed limiter, that family member may well be safer waiting for the ambulance.
    - jakeogh 1y ago
      The typical "it's not incrementalism" response.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      Is there any correlation between speeding tickets and the probability of getting into an accident at a given speed? If you have to exceed the speed limit by 20 MPH today, better the person who does it all the time than the person who isn't used to it, no?
      - bdangubic 1y ago
        speed limits, if majority of cases are not about public safety but generators of revenue. if we all started driving the speed limit the number of accidents would not be significantly reduced while many, many cities/counties/… would fully go bankrupt. I have spent more than a decade in state&local courts records management business and can tell you this first-hand. you can cool deals if you just pay the fine and don’t come to court at all and neat stuff like that. speed limits never were and never will be about public safety
Esophagus4 1y ago
> Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death? Can you provide such a scenario? Or, more importantly... can you provide a reason why this hypothetical, extremely unusual edge case should take precedence over the 12,000 speeding deaths per year in our calculation? For example, I'm willing to wager more people get hurt speeding TO the hospital while their wife is in labor than preventing any sort of injury due to out of hospital birth. Even EMTs know this implicitly: ground transport is one of the most dangerous parts of their job.[1] Machines are absolutely capable of enforcing laws, and they do a pretty good job of it in many cases. Speed cameras reduce crashes and fatalities, and car breathalyzers reduce the incidences of drunk driving.[2][3][4] Even still, humans (judges) review these cases individually and decide which offenders' cars to put breathalyzers / speed limiters on. Also of note - presumably if you're a decent driver using your speeding card just this once to get your pregnant wife to the hospital, you wouldn't have repeated 100+ MPH speeding convictions on your record, so you wouldn't have a limited speed, anyway. In the US, these limiters are only installed for repeated offenses. This affects the guy who has a history of reckless driving, the same way car breathalyzers affect the guy who has a history of drunk driving. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140524001683 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221414052... [2] https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2025/nyc-dot-speed-cameras.shtml https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2025/nyc-dot-speed-camer... [3] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury-crashes-in-maryland-county-iihs-study-shows https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury... [4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879393/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879393/
- 1970-01-01 1y ago
  [flagged]
- strken 1y ago
  I agree with you that the road deaths caused by repeat offenders outweigh their personal safety, but if a b-double decides to side-swipe you when you're next to its cabin then you're going to need to accelerate past the speed limit for a few seconds.
- 1970-01-01 1y ago
zip1234 1y ago
Here's a solution--in an emergency, you can override it but you get a massive fine that can be removed if deemed to be true emergency.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
tzs 1y ago
> What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? A couple thoughts on that. 1. I would expect that they won't be developing their own system for finding out speed limits and monitoring for changes. They will most likely use the same commercial sources that are used by many mapping and navigation apps and built-in car navigation systems. Those sources do occasionally have errors, but the only roads with speed limits above 55 mph there are interstates and some major divided highways. Those are all high traffic roads with plenty of drivers using navigation apps on them, so a speed limit being too low in the data is going to get quickly noticed by a lot of people and reported. Less frequently traveled roads might have data errors that last longer, which would be annoying, but the limiter does let you go 10 mph over what it thinks is the posted limit. I expect that the most common error will be missing when the type of zone changes. For example you have a 40 mph road and the data mistakenly says it goes through a business zone when actually it goes around that business zone. Business zones typically have a 25 mph limit, so you'd be stuck going 35 mph (25 mph it thinks is the limit plus 10 mph) instead of 40 mph until you get past what it thinks is the business zone. That's annoying but it is not so slow compared to the real limit that you'll be a danger to other drivers. 2. Route around the error if it is too annoying. Virginia law only gives judges the authority to require someone to use this if they have been convicted of speeding over 100 mph. That's 30 mph faster than the highest speed limit in Virginia, which is 70 mph on interstates and a few major divided highways. The limit everywhere else is 55 mph or less. 20 mph or more above the posted limit or over 85 mph in Virginia is reckless driving which is a criminal offense (a class 1 misdemeanor, which is the highest level of misdemeanor) rather than a mere infraction, with up to a year in jail and/or a $2500 fine. There should only be a few people who are forced to get one of these limiters, and they are people who arguably should be getting their driving privileges suspended for a few months at least. If they are given one of these limiters instead of their license being suspended and so driving will be inconvenient for a few months, I'm having trouble dredging up much sympathy for them. It's kind of like when someone in prison is paroled two years before their sentence is up, and then complains about the burden of having to check in with their parole officer periodically for the next two years. My feelings on people with that kind of problem are nicely summed up by Frasier's response on an episode of "Frasier" when a caller named Roger on his radio show wanted advice on something completely stupid: > Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the tunneling electron microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building block of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now... I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem. Thank you for your call.
UncleMeat 1y ago
Almost all decisions have downsides. This is not by itself a reason to avoid the decision. We compare the costs against the benefits. Where are these emergency situations you describe? Not only have I never needed to speed for some emergency situation, I don't even think I know a single person who has had to do this. How often is "this person would have died if they got to the hospital five minutes later but the highway was clear and somebody drove them there 30mph over the limit and got there in time?"