UK Satellites May Keep Cars From Speeding 715
Stiletto writes "According to this article, the British government is planning on forcing automobile manufacturers to install devices that allow satellites to monitor the vehicle's speed and control it when it is moving 'too fast.'" I suspect that any U.S. politician who tried to push through something like this would be out of office immediately. I can't speak for U.K. residents, but I bet it's the same there. Does anyone think *any* government could really get away with this?
Getting away with it... (Score:2)
Scary stuff (Score:3)
Get an old car with a carburetor (Score:2)
It sounds pretty expensive too, a GPS and a detailed map of the country's roads. In the US, 65 miles per hour is legal on most rural expressways, 55 on others, 75 or more in Montana, 30 on city streets, etc.
Yuck,
George
That'd be just great (/sarcasm) (Score:2)
This needs to be fought. (Score:4)
Governmental tracking systems cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Let's hope our bretheren in the UK are up to the fight.
*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:5)
People, these arguments play right into Big Brother's hands. They can be easily countered with an argument based on increased hospital coverage (so there's always one closer to you), override switches that 911 operators can throw, etc.
No, resistance must be founded on fundamental human rights. i.e. Is it right that the government have the power to remotely control us? NO!. End of story.
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It can never replace (Score:3)
I don't like it because it won't have enough of a leighway as police officers do. If I was going 112 km. in a 100km zone, most police officers would laugh at how slow I was going.. 100km is just too slow for most drivers, and if you don't plan to be ran off the road for driving too slow, you have to go over the speed limit. The police do not stop people for doing 120km sometimes, let alone 112km.
Getting back to what I was saying, the leighway is different. I'm assuming that this "photo radar" or even this satellite in the UK will have a certain setting where "if this driver is over the speed limit, ticket him". Ok, that makes no sense, it's going to be ticketing about 300 out of 310 drivers that pass through the area at an increased speed. This is not my idea of getting people to slow down.. it's the actual pull-over from the police that scares most people to not do it again. It's embarassing, that's what it is.
I'm not saying that trying to slow people down and consequentley save lives is a bad thing, I'm just saying that satellites, or photo radar, will ever take the place of a good, old-fashioned police officer with lights and sirens.
Looking up to the sky,
Matthew
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I'd like to see them try... (Score:3)
Wossit do when the car can't see a satellite anyway? like in a tunnel, or under trees? Or if the antenna breaks off (by accident of course).
And anyway, the sensible way to build something like that would be to have the car sense speed limits from roadside transmitters. Sounds like someone with a mountain of GPS receivers had a hand in suggesting this...
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
I see your point, and agree with most of it. However, what everyone seems to be forgetting here is that you should not have the freedom to speed. What if the government came up with some magic little box of tricks that stopped people from murdering. Would that be bad thing? I think not. But this is much the same. The number of people killed as a result of speeding is pretty high. So, where's the difference?
"Some smegger's filled in this 'Have You Got A Good Memory?' quiz!"
only until... (Score:4)
Man Shot to death because Satellites would not let him speed away from Car Jackers...
Here is what will happen...
CarJacker: Hey Gimme your car...
BritishGuy: No... Its my CAR!
[the BritishGuy speeds away]
CarJacker: Bloody hell...
{the CarJacker jumps into his accomplices car]
BritishGuy: CRIMENY! This bloody contraption won't let me go over 60Kilometers/hour! Oh no he's catching up!
CarJacker: Thank god we got that speed thingy removed from our car... lets shoot that guy and take is car.
[you know the rest of the story]
I hate the nanny state (Score:2)
An Old Fogey Writes (Score:2)
And I'm also of the boring opinion that people that drive at multiples of the limit are a danger to themselves and others (and more importantly me) and it would be rather a Good Idea if they could be stopped..
Now this UK satelite thing looks like it could be turned into what I want
Meanwhile, I recall an Arthur C.Clarke story where it was illegal to drive a manually controlled car - only computer controlled/coordinated vehicles were allowed. Does that make the paranoid faction amongst the Slashdot crowd any happier about accepting this development?
Regards, Ralph.
Re:Scary stuff (Score:3)
Tracking possibilities.. (Score:2)
Offtopic, but.. In such a system, what would be the 'British' way of dealing with long-term interruption of upstream service? Shut the car down? Just ignore the fact it cannot be 'monitored'? Also, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could easily refit many of the older cars..
I wouldn't worry too much in the US (Score:2)
But what also does seem overwhelmingly clear to me is that our friends on the other side of the Atlantic are increasingly in need of a written (rather than the gentleman's agreement they have now) constitution.
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
Why are we still on the ground at all? (Score:2)
A tale of two cars (Score:2)
Why do I bring this up. Well at the time the highway speed in the USA was 55mph. I know on average many more lives would be saved every day if everyone had to follow the speed limit (and the laws of physics). But we need to educate people not put spies in there cars. I will let others rant....(they do it better than I)
Coming to trucks first (Score:2)
Tracking system already in place in US (Score:2)
Navigation stuff (Score:2)
The major cost of a navigation system today isn't the computer or the map but the LCD display. Eliminate that and you have a box that you could sell in massive quantities for $200-$400 US. We charge about $150 for the map data CD for a country, but if we knew we were getting a bunch of sales something could probably be done there, too.
This is another intervention of the government into private lives of citizens through the use of technology. While it probably won't kill anyone if it gets done, it certainly doesn't improve anyone's freedom either.
It is much safer for everyone if we have no freedom and the government controls everthing. I think I am willing to give up a little safety (or the perception of it) for some freedom. How about you?
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
Accident avoidance (Score:5)
More to the point, what happens when the speed limiter kicks in when a driver mis-judges the available time to pass on a 2-lane road, and cannot get ahead in time to pull in? This leads to one of:
- A head-on with the oncoming traffic.
- A side-swipe with the traffic being passed.
- A dive for the ditch, maybe colliding with trees or stones or a rollover.
- Emergency braking by traffic on one or both sides of the road, leading to possible rear-end collisions.
This proposal is bone-headed in the extreme; perhaps it should be added to the cars of chronic lame drivers (along with reaction-time testers to stop them from driving while drunk/exhausted), but it would create at least as many problems as it solved for the masses. In this it reminds me of the flight-control system on the A320 which was directly responsible for the crash at the Paris Air Show some years back; because it was in "landing mode" it refused the pilot's command to throttle the engines up, and because it had inadequate power it refused the pilot's pitch-up force on the stick. Result: aircraft flew into a hill. Cause: Design of control software required pilot to press a "go around" button to get the aircraft to do what it was commanded to do. My analysis: It is dangerous and stupid to require persons who are operating vehicles to play games of "Simon Says" with some unthinking control system.--
Waste of Taxpayer's Money (Score:2)
PS: I am totally against the concept of an eye in the sky controlling my car, but still this is a collosal waste of taxpayer's money simply to satisfy some politicians infatuation with technology.
Revenue (Score:2)
It's about INCOME (Score:2)
Money to the police departments and local governments, which speeders (who are law-abiding citizens) are more likely to hand over than some hardend criminal. Think of it from the police's point of view: Why go after murderers and rapists? You put em in jail, and even if you fine them you don't think they will acutally be able to pay their 500,000USD fine? On the other hand your average Jane or Joe is scared of the police dragging them away if they don't pay their fine, so they are more than happy to shell out $100 or more to the cop's coffers.
Insurance companies have a hand in this money pot too. Car wrecks cost insurance companies a lot of money, and if they can avoid paying this (doesn't matter if its done by taking away the rights of motorists) then they are all for it. Speed limits are an easy way to increase the profits of insurance companies, so they can have their way with you two ways: 1. by preventing them from having to pay up (you were over the limit, pal) and 2. by allowing them to jack up people's premiums after they recieve tickets (you're an unsave driver, buddy).
The whole system is corrupt to the core, and in the end has nothing to do with safety or saving lives. How many times (those in the US) have you seen a four lane highway with a speed limit of 45 miles per hour? Safety, my rear end! These are speed traps, designed to empty your wallet and create an atmosphere where the public fears the police.
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Re:Hack It! (Score:2)
They pretty much already have. (Score:4)
There are speed cameras mounted -everywhere-. Country lanes, suburban roads, motorways, etc. These automatically transmit the licence plate to a central computer, which prints & mails off the speeding ticket to the owner of the car.
There are -other- surveilance cameras, primarily around London, which monitor cars. If you enter London by car, expect to have your entire criminal record in the hands of the police, along with details of your car, plus your exact location in London. If you're the -least- bit suspicious, they'll probably check you out.
This is a far cry from some of the more interesting traffic control measures that have been tried in England, such as cardboard cut-outs of police cars, in strategically-located places, where drivers can't tell if it's real or not. It's worked very well, in the past, without infringing on anyone's rights and without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg.
"Sleeping Policemen" (speed bumps to Americans) and cobblestone roads are other popular measures. (Cobblestones are marginally less popular, as they are more expensive and tend to get stern words from disabled & pensioner groups.)
But, it doesn't surprise me that they now want to go over to a full satelite system. Not that I'm going to blame the Government for this. That's unfair. Decisions are made by the Sir Humphrey Appleby's of the world. In short, by the Civil Service, not the Government.
(The Civil Service is an unelected body of politically neutral people who enact the wishes of the elected Government. Or so they say. In reality, they really run the country and the politicians are simply targets for the media to throw the rotten eggs at.)
Will this get through? The House of Lords is all but phased out, so there is no second house which can oppose the Government. (The reason the House of Lords has been killed off is that it kept opposing measures which would destroy democracy and freedom. That it was unelected gave it the freedom -to- be "controversial", rather than tow the line.)
IMHO, that leaves the only other unelected body that has much influence, and even that's on the wane - the Masons. In England, the Masons are an ultra-secret organisation, with considerable power and influence over everything. It's rare that you ever hear about them doing anything directly, though. Probably because that would destroy their carefully-preserved secrecy. However, this is the sort of thing that I can see the Masons taking an interest in, as it would seriously affect them. (Not just with respect to speeding, but the ability to monitor every car in England. It's harder to keep secrets when the Government knows where you are, at all times.)
This isn't going to inspire the all-out rebellion that the Poll Tax did, or generate the intense questioning that followed the Falklands War and the "mysterious" sinking of the General Belgrano.
If Britain is going to remain a free country, in any meaningful sense, it's going to have to rely on the whims of some senile old men and a mysterious, half-mythical super-secret organisation, all of whom the general public have been pelting rocks at for ages. I don't expect them to have much sympathy for their persecuters, now that the Government is pelting rocks of their own, but they -are- Britain's last best hope at remaining a democracy.
Isn't this "a priori" or something (Score:2)
The bigger problem is that as technology improves, of course, it will be possible to monitor us in more and more ways -- possibly even to lock us down or punish us without proof. And as society ebbs and flows, you can bet that at one time or another the public sentiment wil favor this sort of government control, and that once put in place the controls will not be voted out or removed. It's important to be against these things every time, *in principle*, or we are inevitably doomed to a sort of pseudo-fascism whereby "the people" control most of what we do, say, or even think.
Re:The real issue here (Score:2)
Boo! (Score:5)
Speed limit enforcement is essentially a cop-out for those hard-to-prove things which, in reality, play a much larger role in causing traffic problems. For instance, tailgating causes more accidents than going 10 MPH over the limit on the interstate, but you almost never hear about someone getting a ticket for tailgating. Why? Because it's hard to prove -- there's no radar, just the officer's word for it.
Here's a list of other traffic infractions which the police should *really* pay attention to:
Reckless Driving: Unfortunately, this means "pissing off the cop" in my town -- the police tack it on when someone ticks them off, not for any particular driving behavior. Still, actual erratic driving causes accidents and should be policed.
Inattentive Driving: This is another one the cops add in when they're pissed. It deserves to be enforced properly, however. I can't count how many times I've seen idiots rooting for CDs or even *reading* while driving. Again, tell me that this isn't as bad as doing 10 MPH over the posted limit. As a special highlight to this, I'd point out that cell phone morons ought to be especially watched for. I mean, studies show that using a cell phone while driving causes as many accidents as OUI, but for some bizarre reason they're not regulated.
Not Signaling: I hate it when people don't use their blinkers. Older drivers (above 40) seem to be especially prone to doing this. As much as I advocate being unpredictable and spontanious in life, I'd suggest not doing so on the interstate.
Going too far under the limit: Just yesterday I was in a 55 zone (yes, I was doing 60) and almost struck a granny who was alternating between 30-35 MPH. I came up over a hill and there she was, practically standing still in her lane. People might *think* they're being safe by going under the limit, but if they go that far under they're actually a much larger hazard.
Old People: I'm not one of those pricks who thinks that drivers licenses should be revoked on your 70th birthday, but I do believe that some older people lose the ability to drive safely as they get older due to medical conditions. There ought to be a graduated system to make the roads safer for the rest of us -- for example, if a person can't pass a night vision test every five years, they ought to be prohibited from driving at night. This doesn't seem cruel and unusual to me; it seems like common sense.
I'm not saying that speed enforcement isn't an element of safety, I'm just saying that it doesn't deserve attention at the expense of other infractions (which are routinely ignored today). If the police and legislators were really interested in protecting drivers from accidents, these are the laws which would be enforced. Simple-minded speed limit enforcement is just a cop-out. Anyone have any additions?
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Re:Differend approach, same goal (Score:2)
I still think it sucks, though.
Hack the satellite.... (Score:4)
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
Seriously, people, I can't believe that this is even being debated... I don't care if it's to locate child rapists, nevermind speeders, WE SHOULD NOT BE MONITORED.
Hello? Big Brother? You listening? These people are ready for you now.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt (Score:2)
There's no need to install any new gadgets and satellites. There's already a system that can be used to monitor car speeds, surveillance etc. About 2/3 of Finns carry it voluntarily; it's the cell phone.
The cell phone communicates constantly with the GSM network. Even if you don't speak, it tells the network where you are and tries to find a better connection. Now you only have to monitor how fast a cell phone travels from point A to point B and you can count the average speed of the car.
Cell phones are also a great way of monitoring where people are. Many criminals are already caught because they were carrying their phones at the place of the crime. "Hmm, so you were at home all asleep while your cell phone travelled 200 km?"
The big brother is watching :-)
Re:This is beeing used in Sweden. (Score:2)
Me, I refuse to have anything that even risks cutting off the fuel supply. If you've ever so much as stalled on a motorway, let alone had a blowout or engine failure, you'll know it's not fun.
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
"Some smegger's filled in this 'Have You Got A Good Memory?' quiz!"
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
And they should be allowed to search and seize me at the airport cuz I ain't no terrorist or arab or nuthin'
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
I live in the UK and I will support this.
"Some smegger's filled in this 'Have You Got A Good Memory?' quiz!"
Re:Scary stuff (Score:2)
I prefer to discard this safety rhetoric and submit the idea that I have the right to self-determination. This is the same right that allows a person to do lots of other "dumb" things, like smoke, drink or eat too much, etc.
That would be a fine argument ... except that, you might not have noticed, but there are other people on the streets, too ... And they might not appreciate you to have the freedom to run over them at 100 MPH.
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
What a load of crap. The voice of the anti-freedom activists are much more loud than the NRA. Only the NRA speaks for the NRA, the anti-freedom activists have most of the popular news media, most of the television industry and most of the motion picture industry to speak for them. For free. There is a lot of talk about the supposed strength of the 'gun lobby', but in all reality, most of the political power comes down on the anti-freedom side.
Re:Why satellites? (Score:2)
Re:It can never replace (Score:2)
Second: 300 out of 310 driver might get ticketed after the photo-radar is put up, but how many do you think will get ticketed the second time they drive that route?
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
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Re:It can never replace (Score:2)
hehehe... there was a demonstration by a firm who was trying to sell their photoradar technology to the Kansas City, MO police department. I think the police department did get stuck with that $150,000 setup, but its been several years ago. Anyway, there were salesmen trying to sell this product. Fancy equipment, all that jazz. So, they set up a roadside demonstration on the side of the highway with reporters and were giving a good show.
Until the demonstration started. As it was described in the Star, the traffic started acting funny, likely due to brakelights of those who had detectors. A tractor-trailer jacknifed and came close to swiping the spectators. That was the end of that.
So I thought. I remember also several years ago where they tried it on some road and tried to get people to show in court. Lots of funny cases where the person driving was not the owner, his spouse, but someone else. Who was that woman? Well the burden of proof became an invasion of privacy.
Let me tell you about the flash taking vans that take the pictures. I have seen filters you can put over your license plate and suppose any dirty looking license plate cover would munge a flash picture. Photo radar got lots of attention. I think it was turning into a game of those who had the technology and those who wanted to play with it.
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
Most people when given less limitedspeed limits tend to choose reasonable speeds. When the speed limit was 55, people travelled at 75; so the argument went that by going from 55 to 65 posted, people would drive at 85. It turned out that most people ended up going around 70, which is a reasonable speed on most 65mph posted roads.
However, there are a few jerks who want to travel at 90mph where everyone else is going 65.
I think a reasonable solution is to post speed limits that are reasonable for a given road, and to enforce the basic speed law which is that it is never legal to operate a vehicle at an unsafe speed no matter what the posted limit (e.g. in rain or ice).
Speeding is not a crime. (Score:2)
And what about the utter hypocrisy of speed limits? I've never seen a cop on the road who obeyed the speed limit, whatever it may have been. Local, County, State cops. All of them speed whenever they want and then park their cars on the median, pull out the lidar, and nab anybody doing 62 in a 55. What I love is the signs all over the LIE that say "State Speed Limit: 55" but then when I went up the NYS Thruway a couple of years ago, there were signs that read: "Speed Limit: 65." So the absolute maximum speed limit for the state is 55, unless it's not.
I think the driver's test should be modified to include some highway driving -- I don't think everybody is a good high-speed driver -- and the speed limit should be raised to 70 nationwide. Also, something has got to be done about the fines levied upon these heartless criminals who dare use their automobiles to their full potential. For example, When I came home from college this past September, I was stopped on I-95 in Connecticut in my mom's Volvo station wagon (loaded to the brim with bike, refrigerator, clothes, lamps, desktop computer, 17 inch monitor, tv, etc.). The officer said I was doing 77 (speed limit was 65). I tried explaining that I didn't think the car would go that fast, but he wrote the ticket anyway. I didn't look at it until I got home (Queens now) but when I did I was shocked. The officer was allowed to make up any fine he wanted, and he gave me a single ticket for $239. For going 77 in a 65, on an interstate. Well, I hit the roof, but I had to pay it.
The nation-wide, and, it seems, world-wide crackdown on speeders seems to me nothing more than government-sanctioned extortion. This, coupled with the hypocrisy of the police who so selectively enforce these laws, demonstrates the need for change. I don't really know what can change or be changed, I only know something must.
(I have nothing against police, mind you, I just think it's wrong for them to charge whatever they want of us [well, me, really] for a "crime" they commit several times a day.)
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
Is it right that the government have the power to remotely control us?
This is not about controlling people. It is about limiting people. Control is telling someone what to do, while limiting someone is telling them what they can't do. Our entire legal system is based on limiting people - you can't murder, you can't steal, etc. Our society requires laws to function.
Anyway, the speed limit laws already exist. This is merely a proposal on enforcing the law. Complain to the government if you want the law changed. It seems safer to limit a car's speed than it is to have policemen risk their lives chasing some crazy speeder that refuses to stop.
Really, forget about guns, nuclear terrorists, earthquakes, etc. My biggest fear every day is dying on the road in a car accident (statistically it's my greatest chance of dying). Speed limiters are a long time coming.
Why do people feel the need to go 100+ MPH? If you like driving fast, then go to a race track or ride a bike as fast as you can. I use my car mainly to drive to work every day. It's silly putting everyone's life at risk on the roads because someone feels the need to "rebel" against the goverment by driving dangerously faster than everyone else. Driving is a privilege, not a right.
The Japanese possibly (Score:2)
Does anyone think *any* government could really get away with this?
The Japanese, possibly. Think about it, they have terrible traffic problems, a history of strong government regulation on domestic products & imports, and far less of the "right to drive" mentality that Americans and (to a lesser extent) Europeans have.
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Look at the statistics.. (Score:2)
I've got a fantastic idea.. let's put a sprinkler system on the Titanic.
What are they not telling you, that is ALWAYS the issue. Can that stop your car at any time? Can they collect individual's driving data? Can this data be sold, published, or used in a court of law? How can it be used in a court of law.. could someone be implicated in a murder based solely on your car's data?
You're playing a deadly game of British Roulette in my oppinion.
And every Catholic Irishman knows that is he's near an explosion in England, he's guilty. Brits could take a lesson from them now.. A little rebellion now could save a bloody hell later.
Pan
Re:Monitor? Maybe. Control? No! (Score:2)
Locally (MD), we have red light cameras, which take a picture of cars if they go through (duh!) red lights. They seem pretty widespread. Given how many people are "so nice, they go through lights after me to reassure me I didn't go through the light too late", I'm for it.
Fundamentally, the "rights" people here are missing something: you can drive a car as fast as you want to on YOUR OWN ROAD. Dale Earnhardt can drive 200 MPH at Talledega, no problem. It's just when you drive on publicly-owned roads that you are subject to tighter restrictions. And yes, if the ownership committee for the roads (the Government) decided that you need limiters to use their roads, then by golly, why are they any less entitled to do so any more than the owners of Talledega could impose a 50 MPH limit on their course?
This doesn't address the idea of whether it's a good idea or not, however.
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
Really, it's about expectation of privacy. Whe you are on a government road, you should expect to be monitored by the government. I suppose you gripe whenever you see highway patrol too. This is just another method of maintaining order in the government's roads and highways. I'd actually prefer it to issue a ticket to you for sustained speeding rather than slow the car down. Dang it Jonny, you were speeding for 5 miles on Monday, 3 and 12 miles on Tuesday, speeding over 15 MPH over the limit for 2 miles on Wed, and 4 miles on Friday! The ticket here is for $450! That's it, give me your liscence, you are not allowed to drive!
That way, we could pay for the satellite in a hurry.
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
"you can't murder, you can't steal"--These are both limits, just like the speed limit. What's the difference between limiting and controlling? When the "corrective action" takes place.
The equivalent example for murder would be a chip implanted in your head that makes you fall unconscious when a murderous thought enters your head.
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Re:Hack It! (Score:2)
GPS satellites only transmit (Score:2)
So what's wrong with it? (Score:2)
I'm guessing that a lot of the posters here assume that the satellite somehow tracks the position of every car, and the government can watch your movements. That's not the system described in the article: the device in the car gets its location through GPS, and limits the maximum speed accordingly. I don't see any privacy or human rights issues here.
There are a couple of problems: the first is mentioned in the article, the danger that some drivers would just floor it for the duration of the journey and let the machine keep their speed legal (as my driving instructor used to say, it's a limit not a target).
Secondly, although I'd discount the "escape from carjackers, volcanoes etc" arguments, there are many occasions when I feel it is reasonable to exceed the speed limit momentarily. If you're stuck behind a tractor on a windy road, and you're on the only straight for tens of miles, you want to overtake as quickly as possible, to stay on the wrong side of the road for as short a time as possible. When you get back in your lane, then you return to the correct speed limit.
I *would* argue that while vehicles have become safer (better brakes, visibility, etc), the speed limits are still designed for the cars of the 1970s.
Perhaps the most reasonable way to deploy these things would be to make them an option, and to subsidise the cost of purchase (from road tax). If it were cheap enough, I'd certainly consider buying one -- I'd like to stay under 30mph in built up areas, but frankly it's a challenge. It just seems to slow.
One more thing. My car, and most I've driven, like to be in third gear at 30 MPH, and fourth gear at about 40MPH and higher. Most cars in the UK have a manual gearbox -- I can't see this device being safe unless it works in conjunction with an automatic gearbox... Hmmmm.
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Re:The real issue here (Score:2)
Sounds nice, but I have seen people cutting each other off happens at the exit and entrance ramps, not in the fast lanes. Tightly regulating the speed limit would not help those lanes that have to deal with people moving on and off the highway. There still is a problem of following distances and people slowing down to accomodate the newer traffic. I see accidents in these lanes, by slower moving cars, due to these problems.
I have seen two fatal accidents in my life. One may have been caused by the beer cans and empty cases of beer that littered the scene where the convertible ramped the ditch, ejecting the three unbelted occupants from their seats. Just because it was a red convertible, does not mean it was speeding. Scene was about 10 years ago on Noland Road in Independence, Missouri.
The second, recently, apparently was caused by someone who no longer was aware of other cars on the highway. The other cars swerved out of the way, allowing the car to continue into the guardrail, where it flipped not once, but twice before landing into the ditch. Emergency vehicles took 15 to 20 minutes to arrive. This was in Eastern Missouri last thanksgiving day.
Anyhow, speed related? No. If you have a satellite control things like following distances, etc., we might as well give up on cars and take the train. We could have technology drive our entire lives, but at what point do we want our freedom?
If we had autopilots drive our cars, how reliable would they be? Would people rely on them too much and if they only crashed twice a day, would that be an acceptable risk?
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
You do have the right to be unmonitored (Right to privacy) when in one's home.
They have no meet reasonable suspicion to pull you over. Once they pull you over, they can look in the windows of your car (anything in plain view is fair game) and examine you and your condition. These things may add up to probible cause.
*sigh*
People, you do NOT have the right to drive. Diving is a privelage that the government has allowed you to have. While excercising that privelage, you are at the scrutiny of the government safety officials. The privelage may be withdrawn.
Just wait until it gets hacked (Score:2)
Can you imagine what would happen if someone hacked that satellite? Some April 1, somebody decides it would be really funny to set the speed limit on a residential road to 100, and the speed limit on a major highway to 10. That could really screw up your commute.
Or perhaps a work of industrial/economic espionage. Slow all traffic into a city, or perhaps just people going to a major event. Terrorism uses of technology like this are also quite limitless.
Then again, with some creative programming, I could cut my commute down to 5 minutes and make everyone else late...
Re:It can never replace (Score:2)
As a bit of background information, in the UK (well, England certainly) there are at least three different implementations of what you term 'photo-radar', or what we call 'speed cameras' (the terminology is largely irrelevant).
1) The first widespread instance. A camera armed with a radar speed gun, accurate timer, flash and trigger was put in a large grey box on top of a 6ft chunky post and aimed at the nearest side of the road. In the field of view of the camera, a series of lines were painted on the road at known intervals (more on this in a minute). If a car was belting along at speed x where x is over the threshold set for the camera then the camera is triggered. As I understood it, two photos were taken very close together at known intervals (using the onboard accurate timer). This is due to the fact that time is simple to measure. Now, at the time the radar technology alone was insufficient evidence to present to a court as proof that Joe Bloggs was doing 101mph in a 70mph zone (national speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways). The lines on the road (remember these) were then used to determine how far the car had moved in the interval between photographs and therefore how fast it was travelling. If any of you are still with me after all that, you may be interested to know they were incredibly successful and popped up all over the country. As the police turned out to be non-stupid, they started turning out lots of empty boxes on poles with painted stripey roads as a deterrant.
2) More recently, the radar technology got approved by some court or another, so the stripey roads were done away with (in newer installations, the old ones are still in use). These were different in that the cameras faced the front of oncoming cars rather than the rear of them. I suspect this was due to people covering up their licence plates. This means that the camera took the photo of the driver as well as any stickers in the windscreen. It also heralded the start of the faith in technology that lead to the 3rd instance.
3) The newest and most nastiest. As I'm getting bored of typing and I'm sure you lot are bored of reading. Essentially 3 cameras at 1 mile intervals. They take photos of each and every car that passes in whatever lane and the time stamp. If you cover the 2 mile distance too quickly, you're speeding and are therefore nicked. The cunning part is that there's a computer sat there reading the number plates as the cars go by. This is particularly scary for two reasons:
a) these cameras can be miniaturised and therefore hidden on gantries, bridges and behind signs etc..
b) if enough get installed then some bright spark could correlate the data and monitor journeys around the country.
Anyway, to put this bunch into context. If the thresholds are set sensibly, i.e. about 20% over the limit, then about 25% of drivers will get caught and would almost certainly slow down. This leaves the actual man power of the police to respond to emergencies and so forth, meaning more resources to use on useful things.
To respond to the Canada case:
I just happened to spend a fortnight in Ontario this September past and had this precise same discussion with my girlfriend and her family. Much to my surprise, such a scheme had been deployed and then removed! Something to do with it catching too many people. Said people got narked because they were caught doing something wrong and didn't like it, promptly did the North American thing (probably wrong, but it's a perceived stereotype) and took the provincial police to court over it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that rather than fight this and thereby use up more resources than this was saving and so scrapped the whole affair.
And finally (on a last point). If this forces everybody to drive at 70 rather than 90, think of all the fuel that'll be saved (about 35% by my estimages). I suspect that the oil corp's won't like it either.
ttfn
Dav
There is no "upstream" link. (Score:2)
Would it be more acceptable if rather than apply the brakes, a speaker were to sound an alarm whenever the car exceeds the current speed limit?
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Re:The US Government... (Score:2)
Expectation of privacy - 3 words that make the governments case. On the roads, you have little to none.
Re:This needs to be fought. (Score:2)
After all, only a criminal would be opposed to it, RIGHT?
Big Mommmy Government will take care of you, not to worry.
Re:DoS attack on GPS satellite (Score:2)
Maybe you should at least try to figure out what you're talking about before you start. Not all the world is a Webserver.
There are no request in GPS, just as there are no requests from your radio to the radiostation. They don't have DoS attacks on radio stations either.
Re:Scary stuff (Score:4)
Actually, I think you'll find the research shows the accidents happen because of the large disparity in speed. If everybody is going 70, there are fewer accidents than if some are going 60 and some are going 80.
...phil
Re:Scary stuff (Score:2)
It'll just create a high priced market for older cars that can be safely controlled by the driver.
Re:On the other hand (Score:2)
A quick refresher: People who have enough positive karma post at +1 unless they specifically opt out. Perhaps I should have done that, but I didn't think about it at the time. And given that the article is about personal freedom restriction by governments, it isn't really that far off topic.
Re:Practicality / Useability (Score:2)
Absolutely. First one that springs to mind: Driving in LA, trying to pass a semi that decided he wanted to be in the same (left) lane I was in. Not enough time to brake, plus the cars behind me would probably have rear-ended me, so I poked it. Squirted out in front of him, probably doing 85 or so. If something had decided I couldn't do that, I would have been smushed against the median barrier.
...phil
What do you mean? (Score:2)
I also like the way the article mentions that itwill "cut total road deaths by UP TO 2/3" [emphasis mine]. Well, what if it doesn't? Do you think for a second that the law requiring these devices will be repealed? Not a chance. The British government is getting very good at justifying their actions, (in the U.S., we're faced with the "we need this to protect the children" mantra), and (at least in Britain) the people are getting very good at responding like a mindless herd of sheep.
Let's look at another example...the U.S. spent a couple hundred million to construct a "Y2K preparedness facility," or somesuch. Now that most of the Y2K concern has abated, they're talking about using it for dealing with other "technical emergencies". While it would surely be a waste of taxpayer money to decommission the facility after such a short time in service, it's no different that the ENDLESS waste that occurs in Washington, where funds are allocated to build Navy ships that aren't requested, parking garages that aren't used, and roads that don't go anywhere. The upside is that once it's out of service, the fed can't use it for anything that wasn't intended to begin with. With projects like Echelon lurking in the mist, it's wasted in the most productive way possible.
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
The issue that i refer to is the good judgement of the driver.
Right now, no car in the UK has such a device attached. I would be very surprised if they could accomplish even 50% with in a year.
No, I don't know the hard and fast details on how the speed controll would work, but in order to react to changing traffic conditions - not even always an accident, but more often just keeping up with the general flow of traffic in an area where most people drive somewhat over the limit, is crucial to road safety.
If 75% of the cars on a given highway tend to drive 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, and 25% are incapable of exceeding the speed limit, there is going to be a much higher probability of an accident happening.
If a driver, due to the presence of a "smart" speed limiting device in his or her car, knows or *believes* that the car will not respond appropriately when there is a present need for an increase in speed over that which would usually be appropriate for the particular road, the driver *will not* react appropriately to changing traffic conditions.
And a failure to react to a change in the general flow of traffic is often the cause of an accident.
I believe that this "safety" device gives a false perception of driver controll. If anything, it makes the car less controllable, and thus, less safe.
Why drive? Why not be driven? (Score:2)
Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, on the whole, they suck at it. About 40.000 killed annually in the USA alone should show us that.
We know software is never foolproof, programmers and engineers fuck up, etc., but still, I think a suitable team could make a system that would keep more of its users alive, take better routes, use less energy, etc., etc.
"But the average red-blooded American working stiff likes driving and won't give up that feeling of being free and in control for anything!".
<sigh> For the sake of 40.000 people a year, the average red-blooded American can grow up!
PS. Sorry for the US-centric post, but I wanted to fit in "red-blooded American". Just pretend we're all American for the moment.
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Re:Scary stuff (Score:2)
Even though I stayed in the right lane, I was passed at the rate of around 30 cars per minute, and I estimate that they were passing me at a relative speed of at least 20 miles an hour. I was driving 65, they were driving 85.
At least twice, I saw cars slam on their brakes or violently swerve into the passing lane because they were coming up on me too damn fast, and they never even considered the notion that SOMEONE out there might be obeying the speed limit.
Artificially low speed limits are a revenue enhancing device implemented at the expense of public safety.
A trivial bypass. (Score:2)
This would probably not work as well with an automatic transmission because the computer uses the output speed to determine critical things like torque-converter slip and clutch locking.
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Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
"in order to react to changing traffic conditions, yadda yadda yadda, the driver needs to trust that their vehicle will respond appropriately when a change from the norm is required"
And on the other hand, stil... (Score:2)
Funny, that.
IIRC, the kids that shot up the school at Columbine were in violation of not less than like 25 existing gun laws. These violations would have landed them in prison for the rest of several of their lives.
The problem is not that we don't have stringent enough gun laws - it's that the gun laws that we have aren't enforced!
Why is it that, if I don't do anything illegal with my guns, I should be forced to give them up because some (group of) idiots has done something stupid with theirs?
Substitute the word "computer" for the word "firearm" in any gun law you care to read the text for, and see if you like the resultant restrictions on your right to pursue your happiness through your interaction with your favorite computer, then you'll see what the NRA folks are up in arms (so to speak) about.
+ Some people actually do like to use guns for sport.
+ Since we've obliterated entire classes of indigenous predators, we (humans - sportsmen)
must use guns to control populations of certain animals (this is why we have hunting seasons).
+ Some people really like to collect old or unusual guns (one of my friends has an old KayPro
computer he fired up to test its Y2K compliance - which it passed with flying colors, allowing
him to merrily play a game of text-mode donkey kong or somesuch - would you deny him that?).
+ Guns are even useful for (gasp!) self defense! In every (not just some, but every) state
in which concealed carry has passed, crime has dropped (not just NRA numbers, but real, solid,
official government statistics). Criminals, it seems, are less likely to mug someone if there is
a distinct possibility of that person pulling out a gun and wiping them out of existence.
It's all about rationality - would you mug me if I could potentially shoot you?
Now, to wax a little philosophical - I believe in the concept of liberty. My right to swing my fist ending at the tip of your nose, and all. If I don't harm you in any way by owning a gun, why should you have any right or reason at all, in any way, shape or form, to dictate to me that I cannot own one, thus injuring me?
All this, and I didn't even go on a rant about "a well-organized militia being necessary,
My rant is done for now, but I urge you to think about the matter a little more before blindly saying, "guns are bad". The old saw goes, "guns don't kill people - people kill people." And that's the truth. Punish the criminals and leave the law-abiding to their own devices.
--Corey
Re:No Good (Score:2)
...phil
You're paranoid; this COULD NOT be hidden. (Score:2)
Your tinfoil hat is obviously worn out; I suggest getting a bigger one.
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Remote Control? (Score:2)
A better solution would be as follows. The speed limit in a given area is broadcast on some radio frequency (a convenient place would be at each road sign, using what would end up being a very inexpensive transmitter since it only has to use one frequency and transmit only one thing). The vehicle would have a device inside which renders it incapable of exceeding the speed it "hears" from these transmitters.
Because the transmitters cannot recieve data, privacy is protected (since the vehicle cannot be tracked). It also stops the problem of speeding. And even though it means installing a lot of transmitters, in the end it's probably cheaper than launching a network of satellites and installing even more satellite recievers. It is cheaper for the car manufacturers, tool the technology is less expensive.
Now, I do have objections to forcing the cars down to the speed limit, of course. For one, the limits are often set ridiculously low, because the laws tend to use blanket formulas that don't apply well to some areas where faster speeds are safe, but because of the designation it's set slower than it needs to be. For another, I wonder if the British government realizes just how much revenue speeding tickets generate; you can kiss that goodbye (yeah, that's a self-serving reason, but to governments ever have any other kind?)
It'll never happen in the US. (Score:2)
The police won't allow such a device in the U.S. After all, impossability is an excellent defence against a speeding ticket. A number of small town would dry up and blow away without the revenue. Sadly, I'm only half joking.
Road to Serfdom (Score:2)
Re:Don't be silly. It isn't going to happen... (Score:2)
There's lots of problems with this proposal, but your list is way off the mark.
...phil
Re:GPS CAN and DOES monitor. (Score:2)
GM also has a system that is capable of transmitting from Cadillacs TODAY. It is called OnStar. Read about it. [cadillac.com] It can transmit your location and it does its transmitting via cell phone. If your air bags deploy the car phones your car's lat/lon into a GM control center. The technology is real and here today. There is another feature going into cars today - A flash ram chip that maintains driving data (speed, rpm, braking, etc) so that if the car is in a collision the cops and insurance companies can figure out who to blame...
Re:The real issue here (Score:2)
Me, doing 65 in a 65 zone, passing a slowpoke doing about 45. The slowpoke cut me off for some unknown reason; I swerved to avoid. He then saw me swerving behind him and jerked himself directly back into my path. Somewhere around the second swerve was where I lost it; I managed to miss him (in retrospect, I kinda wish I'd taken him out :-), but at the price of rolling my vehicle after leaving the road. The slowpoke never stopped. The seatbelt saved my life; I was uninjured, and was told how much air I caught while offroad by a witness who saw the whole thing from a dozen car lengths back. With the witness backing me up, the cops reported it as hit-and-run; the slowpoke was likely after an insurance settlement.
An acquaintance travelling in line with the flow of traffic when he got cut off when being passed by a drunk doing about 80ish. The drunk miscalculated and knocked him off into the ditch, and then spun out and ended up in the ditch himself. Everyone walked away. The drunk got his day in court, was convicted, and is probably on the road again.
Speed differentials kill. Stupid drivers kill. Drunk drivers kill. But speed, in and of itself, does not kill.
If the state wants to put a little gadget in the car to collect money from drivers, a GPS-based speedometer will be just fine.
If the state wants to employ these kinds of technolgoies to save lives, however, a breathalyzer in series with a seat belt buckle sensor and the ignition coil would be far more effective.
Of course, it'd be cheaper still to simply have better driver education (including a mandatory emergency manoeuvers course - which the highest-risk teenagers would probably enjoy as well as learn from :-), stricter driving test standards, and tougher convictions for impaired driving, but hey, that's not as sexy and high-tech, is it?
There are very few true "accidents" on the road. The problem isn't with the car, it's with the idiot driving it. If a driver is unsafe, he or she doesn't belong on the road at any speed.
General erosion of personal freedom in the UK (Score:2)
Transport fiascos are bad enough. Seeing Two Jags Prescott or our Glorious Leader swanning down the "bus" lane of the M4 like Soviet style leaders makes my blood boil. Recent tax hikes on fuel prices while halting road building and mantainence programs is absurd and is making our transport system practically Third World. But this are just some of the minor things we are losing.
What about the proposed restriction of the right to a trial by jury?
What about the loss of the House of Lords and its replacement by Tony's Cronies?
What about our continual loss of democratic government (including tax and defense issues) and replacement by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels?
Re:What about revenue generated from tickets? (Score:2)
You got that right. We've had radar-operated cameras for a generation now, but they never caught on. Why not?
Who would speed if a ticket was a certainty?
And can you imagine what the yearly take on speed tickets is for a metropolitan area of, say, one million souls?
> I live in Texas, and in the smaller towns "speed traps" are very common.
Supposedly a handful of towns filed for bankruptcy a week after the state mandated that the bulk of the fines issued on highways was to go to state coffers rather than the local kitty.
And I know that raising the speed limit back to 70 put the squeeze on some of them. There's a freeway overpass at the Manville city limit a few miles south of Houston, and for years there were ruts where the grass wouldn't grow because the highwayman^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H radar operator pulled his patrol car up in the same spot about 50 times a day. The grass grows green there, now. Wonder how tiny Manville is making up for those $100*50*365 = $1,825,000 per year, now?
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It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Limits and safety are coincidental... (Score:3)
I'd prefer it if we could have limits set per road (there are some freeways which should be at 85-115 because it's safe and it would help reduce the traffic congestion which is the real danger) and focus more on the basic speed law (drive at a speed which is safe).
The speed differential between cars is the real danger.Moving at the speed of traffic is much safer than following the speed limit - I've been on freeways in bad weather where 40MPH would qualify as "maniac speed" because everyone else is going 15MPH due to very low visibility and poor road conditions; I've also been on freeways where the average speed is approaching 95-100MPH and there was little danger because everyone was going roughly the same speed and it was not inherently unsafe for the freeway in question.
<RANT> I'd also like it if the police would pull over people driving slowly in the left lane(s) and explain the whole "Slower traffic move right" concept. I've seen this cause accidents, while I've never seen one caused strictly by speeding (as opposed to speeding while driving like a moron)... </RANT>
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:3)
> then they would have no legal footing on which to monitor our actions.
Careful with that argument. Around where I drive, entry onto a highway isn't just probable cause that one is speeding, it's pretty much the de facto standard :-)
The serious argument - is about the right to face one's accuser. If I contest a speeding ticket I believe was wrongfully given to me by a police officer, I get my day in court.
While most traffic court cases are really nuisance cases where the defendant is guilty but hoping the cop can't be bothered to show up, the fact remains that if the cop can't be bothered to show up to explain his actions, the defendant ought to go free. "Innocent until proven guilty" is an extremely important principle in our justice system, and it's inextricably linked to the right of the accused to challenge one's accuser in court.
Automated ticket-assigning systems attack this principle in an extremely underhanded way - "the machine can't lie" rapidly becomes "you're guilty because the machine says so". Why not dispense with judges and juries while you're at it?
If you like the fact that the GPS-speedometer only reports violators and doesn't track your whereabouts, remember that sodomy (the exact definition of which is a function of jurisdiction) is still illegal in many areas of the U.S. Perhaps an infrared camera with pattern-recognition software ought to be installed in every bedroom?
It's not really intrusive - it only calls the authorities when patterns of movement indicating illegal sex (head-bobbing for oral, presence of two erect penii for gays, presence of two humans in the absence of a penis for lesbians, but we're still having trouble distinguishing between doggie-style vaginal and doggie-style anal heterosexual - that's in version 2.0) have been detected.
But God-fearing heterosexual Christians who have sex in the missionary position under the sheets with the lights out have nothing to worry about.
This, and other misused tech, need to be fought. (Score:5)
This system will make use of a GPS/CDROM unit similar to the ones currently on the market. I've got one of those, and it is not all that accurate or reliable. It quite often forgets where the car was parked last time it was powered down, so for the first 5-20 minutes it tries to figure out where the car is. And any type of reflections in a city render it unusable, as well as driving in hilly country.
The GPS system is an ex american military system, and although the US has turned most control over to a civilian agency, it can still be overridden by the US military at any time. The system regularly has problems, outages, position shifts and other glitches, which is why no commercial airline is allowed to use it except as a backup secondary navigation unit. I can't see other governments allowing their citizens to be so heavily influenced in daily affairs by a system still controlled by the US military.
The CDROMs containing the map database (which can easily have speed limits added for each segment of road) are often quite out of date. My system has a CD only 6 months old, but it is still missing 10% of the main roads in place for years. The system has a nervous breakdown whenever I take a new freeway section through a forest.
So what happens when a local council changes the speed limit on a local stretch of road (perhaps up, since repaving or straightening), and nobody can drive the new speed limit? Same question, but what if a speed limit is lowered in a dangerous area, but millions of cars are still allowed to drive faster? With this system in place, many drivers will go as fast as the system will let them, and pay less attention to the posted limits.
What happens when some drivers have one limit in their databases, and other drivers have another?
What happens when the unit mistakes which road you are on (say a parallel frontage road with a much slower speed limit), and force you down suddenly to 25 MPH in a normal 65 MPH area? What happens if this happens to 20% of the drivers in an area?
What happens during a GPS satellite outage? What is the default behaviour during LoS?
Will the system be able to compensate for rain/snow/broken water main conditions? Or will drivers start driving whatever the maximum is, despite the weather dictating a slower speed?
What happens to court cases, when someone has a perfectly functioning unit and still gets a ticket? How will this affect law enforcement credibility when people can use the existence of the system as a viable defence?
For those who are tracking how our liberties are being threatened by new technologies, there has been a parallel threat from cell phone companies. I have seen cell techs watch their debug screens and show me drivers who are speeding on the autoroutes, it is just a function of predicting how often to hand off a phone from one cell to another. Recently a cell phone company in the US has put together a package (they want to make more $$$) to sell to state police forces. It will track cell phones moving too rapidly from one cell site to another, and provide position info as well as subscriber info to a waiting police cruiser. Hey, instant tickets. Don't like it, dont own a phone.
I can predict this system will not be mandatory at first, but will be offered as an option with a reduction in insurance rates. The first adopters will be the old biddies who never get near a speed limit, and want to save some money. Next will be the families, followed by young people desperate to save some money. After 50% of the cars on the road have the system, expect the laws to change to require it on all vehicles within a few years. That also gives the system a while to be debugged, and for the initial panic to die down. But I expect a few hundred extra deaths due to this system before they get the kinks worked out, mostly due to large speed mis-matches.
the AC
We need Big Brother (Score:3)
We need Big Brother. More precisely, we need a living example of Big Brother. We need to see a country like the UK devolve into an all-seeing, all-knowing police state.
We need an example that we can point to that shows that it CAN happen even in a "democratic" society, so that we will KNOW that it is we, the people, who must remain firmly in control of the government, and not vice-versa. So that we will see with our own eyes what happens when we sacrifice freedom for security.
But it has to happen to a country that is relatively small and thus relatively harmless to the rest of the world.
I think the UK would make an excellent candidate. It's big enough that it'll have an impact on a large enough number of people to make the example compelling, but not big enough to pose a real danger of taking the rest of the world down with it.
It would be much, much worse if the U.S. devolved into such a police state because the U.S. is powerful enough to take the rest of the world with it. If that happened humanity might never climb out of the resulting hole.
We need an example like where the UK is headed to keep the rest of the world free.
If the UK wants to volunteer for this, who are we to argue?
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Re:Scary stuff (Score:2)
That's bullshit, pure and simple. Force = mass times accelleration. If you hit a wall at 15mph and then (in a different car of the same model) hit a similar wall at 75mph there is a LOT of difference. There's a lot of energy that has to get distributed into the body of the car and wall that wasn't there in the 15mph crash.
Your fatality stats reflect the construction of the car -- the safety cage or crush zones or whatever they've put in there to control where the energy goes when you're rapidly negatively accellerating.
I'm not an advocate of this satellite control system, and I don't believe that speed kills (same as guns don't kill, same as drunk driving doesn't kill) -- it's all in the hands of the operator. If you're going too fast to properly control your vehicle (or too drunk), it's OPERATOR ERROR, not speed that caused the problem.
He made Yes, Minister jokes, so Can't be a Kook. (Score:2)
Consider, just for starters: The main character of the story is named Jim Hacker.
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
Re:Loss of choice... (Score:2)
Up here in Canada we've had daytime running lights for years. At least on our models, the lights go out when you go to start, and come on after again.
For another, there are circumstances beyond the all-wise and knowing government/automakers. Like the time my mom and I were being chased by a drunk driver, and we pulled into a driveway and turned off the lights and we lost him.
Not sure how to comment on that one.
Or like air bags, which for a while were seen as the greatest thing since squeezable mayo. Yet now I can't put my 5 year old in the front seat because they've found that airbags kill kids.
Children should never ever be put in the front seat, ever, airbags or otherwise. That rule has been around since the 70's if I recall. Airbags just gave you a very graphic reason as to why this is so.
The reasoning that rules like this exist are simple. It costs the government, and therefore taxpayers, more in damages and the like to have no rules than to have rules like daytime running lights, seatbelts and drunk driving legislature. You're on publicly-owned roads (at least MOST of the time) so you play by the rules set forth to benefit the public.
Where this gets out of hand, of course, is with bleeding hearts and lobbyiest groups. Up here I believe our 400-series highways were designed to be driven at 140kph (roughly 85mph). That's when they were safest. Unfortunately crying moms and the general public got it in their head that speed kills and therefore forced the limits down. Now the roads are less safe since you need to overcorrect for bends and the like.
Re:Scary stuff (Score:2)
You're making the same assumption that everyone else is: that everyone only drives on multi-lane highways. This is not the case. The majority of accidents (in the UK and Ireland, at any rate) occur on smaller roads, where the speed limit is not 100km/h but about 60. And the majority of accidents are caused by people who drive at 100km/h+ regardless of the quality of the roads, or how far into the distance they can see.
Re:Practicality / Useability (Score:2)
On my motorcycle?
Yes, lots of times.
-LjM
fault tolerance, upgrades and GPS bugs (Score:2)
On South African leg the recent Around Alone [aroundalone.com], a solo circumnavigation sailboating race, one of the contestants was "piloting by navigation"--instead of getting his bearings by actually looking at the coast and comparing that to a map, he kept his eyes on his GPS receiver. Then he hit a reef, destroying his keel and putting him out of the race. The GPS had misreported his position by nearly three kilometers.
Once when I was on a camping trip in Colorodo, my friend's GPS spent a good half hour insisting we were in Kansas.
GPS is not reliable. At its absolute best, the fast-reading "civilian" version of it is only accurate to within around twenty or thirty meters. Have you ever driven down a controlled access road that had a city street right next to it? What will your car do when it thinks you're speeding on a surface street you're travelling parallel to?
And I seriously doubt that any practical system can cope with modern three dimensional roadway topographies. What happens when you're driving 120km/h and the GPS suddenly misreads that you are in a 50km/h zone because your motorway has a city street and a hospital beneath it? Or if your GPS reading takes place at the very moment you are on an overpass, where your motorway goes over a 20km/h cart path? Thirty seconds later your car slows to a crawl and you get rammed as you attempt to struggle from the rightmost lane to the shoulder.
Furthermore, GPS is not guaranteed to be available. Quite possibly the device can be defeated by building a Faraday cage around the receiving antenna, or better yet getting a 0.5mW transmitter that says "I am in Greece" over and over again in GPSspeak and taping it to the antenna.
The internal maps had better be accurate, too, and remain accurate. When that tiny roundabout finally gets enlarged to handle trebble the traffic at double the speed, you had better hope your car won't keep you "safe" by holding you to the old circle's rated speed. This probably represents yet another hidden cost: having to upgrade your maps periodically.
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Re:Boo! (Score:2)
Frees up traffic cops to worry about the issues you mentioned. If speeding is no longer an issue then the police will have more time and resources to monitor other hazards like dangerous drivers. (And they'll have to if they want to maintain revenue from tickets.)
Dynamic speed limits would be pretty cool. Imagine if the system could dynamically lower the speed limit when it's icy or foggy, or when there's an obstruction on the road ahead. Additionally, it could raise the limit when conditions are good.
Theft prevention. If I report my car stolen the speed limiter won't let it restart the next time it's stopped.
Sure, this technology can be misused, but it also has some positive uses. Perhaps, instead of making the regulator madatory, it could be made optional. The advantage of having the equipment would be lower insurance premiums and immunity from speeding tickets. I bet a lot of people would go for that.
Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
False. In your example I am definitely endangering other people and probably actively killing them.
With speeding, I am definitely NOT killing anyone and only MAY be endangering them.
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Re:*heavy sigh* Here we go again (Score:2)
Re:What causes accidents (Score:2)
A few points:
Simple question: why can the Germans drive at acceptably fast rates of speed, while Americans arenot permitted to? The cars are the same, the roads are (in most interstate highways, which, btw, the Autobahn is only limitless in intercity routes) pretty much the same (though they built roads for 40 years while we cheaped out on our quality). Is it the training? Is it the severity of penalty? Is it the culture (are they _better people_ than we are)?
Rational answers only, please.
Your Working Boy,
Never confuse facts with reality (Score:2)
On the other hand, the British Government felt compelled to pass a law requiring Masons to declare themselves if they belonged to the civil service, the Government, the legal profession, the police or the intelligence community.
Hey! The Thatcher Government were all secret Conspiricists! Bet ya never knew that!
Seriously, it's only been in the last decade that it became public knowledge as to who the head Mason was. At least, who the acknowledged head was.
Yes, lots of groups keep themselves to themselves, but few have sufficient resources to remain national and completely secret. Even fewer have the resources to scare one of the most powerful Governments Britain has ever had.
I'm not into the idea that the Masons are out to rule the world. If they did, I'm sure they'd have done so already. Or, at least tried. Nor am I into the idea that the Masons are necessarily evil. They are, as another poster has said, out to protect their own. As far as anyone on the outside knows, that's the limit of their manifesto.
Does that make me a "Conspiracy Theorist"? If so, then anyone who has read up on Trade Union history and their origins in coffee houses must also be one. Come on, come all!
I believe that the Masons are very influential in Britain, and probably make up a non-trivial fraction of the corporate, political, civil servant and legal worlds.
I don't particularly want the Masons considering me a threat, and hope that regarding them as a significant but totally impartial (except in matters affecting a Mason directly) is in keeping with that.