The true goal of this tech is right there in the second paragraph of the story: to ultimately stop people from having free movement by taking away their access to useful transportation.
I drive at the limit almost always. What makes it less useful? I would prefer this compared to the system of fees and irregular enforcement most countries have now.
> "The objective is to protect Europeans against [...] climate change, empower them with new mobility solutions that match their changing needs"
> "[T]here is no reason why these standards can't be reviewed and updated in the near future. We think that is essential,"
The goal is to discourage driving over time by making vehicles prohibitively expensive, by posting lower and lower speed limits over time due to "climate change", and to continually revise the standards to separate people from their ability to leave their homes as quickly and permanently as they can convince their populace to accept.
Or just prevent driving entirely after curfew/to areas where illegal protests are being held/if there is a warrant out for your arrest. Once your car taking orders from someone else is normalized, anything can happen.
I've been driving through The Netherlands recently. It's so scary how everybody drives so close to each other because of the speed limit 100kph during the day. Bumper to bumper. I feel less safe on the highway in The Netherlands than at the race track with no speed limit.
Feeling less safe is only weakly correlated with being less safe. We're not very good judges of risk. Urban "traffic calming" design attempts to exploit this by trying to engineer roads that feel claustrophobic, causing drivers to slow down.
Since kinetic energy is a square of velocity, slowing cars down - even a little - both significantly increases the chance of surviving a crash and also makes it more likely you'll stop in time to avoid the crash in the first place.
Also interestingly, lower limits often reduce congestion and increase total road capacity. I'm not sure how safety at the race track works out, but skilled, predictable drivers in well maintained vehicles with race marshalls and huge run off areas probably makes any comparison awkward.
> Also interestingly, lower limits often reduce congestion and increase total road capacity.
Exactly. People driving closer and paying even less attention because “driving slower”. Lack of attention and driving skill is what leads to accidents, not speed. I do need to say, though, the speed limit in the city, between pedestrians, I personally treat as saint. But outside of the city, especially when there’s almost nobody around, well, that depends but never reckless.
> I'm not sure how safety at the race track works out, but skilled, predictable drivers in well maintained vehicles with race marshalls and huge run off areas probably makes any comparison awkward.
The only race track I’m familiar with, is the Nordschleife. Not much run offs there.
Definitely not. 28 meters is roughly 5 car length. That’s not what I experience in The Netherlands, especially during rush hour. Bumper to bumper with zero visibility two cars ahead.
Anything that makes vehicles more expensive makes them less accessible. This hurts the poorest people first and hardest since the most affordable housing also tends to have the worst car commutes and the worst access to transit. It also sounds a “great” way to crowdsource surveillance since implementing something like this would require cars to have cameras to look at speed signs, or a database of roads and speed limits and a way to locate itself to compare the two.
The poorest are least likely to own a car, and likely to be reliant on walking and cycling which are directly negatively impacted by speeding motorists.
They're also more likely to live next to major roads, again negatively impacted by speeding motorists.
If you truly cared about this you'd be fighting for smaller cars, pedestrian friendly roads, both technological and administrative enforcement of speed limits, open firmwares, repairability and documentation on cars.
Technical speed limit enforcement absolutely can be done in a way that respects autonomy and privacy. A car can have a camera, a one way data link for maps, a gps, and/or a transponder for signals from speed limit signs preventing it from exceeding the default speed limit without a positive signal/mapped limit or active intervention from the user. None of these things require an uplink, and if you cared about autonomy, privacy, cost, and safety you'd be pushing for such a solution as well as actually caring about the telemetry in almost all new cars without these features.
Cars are costly primarily because they are much bigger, much heavier, and much harder to maintain than they need to be. If one didn't have to deal with the near certainty of getting t-boned by a ford ranger or suv doing 20 over the limit in one's lifetime then a microcar capable of 40km/h with a simple lap belt would be safer than the average 1.5t sedan full of airbags (and the requisite limitations on user maintenance) is now. Additionally with options other than lugging around 2-4t of steel and plastic and covering half the city in vast seas of asphalt available, 80% of people would get to their destinations faster.
Where do you live that you can safely drive at the speed limit?
If you tried that on an interstate in the US, you would end up with annoyed semi trucks tailgating you, and passing motorists might assume that you are impaired.
The modern car and associated destruction of alternate transport methods already achieves this. This is including the ability to remotely disable them and track the occupant and live upload of video in many cases.
If anything, slowing cars down makes it just a little bit more viable to exist outside of a car without getting killed by one and so gives back a small piece of the right to free movement that has been stolen.
Cars are only "useful transportation" if you can speed in them? Most forms of transportation people use have zero freedom at all and i think we still say they are very useful.
I know cars have many trackers and send your location to the manufacturer and sometimes your insurance too, but this is a whole new level, this is actively intervening in how you use your own car.
Also I don't understand what does this have to do with climate change?
> Also I don't understand what does this have to do with climate change?
The primary forces a car has to overcome are rolling resistance (proportional to the vehicles weight) and drag (proportional to speed). If you reduce the speed, you reduce the drag, and therefore you reduce the energy needed to maintain that speed (which decreases emissions directly in ICE vehicles, and indirectly in EV vehicles).
> ... this is actively intervening in how you use your own car.
Traffic laws already limit how you are allowed to use your own car. This just prevents you from breaking the law. Your freedom ends where the freedom of another person to live a safe life begins.
> Also I don't understand what does this have to do with climate change?
Speeding cars make it a lot more difficult for other means of transport to share the road. In Europe many urban areas are limited to 30km/h (19mph). This allows sharing the street with bicycles, pedestrians and playing children. Speeding cars (speed limits are often seen as minimum speeds) make this impossible.
So the climate will come from people moving to other means of transport that are becoming viable and safe. Also public transport will be more attractive if taken a car takes longer. Europe tries to make its cities more live and loveable.
Which has nothing to do with installing a part to limit how you drive your own car.
This is an issue of enforcement, and has nothing to do with climate change.
> Traffic laws already limit how you are allowed to use your own car. This just prevents you from breaking the law. Your freedom ends where the freedom of another person to live a safe life begins.
There is a difference between a part in the car to limit how you use your own Car, and a speed limit on the road.
> Speeding cars make it a lot more difficult for other means of transport to share the road. In Europe many urban areas are limited to 30km/h (19mph). This allows sharing the street with bicycles, pedestrians and playing children. Speeding cars (speed limits are often seen as minimum speeds) make this impossible
This is an issue of enforcement, and its not being fixed because the EU is lazy.
Its as easy as installing speed traps and fines that hurt the drivers where it matters, the wallet.
I guess you can put some tape over the warning light :)
In case they use a bit of force on the gas pedal, you can push slightly harder to override it. Depending how it's implemented and how good it works, I think the bit of push back of gas pedal is good idea. Then I can avoid looking at the dash to check my speed. If it's unreliable, I guess they'll probably opt for a warning light instead.
And so the wheel of technology turns. Turns out as usual, Dr. Ted is right again for all the right reasons.
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, “OK, let’s compromise. Give me half of what I asked.” The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created a world in which the average man’s fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of...
My car has the acoustic/visual warning, but I have to enable it manually.
It’s less useful than one would think… I basically only turn it on in cities where the limit is 30km/h, which was typically enacted to reduce noise or pollution (i.e. not necessarily for safety reasons). Even there, if the road’s not flat, it’s guaranteed that one will lightly go over the speed limit, at which point this feature becomes super-annoying.
I was driving downhill recently in an area with a speed limit of 30 and everyone was driving 5-10 over and slowing down for the radar. I turned the feature off as it was beeping constantly.
Another problem is figuring out what the actual limit is. This is done typically through map data and camera (which overrides the map data). This traffic sign recognition usually works, but sometimes picks up the wrong speed from e.g. a motorway exit or adjacent street. Recognizing additional signs such as “when raining”, between specific hours, etc still needs improvement. Such mistakes would cause a braking implementation to misfire and potentially endanger traffic.
I’ve found that when using the feature where the speed limit’s higher I have to set it 3-5km/h higher than the limit in order to be able to drive normally.
41 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] thread> "[T]here is no reason why these standards can't be reviewed and updated in the near future. We think that is essential,"
The goal is to discourage driving over time by making vehicles prohibitively expensive, by posting lower and lower speed limits over time due to "climate change", and to continually revise the standards to separate people from their ability to leave their homes as quickly and permanently as they can convince their populace to accept.
It wasn’t like that when the limit was higher. Lower limit, people tend to get closer.
I don’t see this _so often_ in Germany, neither in Belgium.
Since kinetic energy is a square of velocity, slowing cars down - even a little - both significantly increases the chance of surviving a crash and also makes it more likely you'll stop in time to avoid the crash in the first place.
Also interestingly, lower limits often reduce congestion and increase total road capacity. I'm not sure how safety at the race track works out, but skilled, predictable drivers in well maintained vehicles with race marshalls and huge run off areas probably makes any comparison awkward.
Exactly. People driving closer and paying even less attention because “driving slower”. Lack of attention and driving skill is what leads to accidents, not speed. I do need to say, though, the speed limit in the city, between pedestrians, I personally treat as saint. But outside of the city, especially when there’s almost nobody around, well, that depends but never reckless.
> I'm not sure how safety at the race track works out, but skilled, predictable drivers in well maintained vehicles with race marshalls and huge run off areas probably makes any comparison awkward.
The only race track I’m familiar with, is the Nordschleife. Not much run offs there.
They're also more likely to live next to major roads, again negatively impacted by speeding motorists.
Technical speed limit enforcement absolutely can be done in a way that respects autonomy and privacy. A car can have a camera, a one way data link for maps, a gps, and/or a transponder for signals from speed limit signs preventing it from exceeding the default speed limit without a positive signal/mapped limit or active intervention from the user. None of these things require an uplink, and if you cared about autonomy, privacy, cost, and safety you'd be pushing for such a solution as well as actually caring about the telemetry in almost all new cars without these features.
Cars are costly primarily because they are much bigger, much heavier, and much harder to maintain than they need to be. If one didn't have to deal with the near certainty of getting t-boned by a ford ranger or suv doing 20 over the limit in one's lifetime then a microcar capable of 40km/h with a simple lap belt would be safer than the average 1.5t sedan full of airbags (and the requisite limitations on user maintenance) is now. Additionally with options other than lugging around 2-4t of steel and plastic and covering half the city in vast seas of asphalt available, 80% of people would get to their destinations faster.
If you tried that on an interstate in the US, you would end up with annoyed semi trucks tailgating you, and passing motorists might assume that you are impaired.
When I don't, usually I get a greetings postcard from a radar.
If anything, slowing cars down makes it just a little bit more viable to exist outside of a car without getting killed by one and so gives back a small piece of the right to free movement that has been stolen.
Also I don't understand what does this have to do with climate change?
The primary forces a car has to overcome are rolling resistance (proportional to the vehicles weight) and drag (proportional to speed). If you reduce the speed, you reduce the drag, and therefore you reduce the energy needed to maintain that speed (which decreases emissions directly in ICE vehicles, and indirectly in EV vehicles).
Automated speed cameras seem like a better solution than additional complexity within cars.
Traffic laws already limit how you are allowed to use your own car. This just prevents you from breaking the law. Your freedom ends where the freedom of another person to live a safe life begins.
> Also I don't understand what does this have to do with climate change?
Speeding cars make it a lot more difficult for other means of transport to share the road. In Europe many urban areas are limited to 30km/h (19mph). This allows sharing the street with bicycles, pedestrians and playing children. Speeding cars (speed limits are often seen as minimum speeds) make this impossible.
So the climate will come from people moving to other means of transport that are becoming viable and safe. Also public transport will be more attractive if taken a car takes longer. Europe tries to make its cities more live and loveable.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-fuel-efficiency-of-vehicles...
There is a difference between a part in the car to limit how you use your own Car, and a speed limit on the road.
> Speeding cars make it a lot more difficult for other means of transport to share the road. In Europe many urban areas are limited to 30km/h (19mph). This allows sharing the street with bicycles, pedestrians and playing children. Speeding cars (speed limits are often seen as minimum speeds) make this impossible
This is an issue of enforcement, and its not being fixed because the EU is lazy.
Its as easy as installing speed traps and fines that hurt the drivers where it matters, the wallet.
“Do you really want the next Trump (who may in fact be Trump) to have this power at their disposal?”
Cars represent freedom for nobody. They simply take freedom away from the poor and disabled who cannot use one in places where their use is forced.
In case they use a bit of force on the gas pedal, you can push slightly harder to override it. Depending how it's implemented and how good it works, I think the bit of push back of gas pedal is good idea. Then I can avoid looking at the dash to check my speed. If it's unreliable, I guess they'll probably opt for a warning light instead.
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, “OK, let’s compromise. Give me half of what I asked.” The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created a world in which the average man’s fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of...
It’s less useful than one would think… I basically only turn it on in cities where the limit is 30km/h, which was typically enacted to reduce noise or pollution (i.e. not necessarily for safety reasons). Even there, if the road’s not flat, it’s guaranteed that one will lightly go over the speed limit, at which point this feature becomes super-annoying.
I was driving downhill recently in an area with a speed limit of 30 and everyone was driving 5-10 over and slowing down for the radar. I turned the feature off as it was beeping constantly.
Another problem is figuring out what the actual limit is. This is done typically through map data and camera (which overrides the map data). This traffic sign recognition usually works, but sometimes picks up the wrong speed from e.g. a motorway exit or adjacent street. Recognizing additional signs such as “when raining”, between specific hours, etc still needs improvement. Such mistakes would cause a braking implementation to misfire and potentially endanger traffic.
I’ve found that when using the feature where the speed limit’s higher I have to set it 3-5km/h higher than the limit in order to be able to drive normally.