EU plans to equip cars with automatic speed limiters - What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

[Matariki]

All cars could be fitted with devices that stop them going over 70mph, under new EU road safety measures which aim to cut deaths from road accidents by a third.

Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/10278702/EU-plans-to-fit-all-cars-with-speed-limiters.html

[Matariki]

1. Seriously, your car breaking itself when you are passing?

Who thinks up this stuff?

[MineralMan]

11. How would the car break itself?

I'm confused.

[Matariki]

23. Confused by the mechanics or by my questionable grammar?

The article says that the device would "read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded".

Seems to me like there are instances where accelerating could mean preventing an accident - like when passing someone.

The idea of the car itself taking control away from the driver just seems like a really really bad idea.

[MADem]

2. I remember those crappy 'goverment' cars used to have a 'limiter' on them so they couldn't go too

fast...

Or maybe they were just crappy cars that could not go too fast....

[Matariki]

3. I had a rental like that in Italy

the gas pedal was to the floor and I had a line of Italian drivers on my ass. One foot behind me. Going 70mph.

[MannyGoldstein]

20. I had a rental like that in Germany

limited to 200kph. Car barely made it to that speed anyway, so not too annoying.

[corkhead]

4. try to fahren on the Autobahn with one of those and you'll get run over

[NYC Liberal]

5. The article is BS:

http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/reports-of-brussels-big-brother-bid-to-impose-speed-controls-are-inaccurate-beyond-the-limit-2/

Reports in the press over the last day or two have suggested that the EU intends to bring forward “formal proposals this autumn” to introduce automatic speed controls -known as “Intelligent Speed Adaptation” or ISA, into cars. This is quite simply not true and the Commission had made this very clear to the journalists concerned prior to publication.

The Mail on Sunday for example (the only one of these articles online with no paywall), uses a quote from a Commission spokesman but chooses to leave out the first and most important sentence given to the paper’s reporter, which was this:

“The Commission has not tabled – and does not have in the pipeline – even a non-binding Recommendation, let alone anything more.”

The Daily Mail on Monday 2 September had the integrity to include this quote, but only at the end of an article confirming the incorrect slant that the Commission was proposing introducing the system. According to the Mail’s imaginative opening paragraph cars would be fitted with it “if Brussels bureaucrats have their way”.

[Ghost Dog]

22. Yep. Thanks. Little-Englander Fascist Nationalist bullshit.

...

[Matariki]

24. Oh, THANK YOU!

I usually check things like this before I believe them. I wouldn't post a link from the Daily Mail. This was from The Telegraph but I admittedly didn't do any research before posting

[MineralMan]

6. That's already true in the US, in some cases.

I rented a car a few months ago when I visited my parents in California. It had a speed limiter. It would not exceed 80 MPH, and sounded a loud voice warning at 75 MPH. I didn't notice the sticker on the dashboard display, but triggered the alarm when I passed a car on the freeway, where the speed limit was 70 MPH.

After that alarm, I proceeded down the road, and didn't go faster than 70 thereafter.

Predicting problems from speed limiters on cars may not be a real issue. Some cars already have those limiters installed. You may rent one sometime.

Interesting.

[Mojo Electro]

9. There were some Corvettes a while back...

...that had some sort of second key or something, that could limit the car or to open it up all the way. It would top off at around 80-85 MPH or so with that limiter on. Kind of like a "dad, can I borrow the car?" key.

I'm not sure if they still do it.

[MineralMan]

10. Decades ago, Sears sold a 12 hp outboard motor

that could be locked at 6 hp with a key. The idea was to let kids run the boat on their own at the lower power, while keeping the full 12 hp available for adults. 1950s, I think. Interesting idea.

[backscatter712]

16. Virtually all rental moving trucks are governed.

The last time I rented a moving truck, it was governed to 50mph.

Kind of annoying when driving on the highway.

[MineralMan]

18. When I moved from California to Minnesota,

I actually bought a 24' used 1986 GMC moving truck from Uhaul. There was no need for a governor on that truck. It had a Gross Vehicle Weight limit of 18,000 lb. When I weighed it after loading almost everything my wife and I owned, it was full from front to back and from floor to the top, and weighed in at 17,600 lb, complete with 50 gallons of gas. It also had 150,000 miles on it. After having it thoroughly checked out and some stuff done to it before we loaded it for the trip, the guy at the truck shop told me to keep it at 55 MPH or under on the trip and it would do fine. I went him one better, and bought an aftermarket tachometer and installed it. I set an engine speed limit of 3500 RPM, which worked out to be 55 mph in the highest gear.

Loaded to its limit, it didn't see 55 MPH often on that trip. It seemed as though the entire trip was uphill, and I spent a lot of time in 3rd and 4th gear (out of 5) on the drive. I stuck to the 3500 RPM limit I had set, and all went well, if slowly. We had planned to make the trip in 5 days, driving 500 miles per day. The trip took 6 and a half days, due to the reduced speed I seemed to have to run at much of the time. We averaged 5 miles per gallon on the total trip. You didn't dare miss a gas station on some stretches of highway.

My wife drove our minivan on the trip, and ran interference for me for freeway entrances and lane changes. I'd signal and she'd make the lane change behind me and match the truck's speed so I could change lanes or merge into traffic safely in front of her. Visibility was very bad to the rear on that truck.

It was an interesting trip, to say the least. The truck's AC conked out on the first day, and temps in the cab were often over 120 degrees. I drank a couple of cases of bottled water during the trip, and could only manage 8 hours a day in the cab. But, we made it to Minnesota, where I parked the truck in a storage lot, still full of our furniture and stuff, until we could find a house to buy and closed on it. We spend a month living in her parents' basement, and then picked up the truck and moved into our new home. I had packed the essentials and our computers at the very rear of the truck, so we could keep working in the meantime.

It was a good choice, buying that truck. After we moved into our new house, I put the truck on Craig's list and sold it to someone who was moving from Minnesota to Florida. I lost a couple of thousand bucks on the deal, overall, but didn't have to pay for a mover or store our belongings until we found a house. What an adventure! Once in a while, we still talk about that move, almost 10 years later.

[onehandle]

7. Most modern cars already have speed limiters. Mine is limited to 155 mph. nt

[Link Speed]

14. Mine, too. Isn't it a weird feeling when it engages?

Took me a while to get used to it.

[backwoodsbob]

17. had a 94 camaro that had a governer

Limited to 130

[onehandle]

19. Mine's a 2012.

My wife wants to get me some track time for my birthday. 155 will be quite enough. I'm not planning on reprograming the limiter as some Camaro owners do.

[intaglio]

8. Many companies in the UK already use similar systems

Modern fuel tankers have GPS driven limiters that restrict speed on dual carriageways to 50 mph and on single carriageway roads to 40 mph. It doesn't cause any problem. Transfers between the 2 types of road are handled by a simple reduction of power.

The actual method used will probably be a GPS transponder within a sign linked to something like the On-star system. It will not be coming in all at once.

[Link Speed]

12. My car has one that limits me to 155MPH

I rarely have the opportunity to go that fast, but it makes for a strange sensation when I am accelerating really fast and the the engine just levels out.

[snooper2]

13. That will be hard to bypass

LOL

[NickB79]

15. Pretty sure my car already has one of those

It's called "putting a 100-hp engine in a subcompact car and laughing as the poor SOB floors it on the freeway with an 18-wheeler hot on his ass."

[Throd]

21. One more reason to keep the '73 Cutlass Supreme.