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Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

arstechnica.com

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Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#211

Post by j79 »

tristor wrote: post #138
chris_mc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason to go fast is for thrills. Going fast is dangerous to other people, hence: fuck you, go slower. I don't care what situation you pull from your ass to give a counterexample, 99.99% of people driving over the speed limit by more than 10-20 are driving dangerously.

In vein of your reply, I'll simply say "Stay out of the left lane." The VAST majority of collisions I've seen which involved a driver exceeding the speed limit were caused by people erratically impeding traffic by cutting them off in the left lane. When I say "I've seen", I mean "I've personally witnessed". It happens constantly in traffic here, and it's usually someone doing 50 in a 70 cutting into the left lane in…

About a year ago, I was driving in the far right lane going 80MPH at 2AM in the morning. Wife and baby child were sleeping in the car. In my rear view, I see a car flying up. He was in an express lane. No clue why, but as he catches up, he cuts over the solid white line separating the express lane, then the far left lane, and finally passes me in the middle lane. This idiot was going about 130-140MPH. I was absolutely livid and the only thing that stopped me from chasing him down was my wife and son.

So stop with this b.s. I'd much rather drive on a road with someone drive slower than an asshole who thinks everyone is going to slow. People weaving through traffic, going 80, 90, 100MPH while everyone else is doing 65, are FAR more dangerous, than the elderly driver doing 60 in the far left.

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#212

Post by zepearl »

joezydeco wrote: post #172
013a wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not comfortable driving faster than that. Of course you're not comfortable driving faster than that in a Honda Fit. That's like saying you're not comfortable going faster than 30 in a golf cart. In the right car and on the right roads, hitting 120 is as simple and easy as hitting 70 in typical econoboxes. And actually, I'm not even talking about a Porsche 911; more like, every German car, especially Audi/BMW/Me…

Geography and equipment do not change your ability to react to events. I've driven 180-200 km/h on the German autobahns (in a car that could handle it) and I could tell I was driving at the edge or slightly beyond my vision and reaction time. It was freaking scary. I don't know if every driver out there could tell when they were hitting that limit. The golf cart analogy doesn't apply here IMO.

Similar for me: ~160-180 km/h in Germany and ~130-140 km/h in Switzerland is my limit since always, if the highway is in good condition + weather is good + traffic is low + I'm not tired + etc... .

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#213

Post by Johnny555 »

henvic wrote: post #105

If I were automaker I'd consider allowing bursts above the maximum speed limit for a few seconds. I'm not a fan of limiting (besides for warranty, electronics reasons) and prefer to educate rather than restrict. However, if taking this approach I believe you should consider that some people might drive in the limit and they deserve to be in power of their vehicles regardless. Imagine if you drive near this software-l…

If I were automaker I'd consider allowing bursts above the maximum speed limit for a few seconds. ... Imagine if you drive near this software-limited speed and suddenly need to speed up a little bit more to avoid a dangerous situation. You simply can't. This may dangerous specially if you don't have in your mind that your speed is limited by software.

But imagine that you had this 5 second burst and you used it to pass a truck, but you misjudged and you actually needed 6 seconds so your car drops back down to the slower speed, that sounds worse.

I doubt my car can go much over 90mph on a flat road (if it can, it'll take it a while to get there, since even getting to 80 is slow), and I've never had a case where I felt a burst of 100mph speed would get me out of danger.

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#214

Post by hrktb »

arcticfox wrote: post #168
013a wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not comfortable driving faster than that. Of course you're not comfortable driving faster than that in a Honda Fit. That's like saying you're not comfortable going faster than 30 in a golf cart. In the right car and on the right roads, hitting 120 is as simple and easy as hitting 70 in typical econoboxes. And actually, I'm not even talking about a Porsche 911; more like, every German car, especially Audi/BMW/Me…

> But the big problem is the roads and the culture around speed. America doesn't have either of those things, and probably never will. A culture of safety is not a "big problem" IMO. The "big problem" is that a vehicle at 120mph requires an insane stopping distance. On dry asphalt: * 60mph: 172 ft * 120mph: 688 ft [1] http://forensicdynamics.com/stopping-braking-distance-calcul...

Stopping distance is not an issue if you don’t need to stop in the first place.

That means good road maintenance, no abrupt turns, properly protecting access (even from wild life, which can mean underpass for big animals), easy way out for people to go slow if they feel it won’t do it for them, frequent info panels in case anything happens.

Of course for all of that there needs to be an underlying safety culture.

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#215

Post by hrktb »

zaroth wrote: post #179
julianz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many studies show that's not really true, it takes you longer to read and process the number than an analog dial. You don't notice the time it takes though.

I was just thinking about these purported studies this weekend. My wife’s car has an analog speedometer in the left and a center digital display between the speedometer and the tach which can show many things, one of which is a nice big digital speed indicator. When the digital display is showing something else it takes me 2x-3x as much time to ascertain the current speed from the speedometer. I think the studies are…

I think with enough time spent in a specific car, most drivers don’t really look at the numbers and more at the general direction of the dial. Basically your “under 60” example.

It’s facilitated if you mentaly divide in quadrants: you can identify the first bold tick above the horizontal middle line as 60 for instance, and it becomes extremely quick to know if you’re under, at, or above 60, at one two units of error at most.

You’ll also only need to remember two or three relevant positions.

I tbink digital is fine, I’d just see optimisations when on analog in this specific use case (but it needs to be center and big and clear, a small dial on the side is bothersome)

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#216

Post by youeseh »

013a wrote: post #149
chasingthewind wrote: post #5

There is no circumstances under which a maximum speed of 112 would bother me. I drive a Honda Fit. I don't think I have ever driven it over 85 miles per hour (137km/hr). I'm not comfortable driving faster than that. What makes me mad is that my speedometer goes up to 140mph! Why?! The only answer I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's a marketing tool, but who honestly buys a Honda Fit and thinks to themselves…

> I'm not comfortable driving faster than that. Of course you're not comfortable driving faster than that in a Honda Fit. That's like saying you're not comfortable going faster than 30 in a golf cart. In the right car and on the right roads, hitting 120 is as simple and easy as hitting 70 in typical econoboxes. And actually, I'm not even talking about a Porsche 911; more like, every German car, especially Audi/BMW/Me…

Yes, couldn't agree more. It has a lot to do with what is enforced in America and Canada. Rather than trying to limit reckless, unpredictable driving on the aggressive end, and driving that impedes the flow of traffic on the conservative end (which causes others to be aggressive and reckless), we've optimized for the enforcement of speed.

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#218

Post by justin66 »

chasingthewind wrote: post #5

There is no circumstances under which a maximum speed of 112 would bother me. I drive a Honda Fit. I don't think I have ever driven it over 85 miles per hour (137km/hr). I'm not comfortable driving faster than that. What makes me mad is that my speedometer goes up to 140mph! Why?! The only answer I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's a marketing tool, but who honestly buys a Honda Fit and thinks to themselves…

> What makes me mad is that my speedometer goes up to 140mph! Why?!

For your answer, take a look at this modern Ferrari speedo:

https://www.straight.com/files/v3/styles/gs_large/public/ima...

If the link doesn't work, the key thing is: the bottom right quadrant of the speedo is just blank. Top speed is indicated at three o'clock on the face of the speedo. You'll see a similar layout on some of their modern tachometers.

This is by no means universal but it's more popular nowadays. The idea is that when you're travelling at high speed you've minimized the amount of time and effort involved in looking at the instruments. You can sort-of, kind-of rely on your peripheral vision, but that's harder to do as the needle moves further and further downward, away from the road and closer to the center of the steering wheel.

With collectible sports cars with traditional instruments, you can often see examples of this that involve having rotated the speedo, or more likely just the tachometer, to a position where it's most easily readable when the redline is reached. That invovles getting the needle vertical and/or putting it where it's not obscured by the steering wheel, also an important factor.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/2...

It's also becoming common to see replacement faces for those old instruments available for sale, so they look a little less goofy when rotated ninety degrees (or whatever) counterclockwise.

With a subcompact car that isn't super fast, these visibility purposes can be served but the owner can also sort of feel like their car is a lot faster than it actually is if the speed numbers keep increasing down and to the right. That part is stupid, but it actually does make the speedo more readable most of the time.

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#219

Post by Johnny555 »

hrktb wrote: post #214
arcticfox wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the big problem is the roads and the culture around speed. America doesn't have either of those things, and probably never will. A culture of safety is not a "big problem" IMO. The "big problem" is that a vehicle at 120mph requires an insane stopping distance. On dry asphalt: * 60mph: 172 ft * 120mph: 688 ft [1] http://forensicdynamics.com/stopping-braking-distance-calcul...

Stopping distance is not an issue if you don’t need to stop in the first place. That means good road maintenance, no abrupt turns, properly protecting access (even from wild life, which can mean underpass for big animals), easy way out for people to go slow if they feel it won’t do it for them, frequent info panels in case anything happens. Of course for all of that there needs to be an underlying safety culture.

properly protecting access (even from wild life, which can mean underpass for big animals)

Too bad no such roads exist, not even the Autobahn (warning, graphic photos):

http://www.montanaoutdoor.com/2013/10/deer-disintegrates-on-...

And not even race tracks are guaranteed to be animal-free:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristiano_da_Matta#Collision_w...

Re: Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

#220

Post by Johnny555 »

tropo wrote: post #208
dmitriid wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 112mph you’re traveling 54 yards (50 meters) per second . There’s no situation that can be solved by increasing speed at this velocity. You simply won’t have the time to react. Unless, of course, you’re trying to outrun a train in a car chase in a movie.

You might need to escape a tsunami, pyroclastic flow, forest fire, or hurricane. The road might not go in the ideal direction, so being just a bit faster might not be enough.

That sounds like an unrealistic fantasy that's fun to watch in the movies, but not likely in real life. Driving 130mph in a storm or forest fire is more likely to result in you running off the road (or into another fleeing vehicle) than getting to safety.

But if this is your fear, you should probably drive an off-road motorcycle so you have more options to get out of town when the disaster strikes, limiting yourself to the roads sounds risky.

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