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Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

fastcompany.com

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Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#361

Post by illiac786 »

FrancisMoodie wrote: post #359
illiac786 wrote: post #320

I don’t get that. Repeat offender => temporary removal of driving license. Done. You can make it progressive, remove it for a week, next time 3, etc. I guarantee this will calm people down.

It says in the article that people who lose their drivers license on account of speeding usually keep on driving anyway. I also feel like this is already the case in a lot of countries yet speeding still exists so I don't know if I agree that this is this simple solution no one is thinking of.

Ok the problem is not the speeding then, it’s the fact people without driving licenses can drive daily without getting caught.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#362

Post by calmbell »

tzs wrote: post #154
ufmace wrote: post #50

The technical aspects of this seem concerning. I'm wondering exactly who has the authority to set a car to this mode and how the mechanism of doing so works. What happens if you sell the car or let somebody else borrow it? Or when you get another car, or rent one? What are the failure modes of it, like if the GPS glitches a little and decides you're on a feeder or surface road when you're actually on a freeway? I thi…

> What happens if you sell the car or let somebody else borrow it? This will put an onerous burden on people who borrow cars. If they intend to go more than 10 mph over the posted speed limit in the borrowed car they will need to make sure to only borrow cars from people who have not been convicted of speeding over 100 mph and forced to have an ISA installed.

How is being prevented from going 10 mph above the posted speed limit in the car of someone convicted of speeding over 100 mph an onerous burden? The car is the property of the person convicted of speeding and sanctioned with an ISA. If someone behaves reckless with their gun in a way that obviously endangers others, is taking their gun away an onerous burden to a neighbor who may borrow it?

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#363

Post by kuratkull »

Animats wrote: post #348
20after4 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't keep a constant eye on both the road and the speedometer. Further, you might have missed the last speed limit change or remember it incorrectly. It's also possible for the speed sensor in your car to be faulty or out of calibration. This happens if you change the size of your wheels/tires significantly without reprogramming the ECU - and that setting isn't made available to the owner of the vehicle, at leas…

> In fact, most cars lie to you about the speed - reporting a speed slightly faster than reality. It's a cover-your-ass measure for the car manufacturers because it's illegal to sell a car (in the US, at least) where the speedometer is inaccurate in the other direction, that is, reading slower than actual speed. Haven't seen that in a long time. Everything I've driven in recent years has a speedometer speed that matc…

My experience from all the cars i have driven is that GPS shows 3-5km/h less than the car does. (In Europe)

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#364

Post by globular-toast »

827a wrote: post #148

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Franklin was born 200 years before the automobile and more than 300 years ago today. I doubt driving a giant metal box around at 100mph was what he had in mind for essential liberties.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#365

Post by MandieD »

elzbardico wrote: post #188
alexey-salmin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU includes Germany with its no-limit Autobahns. Left lane usually does around 180km/h, with occasional vehicles going way past 200km/h. Even 300km/h is not unheard of. I kind of hoped more EU would become like that, not the other way round.

I am convinced after having spent time in Germany that for Autobahns to work in other countries, you'd need to import Germans to exclusively drive on them. If you are used to driving in the US or in the central/South America, the German driver is basically an incredibly superior species from another planet.

I grew up in Texas, but have spent most of my adult life in Germany. It's not that Germans are innately better drivers, it's that there's not the same level of cultural entitlement to a driver's license. Driving is a privilege, not a right. This causes them to take it more seriously.

For starters, driver education is taken a lot more seriously - it's not a one-semester elective in high school or something your parents pay $500 for you to do over a few weeks in the summer before you turn 16, and you cannot take a road test without it, no matter how old you are. People save up for driver's ed in Germany; depending on how many lessons it takes for you to learn the actual driving part, it costs anywhere from 2000 EUR to 5000 EUR. Your license will have a note if you took your test on an automatic, restricting you from driving a manual shift, so everyone makes sure to learn how to drive a manual shift for the test.

They also more readily accept strict suspensions for a level of traffic tickets that most Americans would find excessively harsh - get a few 15-20 km/h (10-15 mph) over within a two or three year period, and your license will be fully suspended for a month, no "work and school" exception.

DUI is also taken far more seriously - if your license is suspended for that, there aren't any "work and school" exceptions either, and if you were drunk enough, or it was a repeat offence, you might have to pass the "medical-psychological exam" (MPU) to ever get it back, involving six months without touching alcohol and a bunch of other things that I've heard are a huge pain.

Part of what sustains widespread acceptance to high barriers to a license is that while Germans love to complain about how bad Deutsche Bahn (rail service) delays have gotten (even I'm starting to get irritated), it's still far more feasible to live a middle-class adult life without driving in a mid-sized city than it would be to in a comparable US metro area.

You'd also have to import German road design, construction and maintenance, and I'm pretty sure my people are unwilling to pay for that. The first time I visited home after a few months in Germany, I was initially afraid I'd get caught driving like I do here.

Nope, not even a temptation, because after a few months of driving here, the roads in Texas had too many random cracks and other inconsistencies for me to feel comfortable driving any faster than the other people on the road, and I even found myself driving a bit more slowly than a lot of the others!

I feel far safer driving here than I do in Texas or anywhere else in the US, no matter how fast the occasional vehicle blasts past in the left lane. The price of fuel and the level of strict attention that going any faster requires keeps most people cruising at a max of 130 kmh/80 mph.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#366

Post by dharmab »

josephcsible wrote: post #344
jakelazaroff wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren’t mutually exclusive. What reason is there ever for a car to go 110?

Autobahns prove that it can be safe and reasonable.

Could that not be allowed by the GPS based limiter system that Japanese sports cars have used in Japan for decades?

if carOnAutoBahn { setLimiter(155) }

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#367

Post by globular-toast »

Might as well decorate their cars with warnings as well, like learners, e.g. "Warning, irresponsible driver".

This seems ridiculous because it makes it too obvious what's going on, ie. allowing proven irresponsible drivers to continue using motor vehicles on the public highway.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#368

Post by dharmab »

20after4 wrote: post #329
WalterBright wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful LOL. You have no idea. Street racers are usually people who have little or no money.

Because they spent it all on performance mods for their car.

No, because rich car enthusiasts can afford track time.

Performance mods are surprisingly affordable if you do all the labor yourself.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#369

Post by e40 »

digianarchist wrote: post #345
lostlogin wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Is this a reference to your driving, or your shooting?

The problem with an American autobahn is that someone will inevitably be driving 55mph in the fast lane.

So true, because it’s their right to do so, so screw everyone else.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#370

Post by alexjplant »

GuB-42 wrote: post #205

There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles. There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others…

> There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal?

Good question. My guess is as follows:

Per the NHTSA [1] alcohol, excess speed, and not wearing restraints are the top three causes of vehicle-related deaths in the US in roughly equal measure (although alcohol edges out the other two). The German autobahn infamously doesn't have a blanket speed limit and is about as safe as other European highway systems. To me this means that a case can be made for high speeds on public roads in the interest of expediency (though, for cultural reasons, I would not personally make it for the US). I can't, on the other hand, imagine endorsing road sodas or not wearing seat belts. In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.

Anecdotally I'd be much happier if more attention was spent on enforcement against bad driving behavior like tailgating, weaving, failing to signal, driving drunk, and running traffic signals than speeding. Nearly every brush with death I've had on public roads has been due to these, not somebody doing 95 in the fast lane.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

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