Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in rural Ireland there are plenty of roads with 80km/h speed limit where even the rally stages (on closed roads) can't reach it - hence the racing!
Unfortunately rural Ireland is also a pretty dangerous place to walk due to some pretty high speeds on some pretty small roads :-/ . Too often the council "upgrades" a road and in the process takes it away from people walking or biking. I made a video about some of these roads at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ba7xHUdeew if you're curious.
Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
351–360 of 401 posts
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
> everyone - the police, the legislators, the courts, and drivers - understands that in practice it's acceptable to exceed the speed limit a bit when making a pass Not in France. When passing a car, you MUST stay below the speed limit. The only exception would be an immediate danger, like for example if you follow someone visibly drunk. Wanting to pass someone because they drive 5kmh below the speed limit is not an i…
> Speed limits are laws, not suggestions. This depends a lot on where you live. In much of the US the speed limit only gets enforced at 10mph above the speed limit, which means that 5 under without good reason is actually hazardous—you're actively impeding traffic that wants to be going ~13mph faster than you are.
No it's not. It's annoying, not hazardous.
> you're actively impeding traffic that wants to be going ~13mph faster than you are.
You DON'T break speed limits because the guy behind you wants to break speed limits. That's a terrible reason to break a speed limit.
And if you're the guy breaking speed limit and pressuring the drivers in front of you to do the same, you're actually the hazardous one.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Speed limits are laws, not suggestions. This depends a lot on where you live. In much of the US the speed limit only gets enforced at 10mph above the speed limit, which means that 5 under without good reason is actually hazardous—you're actively impeding traffic that wants to be going ~13mph faster than you are.
> 5 under without good reason is actually hazardous No it's not. It's annoying, not hazardous. > you're actively impeding traffic that wants to be going ~13mph faster than you are. You DON'T break speed limits because the guy behind you wants to break speed limits. That's a terrible reason to break a speed limit. And if you're the guy breaking speed limit and pressuring the drivers in front of you to do the same, you…
I've literally been pulled over and told off (using much the same words I'm using now) for going too slowly on a freeway. I was religiously driving the speed limit and the rest of the traffic wanted to go faster. I corrected my behavior at that point and started going with the flow.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not quite. 8k of those are motorcycles. 8k are pedestrians. I don't know if you know this, but if a car kills someone else not in a car, they still die. https://twitter.com/VisionZeroYVR/status/1650630980062052353 > Not quite. It's mostly lack of seatbelt usage. I said "speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes." "For every 10 mph of increased speed, the risk of dying in a crash doubles.…
> but if a car kills someone else not in a car, they still die. I don't know if you know this, but sometimes pedestrians die due to bad road design or walking on unlit highways at night. Just because a car was involved does not mean the car was the primary reason the death occurred or that speed had any hand in the fatality. > "speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes." Except we have saf…
The people you hit with the cars like pedestrians doesn't have this, they get saved by reduced speeds.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because the road services vehicles that weigh 600lbs all the way up to 80,000lbs The laws recognize that those vehicles are different. Where I live those vehicles are only allowed to drive in the right two lanes. There's already a federal push to have speed limiters in vehicles like that and it is getting a lot of pushback: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fmcsa-delays-speed-limiter... Again, That's why I said it'…
> Where I live those vehicles are only allowed to drive in the right two lanes. Motorcycles can't use the left lane? > There's already a federal push to have speed limiters in vehicles like that and it is getting a lot of pushback A 26,000lb vehicle, going down a 5% grade, with brake failure, goes whatever speed it pleases. > discussion about the general public's tolerance for risk The general public, famously, does…
Trucks. It is very conspicuously posted 2-4 times a mile. See https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Ch... (I live in MA) and https://www.findlaw.com/injury/car-accidents/no-trucks-in-th... (To see how these laws change by state.)
> A 26,000lb vehicle, going down a 5% grade, with brake failure, goes whatever speed it pleases.
Don't get bogged down by corner cases. This is why there are runaway truck ramps when this is a risk.
> The general public, famously, does not have the skill set needed to make correct measurements here
That is how authoritarian leadership justifies itself. You clearly do not have the maturity to be part of this discussion if you have to resort to authoritarianism and "ends justify the means."
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#356This is one example of legislation that mandates fantasy tech that doesn't exist. You'd think that something as simple as speed limiter should be very easy to implement, and it couldn't be further from the truth - watch any review of a car with this tech and every reviewer will complain that it's not the presence of the system that's the problem, it's the fact that it constantly gets the speed limit wrong. Either rea…
It was exactly the same when incandescent light bulbs were banned. The alternatives weren't as good and almost no improvements were made. After the ban it took like 5-10 years, but suddenly there was progress. By now even halogen lamps are gone, because LED became so much better. And in the end it's not the fault of the legislation. If it wouldn't be so common to go above the limit there wouldn't have been any need t…
I have a few 9W/1500lm bulbs from 6/7 years ago but nowadays every light appliance is 20/30/40 even 60W. I've got and RGBCCW light strip rated at 15W/m! 3 meters of it outputs less light than a single one of said 9W bulbs.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately rural Ireland is also a pretty dangerous place to walk due to some pretty high speeds on some pretty small roads :-/ . Too often the council "upgrades" a road and in the process takes it away from people walking or biking. I made a video about some of these roads at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ba7xHUdeew if you're curious.
As a cyclist I've never been more terrified of riding on Irish roads which is a shame as the scenery can be spectacular
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#358Leaving aside the concerns about the tech not working well, I'm really not a fan of this pre-crime stuff. This feels very Big Brother, where someone (or some system) is watching over you so you don't break any laws. Things like this lead to cultural ossification and are a nightmare scenario for me.
Is it "pre-crime" if it activates once you are speeding? Surely we can agree that is a crime
Also once this is in place what is "legal" today will be "illegal" tomorrow.
We have much better cars than 50 years ago and speed limits remained the same. Now they are lowering them bit by bit. Think of the children, think of the environment etc
Won't matter anyway when all there is are robotaxis.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Road capacity usually increases as speed goes down.
Cars per mile, yes. Cars per second no. If you follow the recommended 3 second spacing then it's a car per 3 seconds per lane. So for a fixed distance, the slower you go, the longer you are on the road, the more road capacity you consume.
Re: Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good regulation would only mandate a driver warning. If you exceed the highest speed of any highway in the area, you get some audible/visual warning. In the case of you speeding but not realizing it you just ease up on the accelerator. In the case of needing to pass you just deal with an annoying beep for a few seconds. Reducing control authority in a vehicle is very dangerous. It's difficult to make it obvious contr…
> Good regulation would only mandate a driver warning Then you must be in favour of this regulation. From the article: > The EU regulations permit a system that can use a cascaded acoustic warning, a cascaded vibrating warning, an accelerator pedal with haptic feedback, or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced [...] the first two options may not quite compel any actual c…
The very thing you quoted has reduced control authority as points three and four! They're dangerous inclusions. It should have stopped with the audible warning, the vibrating feedback has the potential to be dangerous but isn't automatically.
I'm on board with speed warnings in cars. They're helpful in cars where it's easy to speed. My partner's ICE car has a turbocharger and a very smooth ride. It's way too easy to hit 85mph on the freeway and not really notice. Many EVs have the same problem. I'd actually like a speeding dummy light in that car.
What I don't want is reduced control authority because someone not in the car with me and not in my current traffic situation decided I should never be able to go over 75mph ever for any reason.