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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

#351

Post by Xylakant »

blendo wrote: post #152

I’ve seen cars improve a lot over that last 10-20 years. Faster, smoother, quieter, and safer, they can cruise all day at 80-90 mph. Sadly, this is completely incompatible with 25 mph city speed limits. Thus, the need for engineering kludges like automotive speed limiters. I’d really like a new vehicle classification, perhaps along the lines of Medium Speed Electric Vehicles. Designed with a top speed of 40 to 45 mph…

In Europe this exists with the l6e an l7e class vehicles - which lead to a number of interesting microcar designs, often for 2 people with a top speed of about 90km/h and ranges around 150-200km. Great commuter vehicles.

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

#352

Post by rpmisms »

Teever wrote: post #341
rpmisms wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a suspended license for failing to return a license plate. I have never had a moving violation in my life. I continued to drive like normal until the DMV realized that I had turned in the other plate in a two-plate state. Should I go to jail?

Okay let's lower the number from 75 to 74 to accomodate situations like you're describing.

No, let's reconsider the entire idea of what you're proposing. Let's redefine driving as a right and punish antisocial behavior.

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

#353

Post by dmurray »

allenrb wrote: post #224

Speed limiters built into cars. Anti-infringement technology built into general-purpose computers. And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American) I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another…

There are lots of restrictions on guns.

Depending on the state, you can't own a gun with a barrel of a certain length, or a certain magazine capacity, or you can't own a gun if you're a felon, or you can't sell a gun without doing a background check on the purchaser, or you need to hide your gun when you leave your home, etc.

You might think guns should be regulated more strictly and cars should be regulated less, but it's dishonest to represent the situation as you have. America has decided as a society that both guns and cars are valuable enough to let people use, yet dangerous enough to control the use of.

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

#354

Post by admissionsguy »

branko_d wrote: post #340
bluecalm wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding kills much more people than guns. It also kills much more innocent outsiders (a lot of gun death are suicides or gang infightings). It also introduces atmosphere of terror on public roads making walking or cycling dangerous. It's a way bigger problem than guns.

Gun deaths: 46,000 Car deaths: 40,901 Gun utility: small Car utility: large (data from CDC and NHTSA for 2023)

> Gun utility: small

For you.

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

#356

Post by 20after4 »

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…

Oh for sure they are not far off, but they always round up to be safe.

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

#357

Post by urban_winter »

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 5-year-old Volvo reports 73-74 mph when GPS tells me that I'm exactly at 70mph. Similarly 21 mph when GPS says 20.

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

#359

Post by FrancisMoodie »

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.

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

#360

Post by tzs »

tsimionescu wrote: post #324
spl757 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train crossings. I live in a port city with tracks that run right through the middle of the city. No, the safety lights don't always work. No, you can't always hear them coming. Yes, I've had to floor it to avoid being hit. This just seems like a bad idea on the face of it to me. It makes people drive in a way that other drivers may not expect them to, and that's always dangerous.

I don't understand this scenario, how long is the piece of track that you had to clear? Does the road not simply cross over the track? Even at 10km/h, you'd clear the <2m of track in 0.72 seconds, barely enough time to notice the train was coming and start accelerating. Is this instead a situation where you were nearing the track with too much speed to stop before reaching it, so you had to accelerate instead to clea…

It's a bit more than 2 m because trains are wider than the tracks. In the US they can be up to 3.25 m wide and in Europe up to 3.15 m wide.
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