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New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

carexpert.com.au

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Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#81

Post by soco »

brnt wrote: post #79
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can drive without lane assist in most cases. Many models require you to explicitly turn it on each time you want to use it (like cruise control).

I'm in Europe, so no, it's mandatory that it is on and impossible to disable for new models.

Care to explain what you mean with "mandatory" and "impossible"? I just bought a new car after test driving a few, all hybrids so no vintage, and in NONE of them it was mandatory on, and also could be enabled and disabled at will - I tried that feature too.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#82

Post by dangus »

toast0 wrote: post #76
dangus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math does not work that way. If you’re going 70mph you travel 16.6% further in the same amount of time. But your average stopping distance increases 240 to 315 feet, 31% increase. This also stresses your reaction time. Risk of severe injury in pedestrian accidents goes like this: 16mph: 10% 23mph: 25% 31mph: 50% So if you slow down in a pedestrian heavy area from 31mph to 23mph, you travel 30% slower but if you h…

Is your position that motor vehicles should be limited to 16 mph? I don't disagree that a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed in a pedestrian heavy area is lower than a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed on a restricted highway. But, I've seen pedestrian heavy areas with posted speed limits above a reasonable and appropriate speed, and restricted highways with posted speed limits below a reasonable and app…

No of course that’s not my position, that’s quite a conclusion to jump to. But I’ve definitely seen a lot of drivers going 35-40mph in 25mph pedestrian-heavy zones where they should be driving the speed limit or possibly even slower. Those drivers are barely saving seconds of time in their travels while increasing the risk to bystanders dramatically.

What I’m trying to say centers on this:

You say you’ve seen restricted highways with posted speed limits below reasonable and appropriate speeds.

My point is that if all drivers are limited to that lower speed, there is nothing unsafe about going “too slow.” Your opinion that it’s unreasonable is based on convenience, not safety.

E.g., urban freeways where the speed limit is 50 but most drivers are going 70 and some drivers are going much faster. That’s a dangerous situation. What ISN’T dangerous is if everyone was governed electronically by 50mph by that road. If everyone is limited to 50mph that dangerous speed differential has been removed and it’s safer.

Presumably the government could wait until basically all drivers have a vehicle with this technology and then flip the switch on the actual governing feature.

Maybe this is “anti-freedom” and all that, but my hypothesis would be that road deaths would decrease.

Almost 1/3 of all driving fatalities involve excessive speed: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/speed-campaign-speeding...

On a tangent, I have a theory that drivers who demand high throughput and fast speeds want to avoid the uncomfortable truth that alternatives like public transit and cycling are more efficient modes of atransportation. When we look at some urban freeways that slow to a crawl during commuting hours and the local news tells me that the average speed is 27 mph, that just tells me that more people should be commuting on alternatives like e-bikes, buses, and trains, because these personal vehicles that supposedly save so much time and convenience are no longer doing so.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#83

Post by DominikPeters »

reportgunner wrote: post #80
DominikPeters wrote: post #24

I'm generally strongly in favor of technical system for making speeding impossible -- for example I don't think it should be legal to sell cars that are able to go 100km/h on city streets. But this implementation seems designed to elicit backlash. Beeping is bad, and setting the tolerance at zero is not friendly given general driver behavior. I'd find it much more sensible to have "smooth" systems, such as a constant…

What about ambulances, police cars and firetrucks, would you prevent them from speeding as well ?

No.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#84

Post by taeric »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78
taeric wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair that I can't say you should never do so. I'd stand by it as a general safe rule, though? If the road is that long and straight, I'd imagine it also has a rather high base speed limit already.

Definitely on a twisty and/or hilly road you don’t want to pass if you can see above or around. But there are lots of places in the country where you pass if you can see the oncoming cars are far enough away. And you are usually passing a truck or RV going 40 so it’s not that hard. However, I’m so glad I live in an urban area now where such driving skills aren’t really needed much anymore. I’d defer to people living…

Agreed that it can be subjective and can/does happen often. I further agree with you that you are most often to want to pass if someone is doing 40 and the limit is 50+. In those cases, we wouldn't be in the scenario offered in this thread, as you often don't even have to speed to execute that pass.

That said, I underline again that I think a system that impacts throttle at merely 1 over the limit would be a bad idea.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#85

Post by dns_snek »

soco wrote: post #81
brnt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Europe, so no, it's mandatory that it is on and impossible to disable for new models.

Care to explain what you mean with "mandatory" and "impossible"? I just bought a new car after test driving a few, all hybrids so no vintage, and in NONE of them it was mandatory on, and also could be enabled and disabled at will - I tried that feature too.

I think what they mean is that the features re-enable themselves every time they start the car. In the EU these features, and that behavior, have been mandatory for all vehicles released since 2022.

    4.   Advanced emergency braking systems and emergency lane-keeping systems shall meet the following requirements in particular:
    
    (a) it shall only be possible to switch off such systems one at a time by a sequence of actions to be carried out by the driver;
    (b) the systems shall be in normal operation mode upon each activation of the vehicle master control switch;
    (c) it shall be possible to easily suppress audible warnings, but such action shall not at the same time suppress system functions other than audible warnings;
    (d) it shall be possible for the driver to override such systems.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32...

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#86

Post by toast0 »

dangus wrote: post #82
toast0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your position that motor vehicles should be limited to 16 mph? I don't disagree that a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed in a pedestrian heavy area is lower than a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed on a restricted highway. But, I've seen pedestrian heavy areas with posted speed limits above a reasonable and appropriate speed, and restricted highways with posted speed limits below a reasonable and app…

No of course that’s not my position, that’s quite a conclusion to jump to. But I’ve definitely seen a lot of drivers going 35-40mph in 25mph pedestrian-heavy zones where they should be driving the speed limit or possibly even slower. Those drivers are barely saving seconds of time in their travels while increasing the risk to bystanders dramatically. What I’m trying to say centers on this: You say you’ve seen restric…

It's not just convenience. AAA says

> Projecting these results to all drivers nationwide [US], 255 million drivers made a total of 227 billion driving trips, spent 93 billion hours driving, and drove 2.8 trillion miles in 2022 [1]

If you reduce speeds and increase trip time by 1%, that's 930 million more hours, which is the equivalent of about 1000 lifetimes [2]. At some point you save lives from acute injuries but take lives by wasting everyone's time on the road. There's also issues with the current fleet where a gasoline car is going to be much less fuel efficient at say 25 mph vs 50 mph, and you're killing people with emissions; although EVs and hybrids turn that around.

[1] https://aaafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/202309_...

[2] https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/your-life-in-num... reports a average lifetime of 692,040 hours, I'm running loose math.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#87

Post by falcolas »

amy-petrik-214 wrote: post #71
falcolas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up. Happens all the time to me. It's usually people in big trucks who get angy that a car dares to pass them. They'll go up over 80mph in a 45mph zone if you don't (or can't) finish the pass, or give up. And if you give up, they'll brake check you for your audacity. Having your controls start misbehaving while accelerating, or loud beeping (which is…

Here's a protip for dealing with impulsive / aggressive big truck drivers. Big trucks go max 30 mph uphill. It's their achilles heel. Cool your jets let them cuck you and be in front of you going slow all they want. When that big hill comes up, with that sweet passing lane, just pedal to the floor. Now, if you get in front of them, or any car, and have the balls, and it's hilly country, you do this. Imagine they're t…

The big trucks I'm referring to are a Dodge Ram, or Ford 250, etc. They have more than enough power to do hills.

Shitty semi drivers are thankfully super rare, if you drive normally. AKA, I've never had a semi driver get annoyed at me. Might help that their CDL can be pulled regardless of who's at fault in an accident if the DOT thinks they could have de-escalated the scenario.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#88

Post by falcolas »

taeric wrote: post #50
falcolas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half half the drivers on the road are worse than median. And road rage is a very real thing. Being passed triggers road rage like you wouldn't believe sometimes. Yes, even when they're going under the speed limit.

Funny framing of it, but that isn't necessarily how the median works. Consider, what are the median number of fingers on a person's hand? How many people have less than the median number of fingers? :D Is a fair point that it could be more common than I'd expect. I remember being a teenage driver and we were quite bad. Would love to see data on this.

The normal way I hear it stated is "half of X are worse than average". But an average would not work with that statement in a pedantic environment. HN is a pedantic environment.

"On a distribution curve of driver skill, half of the drivers will be of lower skill than the driver at the median of the data set. Unless there's an even number of entries, in which case there is no median driver, just an inferred skill value based on the values to either side of the middle of the data set."

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#89

Post by taeric »

falcolas wrote: post #88
taeric wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny framing of it, but that isn't necessarily how the median works. Consider, what are the median number of fingers on a person's hand? How many people have less than the median number of fingers? :D Is a fair point that it could be more common than I'd expect. I remember being a teenage driver and we were quite bad. Would love to see data on this.

The normal way I hear it stated is "half of X are worse than average". But an average would not work with that statement in a pedantic environment. HN is a pedantic environment. "On a distribution curve of driver skill, half of the drivers will be of lower skill than the driver at the median of the data set. Unless there's an even number of entries, in which case there is no median driver, just an inferred skill valu…

Before I finish typing this, I want to make it clear that I'm just having fun with the numbers/math/language here.

Even that statement doesn't really work outside of fully unique values across a specific distribution. Take samples where you have many duplicates, and you can easily have the vast majority of values flat out be the average/median when you have some distributions. Is why I picked average number of fingers. The VAST majority of counts there are the same value. The outliers being dwarfed to insignificance both high and low.

For more continuous distributions, https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/326304/in-a-given-... is a pretty good quick google of what I mean.

Now, what is the distribution of driving ability? I have no idea. I see no reason to think it is a normal distribution, though.

Re: New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

#90

Post by jpc0 »

toast0 wrote: post #86
dangus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No of course that’s not my position, that’s quite a conclusion to jump to. But I’ve definitely seen a lot of drivers going 35-40mph in 25mph pedestrian-heavy zones where they should be driving the speed limit or possibly even slower. Those drivers are barely saving seconds of time in their travels while increasing the risk to bystanders dramatically. What I’m trying to say centers on this: You say you’ve seen restric…

It's not just convenience. AAA says > Projecting these results to all drivers nationwide [US], 255 million drivers made a total of 227 billion driving trips, spent 93 billion hours driving, and drove 2.8 trillion miles in 2022 [1] If you reduce speeds and increase trip time by 1%, that's 930 million more hours, which is the equivalent of about 1000 lifetimes [2]. At some point you save lives from acute injuries but t…

> Projecting these results to all drivers nationwide [US], 255 million drivers made a total of 227 billion driving trips, spent 93 billion hours driving, and drove 2.8 trillion miles in 2022

I don't have a dog in this race but I want to spark conversation. I feel like assuming that saving 1% of those drivers time would lead to an increase in productivity, possibly a tiny increase in happiness but are you happy now driving 20 over the limit and on high alert all the time during your commute? Generally I am less tired going 100 km/h in a 120 than I am doing 140km/h in a 120 for the exact same trip... And usually I would just move my commute a bit, have breakfast close to work / at work and hit the gym after work at work and you significantly cut down your commute time... It also reminds me just a little of Brook's law...

I'm never going to believe a car is more fuel efficient at say 35 vs 50... Maybe 25 but where are you driving that the majority of your trip is at 25? The few minutes you spend at 25 won't even put a dent on your efficiency numbers if you have a reasonably long commute and if you don't what the hell are you complaining about.

At least where I am 25 would only be used i residential areas or places where high pedestrian activity is expected... The limit is almost exclusively 35/50/75 and you may get 60 in rural areas...

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