Ford announces intelligent speed limiter system for cars

[cpzilliacus]

(I cite 105 in a 55 zone because Jayson Werth got five days in jail earlier this year for doing precisely that on the Beltway.)

IMO, the Capital Beltway is not an appropriate place for such speeds, but there are roads in Virginia where it is probably O.K. (all or nearly all of I-295 in metropolitan Richmond where it is east of I-95) and Maryland (nearly all of I-70 between Frederick and Baltimore).

As to Werth having to serve five days in the Fairfax County jail for being convicted of reckless driving, well, I am not so enthused about that either.

[cpzilliacus]

I suppose I have a bit of a libertarian streak in me because I think people do indeed have a RIGHT to ignore the speed limit: You have the right to drive as fast as you want, but with that right comes the responsibility to pay the penalty if you are caught violating the law, and to suffer whatever draconian penalty (including jail time) you incur if you do something idiotic like driving 75 mph on a residential 35-mph street. In other words, if you choose to go 105 mph in a 55-mph zone in Virginia, you will probably face jail time if you are caught, so if you choose to go that fast, suck it up and don't whine about it if a cop nails you and you wind up in jail.

There are two barriers in the U.S. to freeway-class roads with no speed limit:

(1) Much of the design of the system is old, and was never envisioned for such (potential) speeds (perhaps one exception might be the New Jersey Turnpike, which was designed and engineered for speeds of up to 80 MPH - in the late 1940's).

(2) We do not demand enough driver education and training in the U.S. that would be needed for such speeds.

Of course, self-driving vehicle technology might render this discussion moot.

[Bickendan]

I suppose I have a bit of a libertarian streak in me because I think people do indeed have a RIGHT to ignore the speed limit: You have the right to drive as fast as you want, but with that right comes the responsibility to pay the penalty if you are caught violating the law, and to suffer whatever draconian penalty (including jail time) you incur if you do something idiotic like driving 75 mph on a residential 35-mph street. In other words, if you choose to go 105 mph in a 55-mph zone in Virginia, you will probably face jail time if you are caught, so if you choose to go that fast, suck it up and don't whine about it if a cop nails you and you wind up in jail.

There are two barriers in the U.S. to freeway-class roads with no speed limit:

(1) Much of the design of the system is old, and was never envisioned for such (potential) speeds (perhaps one exception might be the New Jersey Turnpike, which was designed and engineered for speeds of up to 80 MPH - in the late 1940's).

(2) We do not demand enough driver education and training in the U.S. that would be needed for such speeds.

Of course, self-driving vehicle technology might render this discussion moot.

(3) Political climates do not favor implementing such driver education or raising/eliminating speed limits. That could be slowly changing on the state level with stretches of Interstate going to 70, 75, 80 (and 85 in Texas?), but it is very unlikely we'll see the Montanabahn return in its full glory.

(4) Related to political climate, public perception in areas still holds to the gospel of speeders will exceed the limit by X even if the speed limit is raised by Y to match the 85% speed, despite that not being the case in instances where the limit was appropriately raised.

[kphoger]

the problem of the sign being obscured by a big truck or the like

That's enough, right there, to make me not like the idea. If the speed limit goes up but the sign is hidden behind a tree or a truck, or maybe it's posted on an overhead sign and the system doesn't get that concept, then I would have to override it by mashing down on the gas. No thanks.

Frankly, I also think this would, long term, would be way to make drivers less responsible. They might get used to it and stop paying attention to the speed limit signs for themselves. Then they'll wonder why a problem occurs when the system fails to notice a reduction in speed limit upon entering a town and a child runs out into the road after a basketball.

My company installs GPS devices in our technicians' work trucks, and those devices monitor speeds. The company we use for that service balances that data against a database of known speed limits for individual stretches of road, then sends my bosses an alert if a vehicle is speeding over a certain threshold that our company has set. This causes problems sometimes. It's happened before that, when a driver on an Interstate going over a bridge, the GPS device thought for a second that the truck was on the surface street below. Then our bosses, in another city unfamiliar with area, get a speeding alert for going 65 in a 35 zone, and they have to hunt down the truth. At other times, the speed limit on file for a certain road is just plain wrong; in that case, our staff has to figure out what the correct sore limit is and call in a correction to the other company. One such road here in the Wichita-Augusta area is right by a tech's house, so an alert was being issued almost every time he went to or from work.

I point that issue out not because the technology at hand is the same, but to illustrate that this sort of technology is quite fallible. And it's one thing to have alert issued, but quite another thing to have your car suddenly slow down.

[1995hoo]

....

I point that issue out not because the technology at hand is the same, but to illustrate that this sort of technology is quite fallible. And it's one thing to have alert issued, but quite another thing to have your car suddenly slow down.

Indeed. I'm also skeptical of all the V2V and similar stuff due the risk of havoc if someone hacks the system.

(I cite 105 in a 55 zone because Jayson Werth got five days in jail earlier this year for doing precisely that on the Beltway.)

How did he manage that? I thought the Beltway's supposed to be a pseudo-parking lot.
(Or am I mixing up I-495 with the M25? )

I believe it was early on a Sunday morning. He was driving a Porsche 911 GT3.

[J N Winkler]

About ten years ago, I rented a Mercedes C280K in Britain which had a speed limiter (presumably GPS-based) instead of cruise control.  I disliked it because it required continuous application of foot pressure to the throttle pedal (unlike a true cruise-control system) and limited vehicle speed to the speed limit minus 5 MPH.

I am not a fan of speed limiter technology even if it will fix vehicle speed exactly at the limit and can be overriden by the driver.  In Britain a technology based on reading signs would work far better than in the US because essentially only two typefaces are permitted on traffic signs and the speed limit signs are all of standard design with dimensional measurements that have remained unchanged since 1965 (save for metrication in the early 1970's).  In the US there are far too many weird signs relating to state-specific speed zoning practices, many states have their own speed limit sign designs, and many counties use speed limit signs that look nothing like those shown in Standard Highway Signs.  (As an example, some counties around here use designs with both "SPEED LIMIT" and the limit value in Series C--which is pretty hard even for human drivers to parse at speed.)

As for companies using GPS to track their employees--ugh.

[wphiii]

Frankly, I also think this would, long term, would be way to make drivers less responsible.

There's lots not to like about this whole concept, but the quoted is definitely my biggest hang-up. Giving drivers another reason to pay even less attention to the road than they already do is hugely problematic IMO.