Speed Limiters in cars...

seamus

There's a fine line between protecting people "for their own good", and forcing people to bend to the will of the control freaks.

Big large butcher knives are sold over the counter. Some are used to kill people. Most aren't. People can buy guns. Some are used to kill people, most aren't.
Denying people the right to make the right decision just creates resentment and resistance. Give someone the chance to make the right decision, and you'll find that largely they do. Remove someone's ability to make that choice and more often than not they'll resist or otherwise deliberately force the wrong choice in protest.

Speed limiters are akin to DRM software - attempting to limit people's right to make their own choices.

GPS trackers have shown some small success, especially with younger drivers. The main thing that people don't like is the big brother idea - people still feel as if they're being forced to make choices. I think GPS systems which told you when you have exceeded the limit would actually have the biggest effect - similar to what new78 uses. The driver keeps their right to make the choice, but is reminded every so often of the choice that they've made.

Seth Brundle

land9 wrote:

the majority of accidents are attributed to speed

I think you are confusing speed with inappropriate speed.
Inappropriate speed encompasses driving within the speed limit!
Stop listening to political soundbites!

Marcus.Aurelius

kbannon wrote:

I think you are confusing speed with inappropriate speed.
Inappropriate speed encompasses driving within the speed limit!
Stop listening to political soundbites!

Exactly right. Get over yourselves, lunatic lefties.:D

Gatster

Everyone has the right to buy what they want, if they can afford it. The 'Gentlemens Agreement' between the German manufacturers (except Porsche) is just that, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind it as 155mph is pretty fast. Head seems to be excessively interested in the speed of others, see here

peasant

slightly OT ...but here it goes anyway ...

Anyone rember driving before the conversion to km/h?
Remember how few speed limit signs there were in those days?
Practically none.

Dangerous spots got a "slow" "slower" signage ...and after that it was up to the driver and the national speed limit which was the same everywhere.

No, I'm not saying that nobody was eceeding the limit then, because people were ...but, overall I think the standard of driving was better then, than it is now.

What has happened with the changeover is that speed limit signs have sprung up in every spot imaginable and to my mind that has resulted in a sort of "reverse psycholgy" effect. Whereas before you drove as fast or slow as conditions allowed, these days people seem to drive at whatever speed the sign says and take that as a target.

Problem is though that whoever put up the signs did not put one bit of thought into it. We all know the single lane, overgrown borreen with the 80 sign.
Much worse though are the countless places where the old "Slow-slower" signs are accompanied by 100 signs ...one more or less negating the other.

Outside the place where I live is a twisty, narrow, bendy N road (on average 1 accident per week:eek: )
You leave the village, a biiig sign says "slow, dangerous bends" accompanied by a 100 sign. A few hundred meters down the road, having negotiated the first hairy bend you come to a straight strech with an even more dangerous blind bend behind it ...recognising the amount of accidents there, some bright spark decided that this would be the right place fo another 100 sign! (do 80 there and you're off ...fact!)

What compounds the situation IMO are the "shooting fish in a barrel" setups on perfectly straight and safe dual carriageways. These checks are there to "educate" the driving population into watching their speed at all times.
But not actually watching their speed, but their speedos, in order not to get caught doing 60 where it says 50 for no apparant reason.

IMO that kind of behaviour longterm has the reverse effect in that people will actually do 80 where it says 80 and 100 where it says 100. After all, they're not speeding, are they?

Now combine that with the absolutely lethal signposting (as mentioned above) and you've got a recipe for accident after accident ...and no one was ever "speeding" ...they were just going too fast.

The authorities shrug their shoulders, blame "speeding", more speed cameras go up on another dual carriageway (so somebody is seen to be doing something) and the merry circle continues.

And now some even brighter sparks want to introduce speed limiters, making the existing mess even bigger ....

Turbulent Bill

seamus wrote:

There's a fine line between protecting people "for their own good", and forcing people to bend to the will of the control freaks.

Big large butcher knives are sold over the counter. Some are used to kill people. Most aren't. People can buy guns. Some are used to kill people, most aren't.
Denying people the right to make the right decision just creates resentment and resistance. Give someone the chance to make the right decision, and you'll find that largely they do. Remove someone's ability to make that choice and more often than not they'll resist or otherwise deliberately force the wrong choice in protest.

Speed limiters are akin to DRM software - attempting to limit people's right to make their own choices.

GPS trackers have shown some small success, especially with younger drivers. The main thing that people don't like is the big brother idea - people still feel as if they're being forced to make choices. I think GPS systems which told you when you have exceeded the limit would actually have the biggest effect - similar to what new78 uses. The driver keeps their right to make the choice, but is reminded every so often of the choice that they've made.

That's fine if you're the only car on the road - your driving choices will only affect you. It's different when there are others involved. If we assume that a speed limit is set for a sensible reason (a big 'if' in Ireland), its job is to protect people "for their own good". Why not go along with automated enforcement of this?

Seth Brundle

The only realistic way this would work is via GPS (with speed limit zones properly mapped).
However, Im sure civil liberty campaigners would have something to say about it!

seamus

Because there's no such thing as a choice which affects only you. *All* choices affect other people, either directly or indirectly.

We make laws to indicate to people what the correct choice is. But we don't force them to make it, only to pay for not making it. This is critical. You can't force people to do things, just so that it won't affect anyone else. Everything we do affects someone else. This is the way of the world, we have to just deal with it.

The importance of choice as a basic human freedom is one of the things that millions of people have died for. We're going a little off the scope here, but this is what it comes down to. You cannot restrict people's freedom to choose. All you can do is help them make the right choice and if necessary punish them when they make the wrong one.

astraboy

layke wrote:

Land9 thinking restricting people will solve all of your problems is pointless, it won't. Your idea seems to me like a quick fix when we should be concentrating on how best to teach younger people how to drive correctly. What you should do if you feel the back end of your car sliding out, emergency braking procedures, driving in rain... none of this is covered.

I don't think you'll meet anyone else who has the same contempt for the driving test in Ireland as I do. It is a stupid test to see if you can drive like a granny for a day not how people actually drive.

If my car is allowed to go 80/100 KM/h I can still whip it around a corner at that speed, restricter won't help much there will it.

I totally agree with you man! The driving test is very outdated. Granted it was recently updated to include basic car maintenance(battery location etc) but how to back around a corner seems secondary to night driving, motorway driving, lane discipline etc. I took the hiberian ignition course and I was shocked at how 1 day could alter both my attitude and process of driving. I regularly use the techniques like the 2 second rule and how to properly observe whats happening ahead while driving. I had gotten 17 driving lessons over the course of the previous year to get insured and then to pass the test.

Proper training and testing designed to prepare people for driving on the roads and conditions we have would be far better then some big brother scheme telling me I can't go 5kph over the limit passing out an artic.

Marcus.Aurelius

Good post from Astraboy. Those of us that enjoy driving strive to improve and hone our skills on the roads. Those on their mighty high horses are the drivers who never improve themselves and are part of the bigger accident problem.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but speeding is not involved in the majority of road deaths. (please correct me if I'm wrong here, isn't it 40% of accidents are related to speeding)

galwaytt

....somoene pointed out yesterday that my steering wheel looked unusually 'worn' in two places, and what caused it.

'Hands a ten-to-two', I replied.

'Do you actually drive with both hands??' came the incredulous response

'er, yes........':rolleyes:

blastman

So how do you eat your breakfast roll?

Marcus.Aurelius

galwaytt wrote:

....somoene pointed out yesterday that my steering wheel looked unusually 'worn' in two places, and what caused it.

'Hands a ten-to-two', I replied.

'Do you actually drive with both hands??' came the incredulous response

'er, yes........':rolleyes:

lol.... a little off the point but funny

astraboy

maoleary wrote:

Good post from Astraboy. Those of us that enjoy driving strive to improve and hone our skills on the roads. Those on their mighty high horses are the drivers who never improve themselves and are part of the bigger accident problem.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but speeding is not involved in the majority of road deaths. (please correct me if I'm wrong here, isn't it 40% of accidents are related to speeding)

Cheers man. I think I read a while back that a study in Britian showed that people breaking the speed limit was the cause or factor in something like just 2% of accidents!:eek: The major cause was people driving under the limit, but at INAPPROPRIATE SPEED for the conditions. So people can stick to the limits all they want accidents will still happen and road deaths will continue unless people learn and are thought how to judge a correct speed to progress.

Captain Slow IRL

what about a limiter integrated with gps to ensure the car goes at the limit then?!?:D

good point about education - I learned a lot from the hibernian ignition course; little things that I had never considered but were blatantly obvious when pointed out to me

maidhc

Why can't this forum be about cars and stuff, and not sound like Joe Duffy on steroids.

unkel

maidhc wrote:

Why can't this forum be about cars and stuff

This forum is about cars and stuff. All opinions are allowed though. Even opinions that you and me would consider to be ridiculously silly

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote:

Even opinions that you and me would consider to be ridiculously silly

Well thats just silly then!

Ronan H

Gatster wrote:

Everyone has the right to buy what they want, if they can afford it. The 'Gentlemens Agreement' between the German manufacturers (except Porsche) is just that, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind it as 155mph is pretty fast. Head seems to be excessively interested in the speed of others, see here

Relax will ya, this was just a genuine query that i had very little information about and wanted to get peoples opinions on, and had never thought about much before. Granted it was in my head due to the other thread but not related in terms of my feelings, it was merely an information and opinion seeking thread...

Merely Head

nastysimon

land9 wrote:

good point about education - I learned a lot from the hibernian ignition course; little things that I had never considered but were blatantly obvious when pointed out to me

No offence, but if it taught you a lot, you should question how much you knew beforehand and still know. I did the course and was quite disappointed with it, most of it was either obvious (even before I did the course) or very obscure (stuff which you'd only know if you read their material).

My opinion is that to get a license one should have to do a different test, the IAM one would be about the right level.

Anyway, back to the point, almost. There is a much easier way to save lives than limiting the speed that cars can do (adaptively or not), just take all the bad drivers off the road. Change the system so that everyone has to resit the test every five years and make the test the IAM one. You'll probably find the number of deaths goes down to somewhere between 1% and 5% of the current rate (this is a simple estimate by me, no strong statistical basis to back it up).

Captain Slow IRL

you should try get a job as a driving instructor then, simon, and pass your knowledge on - don't keep it to yourself:rolleyes:

how do you define a bad driver?

Stark

nastysimon wrote:

No offence, but if it taught you a lot, you should question how much you knew beforehand and still know. I did the course and was quite disappointed with it, most of it was either obvious (even before I did the course) or very obscure (stuff which you'd only know if you read their material).

Aren't you great.

IrishRover

Great post, Peasant. For me that describes exactly the lunacy of the existing signposting of speedlimits and why adhering rigorously to them and assuming that makes you a safe driver is a flawed attitude to adopt.

peasant wrote:

slightly OT ...but here it goes anyway ...

Anyone rember driving before the conversion to km/h?
Remember how few speed limit signs there were in those days?
Practically none.

Dangerous spots got a "slow" "slower" signage ...and after that it was up to the driver and the national speed limit which was the same everywhere.

No, I'm not saying that nobody was eceeding the limit then, because people were ...but, overall I think the standard of driving was better then, than it is now.

What has happened with the changeover is that speed limit signs have sprung up in every spot imaginable and to my mind that has resulted in a sort of "reverse psycholgy" effect. Whereas before you drove as fast or slow as conditions allowed, these days people seem to drive at whatever speed the sign says and take that as a target.

Problem is though that whoever put up the signs did not put one bit of thought into it. We all know the single lane, overgrown borreen with the 80 sign.
Much worse though are the countless places where the old "Slow-slower" signs are accompanied by 100 signs ...one more or less negating the other.

Outside the place where I live is a twisty, narrow, bendy N road (on average 1 accident per week:eek: )
You leave the village, a biiig sign says "slow, dangerous bends" accompanied by a 100 sign. A few hundred meters down the road, having negotiated the first hairy bend you come to a straight strech with an even more dangerous blind bend behind it ...recognising the amount of accidents there, some bright spark decided that this would be the right place fo another 100 sign! (do 80 there and you're off ...fact!)

What compounds the situation IMO are the "shooting fish in a barrel" setups on perfectly straight and safe dual carriageways. These checks are there to "educate" the driving population into watching their speed at all times.
But not actually watching their speed, but their speedos, in order not to get caught doing 60 where it says 50 for no apparant reason.

IMO that kind of behaviour longterm has the reverse effect in that people will actually do 80 where it says 80 and 100 where it says 100. After all, they're not speeding, are they?

Now combine that with the absolutely lethal signposting (as mentioned above) and you've got a recipe for accident after accident ...and no one was ever "speeding" ...they were just going too fast.

The authorities shrug their shoulders, blame "speeding", more speed cameras go up on another dual carriageway (so somebody is seen to be doing something) and the merry circle continues.

And now some even brighter sparks want to introduce speed limiters, making the existing mess even bigger ....

E92

Speeding is blamed as the root of all our problems because its populist. The UK government has statistics which show that speed is responsible for just 5% of road deaths. As for speed limiters, we're not in a nanny state are we? They would be a disaster for the reasons other posters have said. I think one of the biggest problems with young fellas driving is that they are driving cars that are way too powerful, and as a younger member of society, I should know. Like you see people with modified Celicas(at least a 1.8 litre engine there) Civics, Cynoses, Levins, E30s, E36s, AE86s and so on. I reckon that a lot of them are lying to the insurance companies(its only an opinion). It wouldnt surprise me at all if they were telling the insurance companes that say they are buying the RWD Corolla from the 80s and telling the insurance companies that its an AE85 they want insured when its actually an AE86(telling the insurance companies that their Corolla is a non twin cam when actually it is a twin cam). The other thing I cant understand is where these people get the money to do up their cars. I mean I see people living in less well off parts of the city driving cars that have been extensively modified like a new paint job, sometimes the paint that changes colour, rims that are so big that the top of the tyre is inside where the wheel arch is, bodykits, new dials in the dash, PS2s etc. That is what puzzles me so much about it. The drivers are usually in their late teens or early 20s, and as everybody knows that is not an age where people have piles of money to be spending.

I believe that people have choices to make. If you dont want to go fast, then dont go fast, why need a speed limiter to decide it for you. If young people decide to go fast, then they have to live with the consequences. As I said we are not a nanny state, but with freedom comes responsibilty.