European Commission proposes "speed limiters" for cars; automatically hits brakes

MGWR

If they need this kind of stuff to coax people back onto the bus, then that's pretty twisted. The plans even include compulsory retro-fitting of older vehicles.

Mail on Sunday

Drivers face having their cars fitted with devices that slam on the brakes if they go over the speed limit, under draconian new road safety measures being drawn up by officials in Brussels. All new cars would have to include camera systems that ‘read’ the limits displayed on road signs and automatically apply the brakes. And vehicles already on the road could even be sent back to garages to be fitted with the ‘Big Brother’ technology ...

The EC’s Mobility and Transport Department hopes to roll out the ‘Intelligent Speed Adaptation’ technology (ISA) as part of a new road safety programme, which aims to slash the death toll from traffic accidents by a third by 2020. ...

galwaycyclist

No brainer really - and very welcome news if they are serious. Its insane that you can buy cars in this country that are capable of significantly exceeding the highest speed limits 120km\hr.

Ideally also they should put strict limits on acceleration performance.

Intelligent speed adaptation is well established technology at this point. It makrs much more sense to limit the performance of the car rather than expect local governments to go to the expense of reconstructing urban roads to achieve traffic calming by physical means or expecting the police to be everywhere 24 hours a day.

Cookie_Monster

galwaycyclist wrote: »

No brainer really - and very welcome news if they are serious. Its insane that you can buy cars on this ntry thar are capable of significantly exceeding the highest speed limits 120km\hr.

Ideally also they should put strict limits on acceleration performance.

why?

for a start there's different limits in different countries and none on certain roads in germany.
Even worse is the concept of limiting acceleration. Power and acceleration is the most useful way to get out of potentially dangerous situations, limiting it is a joke.
what about is you like to use your car off road / on a track etc, why should there be limits.

The limit of 155mph that germany enforce on cars produced there is enough, there's no need to limit it further. It'll just end up killing more people.

dowlingm

If the limiter recognises the limit of a particular location what should it matter which countries have which limits? Tracks that allow street legal cars to race could apply for permission to have a no limit zone on their property which would suspend limiter operation. Insurers are already using speed tracking to enforce conditions on drivers who opt in in certain jurisdictions in exchange for lower premiums.

corktina

"slam on brakes" Mail nonsense....it would work by cutting out the fuel pump I imagine

cdebru

corktina wrote: »

"slam on brakes" Mail nonsense....it would work by cutting out the fuel pump I imagine

Agreed a system that slammed on the brakes when the vehicle exceeded a speed limit would probably kill more people that it could save.

SpaceTime

I can't see this actually getting beyond proposal especially for the speed limiter idea.

I also hope the commission isn't seeing this through Belgian eyes. Belgium has the highest accident rate in Western Europe and compares more with Poland etc.

Spain in particular shows what can be achieved as accident rates there have plummeted over the last ten years due to heavy enforcement by police and changing attitudes to road safety and better roads.

In general (except Belgium) the West and North of Europe are already very very safe places to drive.

It would seem a lot cheaper and safer to use more speed cameras rather than try and implement complex technology in vast numbers of cars.

No Pants

MGWR wrote: »

Mail on Sunday

I stopped reading right there and just made up a story. Saved effort.

Iwannahurl

I detect a strong whiff of British red-top anti-EU hysteria about this.

The EU has directives on speed limitation devices for large (eg commercial) vehicles going back to 1992.

There is also a research programme on Intelligent Speed Adaptation, but I'd say the widespread application of the technology to cars is a long way off.

Personally I'd like to see 'black box' technology applied to motor vehicles. I think the presence of such a recorder would serve as an electronic conscience, and would also provide valuable, reliable data in crash restructions for forensic and road safety research purposes.

SeanW

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I detect a strong whiff of British red-top anti-EU hysteria about this.

The EU has directives on speed limitation devices for large (eg commercial) vehicles going back to 1992.

There is also a research programme on Intelligent Speed Adaptation, but I'd say the widespread application of the technology to cars is a long way off.

Personally I'd like to see 'black box' technology applied to motor vehicles. I think the presence of such a recorder would serve as an electronic conscience, and would also provide valuable, reliable data in crash restructions for forensic and road safety research purposes.

I'm surprised that your support for the proposals have not been more unambiguous. I half expected you to be salivating with glee over them, after all, this would mean that you could finally force those pesky motorists to obey nonsensically low speed limits regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with safety.

SpaceTime

The British tabloids also tend to assume that the statement of some MEP waffling on about a pet issue or an EU discussion document is "Brussels dictates that:"

Anything like that would probably have to go to the council of ministers for transport and I don't think it would be approved.

There is a likelihood of some kind of collision prevention with proximity detectors but I think speed limiters are probably politically a bridge too far.

The EU actually did a few sensible things too like forcing the British and Irish to put plugs on all appliances sold .
Remember the days when you had to fit your own... It was rather weird!

07Lapierre

Look on the bright side. If this system is introduced, Does it mean that i won't get stuck behind someone doing 60kph in the outside lane on the M50?

SeanW

galwaycyclist wrote: »

No brainer really - and very welcome news if they are serious. Its insane that you can buy cars in this country that are capable of significantly exceeding the highest speed limits 120km\hr.

Ideally also they should put strict limits on acceleration performance.

Really, you mean speed limiters wouldn't be dramatic enough, you would also like to see idiotic, over the top limiters on "acceleration" (which is already governed by law albeit in a limited roundabout way) :eek::(

Nate--IRL--

Typical Jingoistic and EU bull**** from the Mail.

Nate

foggy_lad

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

why?
Safe defensive driving and not getting into potentially dangerous situations by being a prat behind the wheel Power and acceleration is the most useful way to get out of potentially dangerous situations, limiting it is a joke.
what about is you like to use your car off road / on a track etc, why should there be limits.

The limit of 155mph that Germany enforce on cars produced there is enough, there's no need to limit it further. It'll just end up killing more people.

Also Germany does not enforce any limit on cars produced there, the manufacturers do it themselves.

Cookie_Monster

foggy_lad wrote: »

Also Germany does not enforce any limit on cars produced there, the manufacturers do it themselves.

on the agreement that if they do it themselves then the government won't and keep the autobahns limit free (the current limit free sections)

MGWR

corktina wrote: »

"slam on brakes" Mail nonsense....it would work by cutting out the fuel pump I imagine

That's even more dangerous, since there is potential of induced fuel pump failure.

The Commission says that multiple systems are being looked at, besides. Independent-minded Irish ought to be quite bothered about an unelected load of bureaucrats having the power to unilaterally decide law for Ireland from outside the country.

SpaceTime wrote: »

Anything like that would probably have to go to the council of ministers for transport and I don't think it would be approved

What exactly is the "council of ministers for transport"? I've never heard of such a thing.

The EU's decrees supersede national law. That is even in the Irish constitution, since 1972; look up the Third Amendment.

SpaceTime wrote: »

The EU actually did a few sensible things too like forcing the British and Irish to put plugs on all appliances sold

That was "sensible"? What's so hard about installing a plug on bare wires? I was doing that when I was a small lad.

My grand-dad used to joke that the Yanks would one day be born without legs, referencing their fondness for cars and driving back in the 50s and 60s. If he were alive today, he'd say the Irish would eventually be born without hands!

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Typical Jingoistic and EU bull**** from the Mail

What is with internet laziness out of the Irish? This is in several other sources as well. Stop with shooting the messenger and do your own research. And what exactly is "jingoistic" about criticism of the European Union?

MGWR

galwaycyclist wrote: »

No brainer really - and very welcome news if they are serious. Its insane that you can buy cars in this country that are capable of significantly exceeding the highest speed limits 120km\hr.

Ideally also they should put strict limits on acceleration performance.

Intelligent speed adaptation is well established technology at this point. It makrs much more sense to limit the performance of the car rather than expect local governments to go to the expense of reconstructing urban roads to achieve traffic calming by physical means or expecting the police to be everywhere 24 hours a day.

It's anything but "well-established technology", and it will hurt more than help. It'll be great for the repairman to be sure, since slower driving means more wear and tear on the engine, especially heat-related damage.

It is not unsafe to drive faster than the rather-slow 120 km/h (under 75 mph).

And how would you like for malicious-minded folk to hack into your "intelligent" technology and disable your car without your permission? The boss won't like it very much if it makes you late for work and you can't prove it.

dowlingm

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Personally I'd like to see 'black box' technology applied to motor vehicles. I think the presence of such a recorder would serve as an electronic conscience, and would also provide valuable, reliable data in crash restructions for forensic and road safety research purposes.

If your car has an airbag, it already (to a VERY limited extent) may.

SpaceTime

MGWR wrote: »

What exactly is the "council of ministers for transport"? I've never heard of such a thing.

The Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers) is made up of all of the EU member state's ministers for whatever topic is being discussed.
For example, the Council of the European Union would be made up of all the Ministers for Agriculture if it were looking at an agricultural issue.
If it were looking at something like this, all the Ministers for Transport would be sitting on it on this issue.

They'd have to get it past the parliament and the council before it would go anywhere and that's pretty unlikely.

MGWR wrote: »

That was "sensible"? What's so hard about installing a plug on bare wires? I was doing that when I was a small lad.

Well, mainly because a significant % of the population are a bit thick and every year there were people being killed because they managed to wire plugs completely incorrectly e.g. connecting the earth wire to the live pin resulting in a live body appliance or just jamming the wires into a socket using another plug or wiring two appliances to the same plug.

You never see that kind of thing now because appliances all come with plugs.

Going Forward

MGWR wrote: »

It's anything but "well-established technology", and it will hurt more than help. It'll be great for the repairman to be sure, since slower driving means more wear and tear on the engine, especially heat-related damage.

The technology has been in place, built in, for a number of years in bog standard van engine ECU's. I know a number of commercial fleet owners, using the likes of Transits and Sprinters up who have actually got the limiters switched on to kick in at 80 or 90 kmh.

It saves them fuel (once drivers get used to it), wear and tear and reduces the likelihood of high speed impacts.

Most sat navs can now display local speed limits also; it would be quite simple to link in-vehicle GPS to the ECU to "Warn" the driver if speeding, or switch on the limiter. Automatically linked braking would be far more complicated due to the need to motorise brake calipers.

A good way to avoid getting points for speeding IMO!

There are no issues regards over heating in modern vehicles, plus we are not in the Sahara.

The system would not be able to be retro fitted to older vehicles though, as it would cost more than the vehicles value, in general the EU has avoided impractical and expensive retrofitment of non essential equipment, instead relying on the natural scrappage and decommissioning of older vehicles and national fleets slowly being replaced.

For example daylight running lights LEDs are now mandatory for all new cars as aresult of EU rules, older ones sensibly dont have to have them fitted.

I'd go so far as to say it would be a great sales tool for garage people selling new cars, and will propbably be offered as an optional extra (in switchable mode, for the time being) quite soon.