[Closed] EU Automated speed limits

Something fishy about this.

Given you think it’s a good idea but want to turn it off so you can ignore limits probably reinforce why it should be legislated.

One does not actually necessarily follow the other does it? Because I think it would be a good tool in some circumstances does not mean it's worthwhile legislating for it does it.

I am not really into legislating for anything unless there is good evidence that it makes peoples lives better.

People seem to forget that UK's roads are amongst the safest in the world, its not exactly the wild west out there.

Though the STW anti car lobby are not letting facts get in the way of their dogma 😀

People seem to forget that UK’s roads are amongst the safest in the world, its not exactly the wild west out there.

A feature I could switch on when I want that auto limits my speed to the limit would be great.

There are features already built into cars, an accelerator pedal, a brake pedal and a massive dial in the center console called a speedometer.

It does need a responsible human to operate it though.

HTHs.

There are features already built into cars, an accelerator pedal, a brake pedal and a massive dial in the center console called a speedometer.

Cool so you agree that this legislation is not needed then and we can leave people to be responsible and put a little interest back into their driving and maintain the speed limit them self. Glad we are on the same page 🙂

Got to love Virtue Signal Track World 🙂

There are features already built into cars

The poster said 'auto' limits. None of those things do anything automatically.

Though the STW anti car lobby are not letting facts get in the way of their dogma

I'm sorry, but I've spent most of my adult life around cars, as an active member of clubs, attending meets, laid underneath losing the skin from my knuckles on cold winter mornings, and all the rest of it. Hardly the anti-car lobby. It is usually the case that those throwing empty insults and shouting about 'facts' actually have no facts at all. The EU are introducing this directive because the evidence available suggests that it will potentially save thousands of lives. That sounds good enough to me.

What actually are the downsides?

I'd hardly say I was the anti-car lobby - I've had a Mazda MX5, a Porsche and a couple of hot hatches and I have done a lot of the maintenance on them myself. But I cannot see how having automatic speed limiters is a bad thing. It'll save so many lives, including those of people who get crashed into who don't really care whether you're a petrolhead and want to get woken up by driving too fast on the public highway, they just wanted to get home safe without being killed.

munrobiker

I’d hardly say I was the anti-car lobby – I’ve had a Mazda MX5, a Porsche and a couple of hot hatches and I have done a lot of the maintenance on them myself. But I cannot see how having automatic speed limiters is a bad thing.

Well for one thing, because it further increases the perception that driving at the speed limit = automatically safe.

I'd rather have a buzzer that went off if you're closer than two seconds from the vehicle in front. And front and rear dashcams that can't be disabled.

Is it an either/or choice?

munrobiker

Member

Is it an either/or choice?

No but like I said, I believe it further increases the perception that driving at the speed limit = automatically safe. E.g. my colleague gave me a lift home while my car was in for work scared 10 shades of shit of out me by driving at bang on 30 through the housing estate past vans with no visibility, parks etc. 'It's fine I'm only doing 30'

I am sure it will save a some lives, though would be genuinely interested in the stats that show the numbers.

Lets tackle the big hitters before we worry about the stuff down in the noise. Smoking, child obesity would be my starting points. They prematurely kill an order of magnitude of more people than RTA's when we have those down below the level of RTA's. Then lets start worrying about the 5.6 people killed per billion KM driven in the UK.

Nice use of statistics bazzer. There were 1770 road deaths in Uk last year (Source) 

Thats 4.85 deaths per day, I think we should be worrying about them now.

Yeh, but that's only 0.00000000576 deaths per quintillion km driven in the UK. A trifling amount.

Nice use of statistics bazzer.

Especially the use of KM.

Retro83 raises an interesting point though.
IF exceeding the posted speed limit is automatically dangerous, many people will also assume the opposite is true, namely IF you are within the speed limit you are automatically safe.
A decent driver would know neither of those statements is automatically true of course.

Retro83 raises an interesting point though.

Not really. Some that speed will likely think that they are safe drivers anyway.

Well for one thing, because it further increases the perception that driving at the speed limit = automatically safe.

I honestly think this is a straw man, raised by people who don't like being told they can't go brrm brrm wheee. The thing is, no-one thinks they are going too fast - if they did, they'd slow down. That's what 'too' means. Likewise dangerous driving - everyone thinks they are driving safely, otherwise they'd do something else as hardly anyone wants to be deliberately dangerous.

So given that everyone thinks they are perfectly safe, forcing them to go slower won't change that.

The technology in articles I have read includes data loggers reversing cameras, automatic braking, lane assist and alerts to prevent nodding off.

Slightly longer term, car designers and authorities should be thinking big. If the technology involved in the automation of driving can be proven, we should be looking at planning to make vehicles cleaner, safer and faster. In many peoples fantasy sci-fi future cars will be made of jelly and travelling at walking pace. That is not progress.

Let's look at how technology can get all people from A-B more safely and 10 to 20% faster. This must be possible.

Why do you want them to go faster? It's always going to use more fuel if you go faster. And we need to use less energy not more. If you really need to get around fast we can use high speed good public transport. But what we really need to do is travel less, not faster.

molgrips

I honestly think this is a straw man, raised by people who don’t like being told they can’t go brrm brrm wheee. The thing is, no-one thinks they are going too fast – if they did, they’d slow down. That’s what ‘too’ means. Likewise dangerous driving – everyone thinks they are driving safely, otherwise they’d do something else as hardly anyone wants to be deliberately dangerous.

So given that everyone thinks they are perfectly safe, forcing them to go slower won’t change that.

...And I honestly think your point is a load of codswallop. My post is not a straw man argument but ironically your post was a textbook example of one, because you are arguing against a point I did not make. I even gave a very clear real world example of what I meant with a driver who specifically was not speeding. It really could not be clearer.

Not that it makes any difference whatsoever to the point I made, but actually I don't exceed the speed limit. My licence is clean, because I drive to the conditions within the limit that is legally allowed. This is often (far) below the posted limit. This is the point, and is quite of the opposite of what I believe this law encourages.

I have nothing at all to lose from this law, it would not affect me personally in the slightest. I do think it would however negatively affect the standard of driving as a whole.

Why do you want them to go faster? It’s always going to use more fuel if you go faster. And we need to use less energy not more. If you really need to get around fast we can use high speed good public transport. But what we really need to do is travel less, not faster.

People want to visit friends, family, be more efficient at work, get goods around the country faster. There are lots of reasons.

You are limiting your thinking. We have to and will develop cars that are more fuel efficient or use other power sources. Cars will not be revved and the braked suddenly. As a species we are trying to better interconnect the world through speeding up modes of transport of every type. Why with autonomous cars should we be seeking to slow down the most commonly used vehicular transport we use? Think big and strive beyond the dark ages.

People are seeking to use technology to be reactionary rather than progressive.

I agree it is a great idea to limit speeds in our built up areas. With journeys becoming more autonomous in future, could it not be argued that by removing the driver as the problem we could increase speed limits on our motorways in 10 to 20 years?

You are limiting your thinking. We have to and will develop cars that are more fuel efficient

The faster you go, the more fuel you use up due to air resistance (barring a few very obscure cases that won't apply in the future anyway). It doesn't matter how efficient your car is, that will always be the case.

Yes, in theory with self driving cars we could all be doing 100mph nose-to-tail on the motorway in perfect safety. But not only will that use up more fuel, people will do more miles. People have a limit of say, 1 hour for a work commute. If that 1 hour ends up being 100 miles, then people will commute 100 miles a day. And it's distance that requires fuel. Even if your car does 100mpg at 100mph the same 1 hour commute will use the same fuel as a 50mph commute in an hour in a 50mpg car.

Point is we use far too much fuel. So doing the same stuff using the same amount but faster is not a viable future. You ask me to think big, and yet you are still envisaging commuting up and down the motorways as we do today? You need to think bigger still.

With more automated manufacturing and more people employed in highly skilled knowledge based jobs we could be doing it all from a local office or our homes. With virtual reality telepresence and remote manipulation you could be hosting a meeting in Hong Kong in the morning and doing brain surgery on a patient in the USA in the afternoon, all whilst consuming less energy than driving across town.

I hate the idea. But I have absolutely no rational opposition to it.

Why do you want them to go faster?

Because that's the point of a car. If we wanted to go slower we'd walk.

not only will that use up more fuel, people will do more miles

I don't always agree with your point of view Mols, but it's very rare indeed that you spout unsubstantiated bollocks like this.

With more automated manufacturing and more people employed in highly skilled knowledge based jobs we could be doing it all from a local office or our homes. With virtual reality telepresence and remote manipulation you could be hosting a meeting in Hong Kong in the morning and doing brain surgery on a patient in the USA in the afternoon, all whilst consuming less energy than driving across town.

The vast bulk of jobs will still need people to travel to a place of work. Not everyone works in IT. Also fossil fuel powered cars should become a thing of the past.

People should not have to live in close proximity to their workplace. The days of living on site next t' mill or t' pit employing hundreds or thousands on single sites are long gone. We cant all live where the jobs are or our major cities would become mega cities and our more rural areas a desolate wasteland. The car allows people to access work and leisure facilities that are further afield. For many it is what allows them to work at all. The technology should be used to allow people to access what is on offer even faster.

The vast bulk of jobs will still need people to travel to a place of work. Not everyone works in IT. Also fossil fuel powered cars should become a thing of the past.

No they will not. That is from a perspective of working in industrial automation, again I've said it in other threads it's one of the biggest challenges in the world today. The vast majority of manual jobs will be replaced by automation, a lot of others will be remoted, I worked on a project looking at keeping the experts central and just using local techicians for endoscopy, if examing the inside of your arse can be remote what can't be?

Haha The information I found was in KM as it was world wide comparison and I didn't convert it. My point was the risk is a lot lower than peoples "gut feeling".

Point I am making though is there may have been 1770 road deaths last year, but there were circa 77,000 smoking related deaths. Its not that I don't care about the 1770 but I think its pissing in the wind. If you told me this legislation would stop all 1770 of those deaths I would be yeah its a good idea, but the reality is it will be way less.

Making this sort of technology optional for people who want to pay for it (and pay for the technology to be developed) and not putting the cost on every driver until it trickles down cheaply would be the way forward for me. Like I said I would be happy to pay for it as an option and use it as a tool.

I am really diligent in 30s and 40s I drive a van so outside those limits my van does not really have the option to speed badly 🙂 However I don't want to waste peoples time and money because it does not really make a difference to me.

Also there might be evidence to show reducing speed reduces accidents and deaths, that is very different to saying automatically limiting speed does the same as its not exactly the same thing. It might even increase them. If people have some studies that this is the case and the actual number I would be really interested.

I thought someones comment about people not caring was interesting. Just because someone does not jump on every thing that SEEMS to be a good idea without looking at the actual evidence in detail does not mean they don't care about society as a whole.

I just think if your'e going to force stuff on people, force stuff that really makes a difference rather than stuff that makes people feel all fuzzy.

molgrips

The fuel argument is a good on and I think for me that would be a bigger more tangible positive than the safety one. Even a small % reduction in fuel usage would make a big difference to CO2 output in the EU. Again though would have to see that it really did this and I can't see why it wouldn't I can't really see why it would cause people to accelerate harder. Though I guess there is always the chance it would make people who drove under the speed limit before drive at the speed limit now 🙂

Interesting though.

Yes, in theory with self driving cars we could all be doing 100mph nose-to-tail on the motorway in perfect safety. But not only will that use up more fuel

If driving around at 100 mph becomes necessary then transport pods would be designed to run nose-to-tail so that the first pod in a line deals with the wind resistance and the others tuck in behind saving fuel...a train with carriages free to divert off the track
Everyone would have the same design, but longer or shorter according to needs: family, bikes, dogs, etc
Audi and BMW pods wouldn't need to flash their headlights to take their rightful place at the front (no driver to see them), and of course they wouldn't need either mirrors or indicators

The days of living on site next t’ mill or t’ pit employing hundreds or thousands on single sites are long gone.

In the UK and Europe maybe, but head out east and there are huge "factory" towns employing and housing tens of thousands of workers in each. Much if not most of the stuff we get from China is manufactured in such places, the city of Shenzen is composed of many such "suburbs".

@Cougar - the average length of the UK commute has increased from 7.3 miles in 1990 to 8.4 in 2013 but that is for all modes of transport. By car the 2013 figure is 20.3 miles, I didn't find a figure for the earlier date. The duration of the commute over the same period has increased from around 24mins to 30mins. Data take from here

People are seeking to use technology to be reactionary rather than progressive

Don't think this is the case at all. The development of all this technology could easily lead to increasing speed limits on motorways.

There are many arguments going on here and I advocate decreasing the amount of travel we do, however there are obvious benefits to doing it faster, and autonomous systems could play a large part. They are transferable too. They can be applied to public transport, trains, trams, anything you like. And who knows, maybe in 50 years time we will be travelling down the M1 at 200mph in a bus.

Having the technology to increase safety and improve the consistency of driving standards on the roads is what will allow us to do this.

If you told me this legislation would stop all 1770 of those deaths I would be yeah its a good idea...

I believe that is the overall goal. This legislation is one (possibly quite significant) step towards achieving that.

Still not seeing any actual arguments for the downsides of this, Only that the positives may not quite be enough to cancel out the non-existent negatives. Let's be honest, the argument is something along the lines of 'I don't want to be told what to do, I want to drive the way I want, and if a whole bunch of people die, meh, my desire to do what I want is worth more than that.'

Allowing higher average speeds will lead to increases in average distance driven. Road and town planners have known this for decades and its why we end up with so many lanes on the likes of the M25. It is travel time that folk consider when making journeys and/or choosing where to work, live and shop, not travel distance.