"Modern cars are too powerful for UK roads"

molgrips

The rest of your post is total rubbish also, jimjam. Let me know if you need it explaining why.

No you’re alright. I don’t need any further platitudes from the blessed sage of motoring psychology. I’ve already read the same self aggrandizing, sanctimonious smug guffery several dozen times since you keep spamming every thread that relates to driving with exact same sermon.

I’m baffled as to how you can’t see the contradictions in some of your statements. It’s laughable to say that something with 115bhp is too powerful for uk roads, then say how you need a run up to overtake in a 900cc fiesta, but that you always wait patiently for an opportunity to overtake, but you do get annoyed by little old ladies in micras holding you up. You chose a higher spec model passat because the lower one was too slow, and yet modern cars are too powerful for anyone (other than you it would seem). You won’t even acquiesce to the idea that more power can make for a safer overtake, despite the fact that this is actually part of the highway code.

I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you’re just a wind up artist, if so well done. You got me. Again. Everything you type just smacks of someone who resents the idea of anyone having a car that’s superior to yours.

alaslas

As with motorbikes, you should have to apply for a special licence according to the power and potential deadliness of your car.

Bring it on, if you made a petition for that I’d sign it, so long as it wasn’t just an additional form of tax. No problem. But you’re trying again to insinuate that power is inextricably linked to deadliness and that is simply not the case. Any car you buy can do 100mph. Are they all stable at that speed? Can they corner at that speed or decelerate safely and quickly from that speed? No. There’s nothing stopping an 18 year old lad in a corsa trying to drive like Walter Ruhl on the roads.

The average young driver pays £1000 – £2000 for insurance on the most weedy underpowered cars, and yet they are still the highest risk group. Try and get a quote for an 18yo on a GTR. Go on. 99% of companies won’t touch you, and those that will are going to charge 3 fortunes, effectively pricing most people out of the market. Even into your 30’s it’s difficult and expensive to insure fast cars for normal use, and prior experience with similar cars is a factor. So this perception that powerful “deadly” cars are a readily accessed fix for speed junkies and renegade sociopaths is just a complete fallacy. The only deadly aspect of a car is the driver. They’re just lumps metal. Do you think moshimonster in his 911 is more dangerous than some chav in his 1.2 corsa sxi with a big bore exhaust, chopped springs and a burning desire to show off to his mates?

thooms – Member
They’re too refined – not too powerful.

This to a certain extent. Arguably a car can’t be too refined – why would anyone prefer not to be in a quiet and comfortable environment. However that does mask speed very well. I took a friend out for a blast on the autobahn recently and gave it some beans. Asked him after how fast he thought we were going and he guessed a good 30% lower than we had been.

Unsure I’d get a super saloon again as you do need to be going at a serious lick to feel like the car is even trying and I do often yearn for something lighter and rawer when on my own. However, when I’ve got the wife and 3 kids it really is just an effortless way of getting anywhere and they do love hard acceleration, even though I think they’ll never be impressed by much else in the future having got used to 560bhp!

People tend to drive at a speed that they feel comfortable with and a speed that their car is comfortable with. Normally this is related to their level of skill and confidence as a driver (okay there are always exceptions e.g. Boy racer, but I’m talking generally here). People with less skill and confidence perceive that someone driving faster than them must be more dangerous. They can’t comprehend that the faster driver may have more skill, more experience, more training, a more capable car etc. To the slower driver it just looks dangerous, even if in reality is that it’s probably not.

To the slower driver it just looks dangerous, even if in reality is that it’s probably not.

Perception is a big part of it, I’m sure.

There’s a bend near me that I’ve taken comfortably at 85+ in a crap car in my young stupid days. My OH (who doesn’t drive) shits herself if I go round it at the 70 limit and grabs hold of the Jesus handle like she’s going to go flying across the car and into my lap, to a point where I now take it at 50 – 60 for a quiet life. However, if she’s distracted, if we’re having a conversation, she barely registers it as an issue. It’s not a severe bend at all, but it leads the eye and looks worse than it is.

Dont mistake driving carefully with a lack of confidence, the driver has probably just planned their journey better than you and is less influenced by juvenile hormones.

If you are seriously excusing dangerous drivers as just more capable you deluded beyond a state words on this forum will fix.

People tend to drive at a speed that they feel comfortable with and a speed that their car is comfortable with. Normally this is related to their level of skill and confidence as a driver (okay there are always exceptions e.g. Boy racer, but I’m talking generally here). People with less skill and confidence perceive that someone driving faster than them must be more dangerous. They can’t comprehend that the faster driver may have more skill, more experience, more training, a more capable car etc. To the slower driver it just looks dangerous, even if in reality is that it’s probably not.

The faster driver might believe they have more skill, experience, training, car etc but studies of illusory superiority suggest they’re wrong.

Illusory Superiority

Driving ability[edit]
Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in Sweden and the United States, asking them to compare their driving safety and skill to the other people in the experiment. For driving skill, 93% of the US sample and 69% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50% (above the median). For safety, 88% of the US group and 77% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%.[26]

McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar results in their study, asking 178 participants to evaluate their position on eight different dimensions relating to driving skill (examples include the “dangerous-safe” dimension and the “considerate-inconsiderate” dimension). Only a small minority rated themselves as below average (the midpoint of the dimension scale) at any point, and when all eight dimensions were considered together it was found that almost 80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver.[27]

A survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates showed that 36% of drivers believe they are an above average driver while using a phone for things like texting or email compared to other drivers who are using their phones for things like texting or email, while 44% considered themselves average, and 18% below average.[28]

In answer to the OP’s question I suspect what underlies the apparent increase in incompetent driving is that modern cars are too powerful for the skill of the average driver and that the average driver has fallen for the effects of illusory superiority and believes (falsly) that they do have the skill to manage that power.

It’s obviously too late to ask but I bet if you could interview every dead driver, they’d tell you they thought they had everything under control…

wilburt – Member

If you are seriously excusing dangerous drivers as just more capable you deluded beyond a state words on this forum will fix.

Of course he’s not doing that- he’s saying that “dangerous” is often a matter of perception,what seems reckless and dangerous to one person may actually be perfectly safe (if I’m allowed to say that without someone saying “driving god”…) In the classic everyone slower than me is an incompetent, everyone faster than me is a psychopath way.

Frinstance… Sometimes with good forward observation you can identify that a road is clear, and pass, by checking it out as it undulates or as visibility grows and shrinks. But to the person who’s only seeing what’s bang in front of them, you’re obviously a maniac, because you’re using information they don’t have.

Or other frinstance, using offsiding- if someone doesn’t know what you’re doing, they just assume you’re “riding on the wrong side of road” or better still “On the racing line like Barry ******* Sheene” and may go mental accordingly. When actually you’re maintaining visibility, which improves safety.

Course, the reverse applies, what some people think is perfectly safe may actually be total madness. I doubt many dangerous drivers actually think they’re driving dangerously.

brooes, that survey is of students ie young inexperienced drivers and the second group is presumably comprised of idiots (anyone who would get into a debate as to their ability to phone or text while driving). So I really can’t put too much credence in it.

It’s obviously too late to ask but I bet if you could interview every dead driver, they’d tell you they thought they had everything under control…

You can always ask people who survived? You don’t have to have a fatal car crash to gain an observation about making a driving error at speed. I can’t really comment though since my only serious car crash (touch wood) was when a dithering oul **** in an RV ran a red and T-Boned my vehicle nearly flipping it on it’s roof.

Northwind
Course, the reverse applies, what some people think is perfectly safe may actually be total madness. I doubt many dangerous drivers actually think they’re driving dangerously.

Scariest drivers I’ve ever sat in with were the ones who’ve been distracted while driving. One mate who would do 80-90 everywhere whilst searching the car for “mix tapes” of his shitty dance music. Then tells me he’s written off his last 6 cars. His eyes were hardly ever on the road. Sheer terror.

Another mate who used to text and drive whilst lighting a fag and having a full blown conversation. Even at moderate speeds it was scary to be in a car with him.
Compared to those guys, sitting in the passenger seat with any number of “driving gods” whilst they are “making progress” is relatively calm, since they are focused on the road.

It’s a bit like skiers. Good skiers ski faster and have less accidents than poor skiers skiing slowly (World Cup downhill excepted).

Love these threads…

…i’ve undertaken advanced and emergency driving courses due to my job and over the last 14 yrs have attended numerous RTCs in my role as a Paramedic.

Most RTCs take place at slow speeds in built up areas, kerbing car power outputs and top speeds wouldnt prevent these.
I forget the actual stats but its something like 75% of RTCs take place at junctions not on the open road….why?…because people dont look.

Improve people’s ability to read the road and lift their field of vision and you’d significantly reduce the RTCs stats….just banning fast cars would barely dent the figures as these RTCs that take place at speed on open roads are a fraction of the total.

People’s driving is terrible, but nobody admits it…in fact most people equate slow to safe.

You can be slow and veering all over the place, random braking, random accelaration, no signalling, no awareness of what’s around you etc etc….a complete liability and entirely dependent on other people staying out of your way…but these people think they’re safe because they never breach 60 on an A-road and always do 30 through town….delusional.

More traffic police would help….and not just for the obvious speeding drivers.
People who tailgate need ticketing, people who dont signal need points too, people who drive at 45mph on the motorway need a word in their ear.

I actually dont have a problem with a 100mph limit, to be honest it would be nice if people used the power they already have though…i see (on a daily basis) people dawdling up slip roads at 40mph expecting to join traffic that is doing 70…not gonna happen, so they grind to a halt at the end of the slip and then have to look for a gap large enough to accelerate from a standstill into with 70mph traffic…nuts.

Its the same when exiting the motorway, people brake to 50mph while still in lane one, then often have to speed back up once on the sliproad!….leave the motorway at the speed you were doing, then do your braking on the slip…thats what its there for!

Motorways suffer the concertina affect around sliproads as nobody seems to know (or have the confidence) to use them properly.

Electronic driver aids are great…in the dry.
None of them will save you while you’re aqua planing.

….been out to too many heroes that come unstauck in the rain thinking their ERS, ABS, TC etc etc will magically defy the laws of physics and glide them to work unhindered…no, no and no again.

Was caught in a biblical downpour the other morning, i slowed to about 50mph and had my wipers on full and it was still bad…cars were flying by, “here we go” i say to myself, sure enough not more than two mins later i’m sent to an RTC…arrive to thamkfully find the driver OK but his car has stacked into the central reservation then spun across three lanes down the verge…he says “it started to rain so i slowed down”….how slow? i ask….he replies “came down to about 80″…

These idiots will always crash, there is no known cure for stupidity….needless to say the car was modern with all the safety gizmos designed to make him feel invincible and dull the actual sensation from the road surface and mute any information about what is going on with your tyres and traction.

I could go on and on…i go to plenty who approach a corner and if they’d just left well alone would’ve been fine but no, they had to panic brake mid corner….oops, the car ends up in a hedge.

More driver training is the answer and a staggered licence system like motorcycles, i’m not in favour of complusory retesting but there could be mandatory retraining (not too strict, no pass/fail element for example) that people have to take in a given window every 5 years for example….failure to attend training days sees your insurance go up, failure to attend three on the trot sees you banned until you do attend one.

It’s not just perception it’s the laws of physics, go faster and the kinetic energy of your car increases as the square of your speed. Travel faster and your reaction times means you’ll cover more distance making decisions. Simple decisions might only take half a second, more complex ones may take a couple of seconds. The faster you go the narrower your field of vision and the less likely you are to see dangers coming in from the side. It all stacks up against you.

I trundle along happily in queues of traffic, behave in a courteous manner around other road users, accept that I make mistakes and go slow enough to limit the consequences. After lots of these threads I think it’s time for a CV, it’s going back a bit but on a budget that was my salary and in cars I built myself:

MSA (RAC) British autotest champion.
BTRDA autotest champion.
3rd Nova cup (which was part of the national rally series at the time).
The home internationals: National Breakdown, Circuit of Ireland, Welsh (first in class), Ulster.
The “other driver” in Russ Swift’s display team in the early years.
Display work for GM.

I stopped at 26 which gave me time to get into climbing, alpinisme, skiing, triathlon (best result of 6th scratch in the French Winter national championships, 27th in the worlds), adventure racing and all sorts of other activities.

I don’t consider myself any safer than anyone else out there because we all share the roads. Russ Swift has a foot that is rotated by about 60° because he was hit head on by an on-coming driver overtaking.

Love these threads…

…i’ve undertaken advanced and emergency driving courses due to my job and over the last 14 yrs have attended numerous RTCs in my role as a Paramedic.

Most RTCs take place at slow speeds in built up areas, kerbing car power outputs and top speeds wouldnt prevent these.
I forget the actual stats but its something like 75% of RTCs take place at junctions not on the open road….why?…because people dont look.

Improve people’s ability to read the road and lift their field of vision and you’d significantly reduce the RTCs stats….just banning fast cars would barely dent the figures as these RTCs that take place at speed on open roads are a fraction of the total.

People’s driving is terrible, but nobody admits it…in fact most people equate slow to safe.

You can be slow and veering all over the place, random braking, random accelaration, no signalling, no awareness of what’s around you etc etc….a complete liability and entirely dependent on other people staying out of your way…but these people think they’re safe because they never breach 60 on an A-road and always do 30 through town….delusional.

More traffic police would help….and not just for the obvious speeding drivers.
People who tailgate need ticketing, people who dont signal need points too, people who drive at 45mph on the motorway need a word in their ear.

I actually dont have a problem with a 100mph limit, to be honest it would be nice if people used the power they already have though…i see (on a daily basis) people dawdling up slip roads at 40mph expecting to join traffic that is doing 70…not gonna happen, so they grind to a halt at the end of the slip and then have to look for a gap large enough to accelerate from a standstill into with 70mph traffic…nuts.

Its the same when exiting the motorway, people brake to 50mph while still in lane one, then often have to speed back up once on the sliproad!….leave the motorway at the speed you were doing, then do your braking on the slip…thats what its there for!

Motorways suffer the concertina affect around sliproads as nobody seems to know (or have the confidence) to use them properly.

Electronic driver aids are great…in the dry.
None of them will save you while you’re aqua planing.

….been out to too many heroes that come unstauck in the rain thinking their ERS, ABS, TC etc etc will magically defy the laws of physics and glide them to work unhindered…no, no and no again.

Was caught in a biblical downpour the other morning, i slowed to about 50mph and had my wipers on full and it was still bad…cars were flying by, “here we go” i say to myself, sure enough not more than two mins later i’m sent to an RTC…arrive to thamkfully find the driver OK but his car has stacked into the central reservation then spun across three lanes down the verge…he says “it started to rain so i slowed down”….how slow? i ask….he replies “came down to about 80″…

These idiots will always crash, there is no known cure for stupidity….needless to say the car was modern with all the safety gizmos designed to make him feel invincible and dull the actual sensation from the road surface and mute any information about what is going on with your tyres and traction.

I could go on and on…i go to plenty who approach a corner and if they’d just left well alone would’ve been fine but no, they had to panic brake mid corner….oops, the car ends up in a hedge.

More driver training is the answer and a staggered licence system like motorcycles, i’m not in favour of complusory retesting but there could be mandatory retraining (not too strict, no pass/fail element for example) that people have to take in a given window every 5 years for example….failure to attend training days sees your insurance go up, failure to attend three on the trot sees you banned until you do attend one.

I think I love you. 😀 Well said.

I have a magic formula for a safe driver..

Open showrooms that only sell two cars – one is an energy efficient, ecologically friendly vehicle, that is practical and comfortable.. The other is some kind of flash beefy testosterone substitute..

Place both cars at the same very, very affordable price..

Anyone choosing the flash motor gets taken out to the back of the showroom and fired into space from a cannon

Jeez, what a boring **** world that would be.
Anyone who thinks utilitarianism is the way to a rewarding life needs shooting. (It’d be the ecologically kindest thing to do)

Well said deviant.

i’m not in favour of complusory retesting

Given everything you’ve said in your thread, why not?

Well wouldn’t mandatory retraining fill quite the gap to mandatory retesting?

Broods…honestly I think if retesting was introduced then half the drivers on the road would end up having their licences taken away, it’s not practical and would negatively impact on the economy, overload public transport and lead to social unrest.

Far better to make compulsory retraining fun, informative and to get drivers passionate about driving instead of it being a passive process where even the person driving is usually sat there bored and not paying attention to the actual process…. teach understeer, oversteer, have a day at a skidpan etc etc…most people who attend those police run courses you can sometimes take to avoid penalty points say they are a day well spent, introduce that kind of thing every few years with insurance incentives and penalties and I don’t think you’d need the harshness of retesting.

The trouble with retesting is that most people can probably get it together for half an hour and do a test standard drive… Even if they need to do a bunch of lessons beforehand. If the issue is inattentiveness and recklessness these are things you opt to do and can stop doing when you’re on best behaviour. If someone watched me for 30 minutes at work I bet I’d not swear or go on the internet but the second they turn their back I’ll be posting about it on STW…

The actual problem, imo, is a cultural one rather than really a driving skills one, people who can drive safely choose not to. I have no clue how to fix that. But you can treat the symptoms with more traffic cops, especially more plainclothes. And a move away from obsessing about speeding and prosecutions IMO, but policing driving standards is harder than pointing a speedgun at people and the same observation issue applies. I’m no surveillance state fan though

Also, I do think we need to stop this nonsense where people get lenient sentences because they need their cars for work. If you need your car for work, it’s up to you to drive safely, it’s not up to the court to keep you driving even though you’re a ****. That’s just a terrible message all round. Minor issue but still.

Under it all, the basic problem is I think that a lot of dangerous or bad driving is just not that simple to pull people up for. It’s not that obvious that someone’s not paying attention til they drive through a busful of baby robins. Increasing sentences, some strict liability, might help… But it’s still the “won’t happen to me” “I’m a safe driver” “I’m not doing anything wrong” problem, you could punish dangerous driving with death by acid and most folks would drive the same.

The actual problem, imo, is a cultural one rather than really a driving skills one, people who can drive safely choose not to. I have no clue how to fix that.

An obligatory black box in every car.

A voluntary tracker in every car with results sent to insurers. Anyone who refuses the tracker pays the highest premium the company charges any driver with a tracker +50%.

agent007 – Member
“It would also upset the driving gods when they realise how gutless their “fast” cars are.”
Why does some cretin always mention bikes on a car thread. It’s like bikers seem to have a chip on their shoulder or something. Have ridden bikes abroad, absolutely no desire to repeat the experience in the UK thanks.

Bikers don’t need a chip on their shoulder. They have have the only vehicles capable of being driven properly fast on interesting roads. For a mere few tens of thousands they can eclipse hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of car. For that matter you can do it with less than £10,000 as almost all motorbikes have an excess of power for use on UK roads.

But a cretin with a chip on his shoulder might contemptuously regard “fast” cars as posturing tool for a flabby fatboy with inadequacy issues who cannot pull chicks with his personality. But I wouldn’t think like that. 🙂

Basically if you want a proper sense of speed get a motorbike or drive a go-cart (an Ariel Atom would suffice).

Sounds like we need to ban any bike over 25cc.

jimjam – Member
Sounds like we need to ban any bike over 25cc.

It would make sense. 🙂

But first they would have to catch us…

Edukator – Troll

An obligatory black box in every car.

A voluntary tracker in every car with results sent to insurers. Anyone who refuses the tracker pays the highest premium the company charges any driver with a tracker +50%.

Which doesn’t tackle bad observation, inattention, general negligence, driving tired or distracted, excessive speed in bad conditions… I’d say this is more of the same- targeting speed because it’s easy. And that’s exactly what’s led to “I’m safe because I’m doing 30, while doing my makeup, and that cyclist I just hit must have COME OUT OF NOWHERE”

When excessive speed contributes (not causes, contributes) to 14% of collisions but failure to look causes 40%, the solution is not more speed checking imo. Not saying it’s not a good idea when viewed by itself but it’s not the answer to the bigger problem.

FeeFoo – Member

…Anyone who thinks utilitarianism an ‘interesting’ car is the way to a rewarding life needs shooting. (It’d be the ecologically kindest thing to do)

Northwind – Member

…And that’s exactly what’s led to “I’m safe because I’m doing 30, while doing my makeup…

but i’d be surprised if you couldn’t see that they were up to something shonky from all the panic-braking and jerky steering.

Trackers and black boxes can also record acceleration in three dimensions. That gives a good idea of how erratic the driver is. Hard sudden braking, swerving and flying bridges show up. An eye-movement monitor could be incorporated if you are worried about someone using their phone, GPS or putting on makeup.

#I could edit in response to Northwind’s edit but then Jimjam’s insult wouldn’t make sense so I’ve left this unedited#

I did a wee sneaky edit there btw so there’s a bit more to my post that clarifies where I was going.

How about we just put a GPS tracker in your anus Edukator. Then we’d know where you were trolling at all times.

How about we just put a tracker in your anus Edukator.

Jimjam

FeeFoo – Member
…Anyone who thinks utilitarianism an ‘interesting’ car is the way to a rewarding life needs shooting. (It’d be the intellectually kindest thing to do)

beautifully put 😀

Northwind – Member

When excessive speed contributes (not causes, contributes) to 14% of collisions but failure to look causes 40%, the solution is not more speed checking imo. Not saying it’s not a good idea when viewed by itself but it’s not the answer to the bigger problem.

in my humble opinion, we should could just accept that people can be a bit rubbish, that they will crash into things.

so let’s reduce speed limits on rural+urban roads, and enforce the hell out of them.

people will still crash, but they’ll do it at a slower speed.

anyway, dinner’s ready, i’m off!

I reckon jimjam is after a prize for the most strawmen in one thread. Incidentally, despite claiming

Nothing misinterpreted about it. You just reaffirmed it.[/quote]

he’s yet to come up with an example to disprove my earlier suggestion that it was started with one.

I think you need to check what the definition of a straw man argument is. I don’t need to pander to your pedantry.

ahwiles – Member

in my humble opinion, we should could just accept that people can be a bit rubbish, that they will crash into things.

That sounds like a ****ing terrible idea to me tbh. Do I want to be knocked off my bike by someone doing 40 or 35? Well I’d rather not be knocked off tbh. Nope, just accept it, 40 or 35.

🙄

Whilst we’re at it, what would you consider a significant increase? Exactly 1% a year, which would result in a modern Golf GTI having similar performance to a Honda NSX supercar? 1.5% a year (current 911 Carrera 4)? or 2% a year (current AM Vanquish)?

God you risk free looneys. Put on your driving gloves and flat caps its sunday tomorrow so your day.
Why do you like singletrack riding again, steady now.
I know whats right and I know whats wrong, its the bit in the middle I love FUN!

You’re not the first to make that comparison. Let’s see if you can work out what the difference is between having fun in a car on a public road, and having fun on a mountain bike – something lots of us hand wringers do like to do fast (I’m also a bit of a pansy at that, but I do other things which would scare most of the people who like driving fast).

The real answer is autonomous, self-driving cars.
Most people don’t care about a driving/are shit at it.
So let the computer do it and you can sit and read the paper, do your makeup, have a beer or a **** – whatever.

You’d get where you’re going more refreshed and faster, because once everyone was in these cars they could all sync together and drive along in convoy at higher speeds than people can be trusted at it. Similar how having a 50 mph limit on a crowded motorway gets everyone through the section quicker than if they limit was 70.

Performance cars can become like horses are now – for leisure. If you like driving you have a track day car.

In fact, I’d take it even further. You wouldn’t own a car. You just lease a car service. Need to go somewhere? Fire up your phone, tell them where you want to go and how many seats you need. The nearest car appears to take you. After you get dropped off in town it goes and sits in a little car pen somewhere waiting for someone else to ping it on their phone. You could have them all stacked neatly somewhere – no need to leave a space for the doors to open. They could be electric and go back on charge when someone’s not using them.

Imagine going on a big mountain biking trip. You get a car to the start and then when you get to the end say, 35 miles away – a new car comes to get you and take you home. No need to do big loops to get back to where you left your car.

aracer

Whilst we’re at it, what would you consider a significant increase?

I don’t have a problem with progress or technological advances. I don’t have an irrational fear of inanimate objects, the danger factor is the human behind the wheel. Being afraid of a car, past, present or future is pointless despite what the Daily Mail tell you to think. Manufacturers aren’t going to stick an 800bhp engine in a shopping car, and even if they did they would hopefully supplement it with systems that would make it driveable.

I’m less concerned about the twonk in a powerful car, than I am the twonk in the shit car or van, driving like they are in a performance car, or the the frustrated twonk in his rep mobile who’s just decided he’s had enough of sitting in a queue of traffic and is going to chance an overtake.

yourguitarhero
because once everyone was in these cars they could all sync together and drive along in convoy at higher speeds than people can be trusted at it. Similar how having a 50 mph limit on a crowded motorway gets everyone through the section quicker than if they limit was 70.

Have you ever tried to sync your phone to your computer? Imagine trying to sync a Ford to a Toyota? Sounds like a recipe for death on a stick.