Britain to Pilot GPS Speed Governors 832
Rich0 writes "In a new twist on traffic speed enforcement, The Times is reporting that Britain is piloting a new device which will use GPS to actively prevent speeding. The device will initially be offered in conjunction with discounts to the London congestion surcharge." From the article: "A study commissioned by London's transport planners has recommended that motorists who install it should be rewarded with a discount on the congestion charge, which tomorrow rises to £8 a day. The trial Skodas were fitted with a black box containing a digital map identifying the speed limits of every stretch of road in Leeds. A satellite positioning system tracked the cars' locations. "
Not in my car?? (Score:1, Informative)
Many people I know have been caught speeding in the UK on roads which very little warning about that correct speed limit. At least this system informs you that you are exceeding the speed limit. Speed cameras are often placed downhill where it is very easy to exceed the speed limit and be fined.
If the UK government really do care about road safety than then can implement these systems such as this so that we can't speed, instead of just using speeding fines as another stealth tax.
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:1, Informative)
Yea, right.
Re:Leeds? Why? (Score:4, Informative)
It was held in Leeds because the study was conducted by the University of Leeds, where I'm a student.
Re:What about emergencies? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Safety first means safety last? (Score:2, Informative)
"The device compared the car's speed with the local limit -- displayed on the dashboard -- and sent a signal to the accelerator or brake pedal to slow if it was too fast. The system can be overridden to avoid a hazard."
Don't know what the mechanism is, but they've obviously considered that sometimes it is justified to go over the speed limit.
Ryan Stultz
Not in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
As for being above the law, my cousin is a police officer. Her boss (also a police officer, obviously) was disciplined for speeding in a police car. The boss is the assistant chief constable of that police force. There must be only about 30 officers of that seniority in the whole of the UK, so it's probably safe to say that the British police are not above the law [bbc.co.uk].
On the other side of this coin, a couple of weeks ago there was a newsworthy court case where a British police officer was prosecuted for speeding [bbc.co.uk], and the court let him off, basically on the grounds that he needed to do what he did.
Re:the wonderful thing with this... (Score:4, Informative)
Err, no they didn't [dft.gov.uk]
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would have one of these (Score:2, Informative)
Also, I haven't the time to check, but I seriously doubt that anywhere near the majority of cars sold today kill someone in their lifetime, so saying "a 200mph car that will probably kill someone" is wrong; it probably won't.
That or he went against the
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:5, Informative)
The traffic simulations I've seen use a particle model to work out traffic flows. The idea being that people over and under estimate the speed of their own car, and others on the road. The result of this is each car "vibrates" against others (with a certain air gap, hopefully).
The result of *that* is that traffic tends to slow *more* than the slowest driver would travel at. Which is why you get congestion at points of merging and corners for no apparent reason - nervous/careful people slow down, and it cascades into a near stop for everyone else.
Side note, slowing traffic down "for safety reasons" is inane. Traffic will slow itself down as volumes increase (eg, peak times) all you engineers have to do is make the road flow smoothly.
Re:Cars aren't the issue (Score:3, Informative)
These vary by a huge amount just between inexperienced and very experienced drivers, even without taking into consideration the effects of tiredness, alcohol, drugs, etc.
However, the distance covered while an average, reasonably alert driver reacts represents only a relatively small amount of the overall stopping distance at medium speeds, and becomes less significant the faster you get.
I know that my old Corsa could stop from around 60mph in about 3/4 of the official safe stopping distance listed in the British Highway Code, including thinking time, because I once had to do an emergency stop in it. That was when I was young and a relatively inexperienced driver.
I'm now a much more experienced driver with a much higher performance car. I've never had to perform a high speed emergency stop in the new car, but I did try various tests of its braking from high speed shortly after buying it. On that basis, I'm confident that I could stop the car from 70mph under good conditions in no more than 2/3 of the official Highway Code distance, including thinking time. (According to reviews of the car, and the statistical performance of a driver with my experience, it's probably less than that in reality.)
Personally, I tend to follow a little further back than I probably need to, just to allow that bit of extra time to react if anything unexpected does happen, if someone behind me is too close (as it likely on a high speed road), etc. But really, human reaction time isn't much of an argument for not changing speed limits in 50 years. What we should be looking at is the speed limits that statistically are most likely to minimise the damage caused by accidents, and those are certainly very different to what we have here in the UK right now.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Informative)
Except... they are putting in new freeways now around Austin. Most of them are replacing older, regular roads, which had 55 MPH speed limits.
All of the new freeways are toll roads. Guess what speed limits their frontage roads get? You guessed it - 45 MPH. In other words, the same type of road in the same town goes from 55 to 45 when the road it follows happens to be built with private funds and has a toll if you use it.
I don't mind charging people to use the roads they drive on. I do mind artificially lowering the speed limit on neighboring roads to force more people onto the road that generates profit for the bigwigs that had money to invest in its construction.
Any speed limit set to create a profit, either for the city or private enterprise, is wrong. Speed limits should be set for safety alone.
Re:What about emergencies? (Score:3, Informative)
I think I may have found a key difference. Being female is like an automatic 50% off sale for young drivers.
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Informative)
The speed limit also provides a nice method of synchronization between all the drivers. If everybody goes at the posted speed, there are fewer slower drivers, and the rate can be sustained for longer periods of time because fewer accidents will happen.
Now, if we could only make the silly drivers understand that the fastest way to get where they're going is to not speed, let people into lanes, and all the other things that used to be called "courtesy," we'd be in good shape.
Full disclosure: I almost always drive the speed limit (slower than the flow of traffic), although I stay in the slow lane most of the time.
Re:Cars aren't the issue (Score:1, Informative)
Reaction times don't seem to come into play when setting speed limits, otherwise vehicles would be speed limited based on their weight, stopping distance and handling ability, because the only constant is human reaction time, it's the vehicle that the human is in that is the variable.
On a side note, if people want to drive trucks i.e anything over 3 tonne then they should have to get a light truck license. Far to many ass clowns driving their Landcruisers and Patrols through the mountains thinking they handle like a car, of course they soon realise when they come a bit quick into a tightening corner that they are most certainly NOT in a car, they will either;
1. Run wide into on coming traffic
2. Run wide off the road (off a cliff like i have seen twice on my travels)
3. Roll
I have owned fourwheel drives and understand that under "normal" driving they do handle much like a car, but push them just a little and you find out that they are sitting pretty close to the limit at the best of times, unlike a car which has much traction to spare.
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Informative)
I believe the "study" you remember may be Traffic Waves [amasci.com] by William Beaty. I originally found this site via somebody else's sig a while back. I spent a good half hour digging it up today so others could read it.
I'm no more qualified to understand traffic than you or he is, but I read it extensively when I stumbled on it and it makes a lot of sense to me. It'd be really nice if a professional traffic engineer could chime in and say how accurate this all is.
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:3, Informative)