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. "
Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:2, Funny)
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:Slower speed does increase congestion...but (Score:3, Insightful)
The reasoning is simple, there are enough people who don't want to get ticketed, die in a car wreck, ect. that when you are trying to maintain the high rate of speed you will eventually have to go around one of them, and sooner or later you will get stuck in the outside lane by one. The outside lane is called the slow lane for a reason. By the time you Unstick yourself the cars you were in front of in the
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Funny)
Just saying "I'm a transportation planner" means absolutely nothing to us unless you can tell us which city you work for, and which roadways you've planned.
If you've planned some of the roads near where I live, I'd take whatever you say with a large grain of salt.
Centipede effects: Spending Your Safety Margin (Score:3, Interesting)
When you're driving at speed, you maintain distance X from the car ahead. And, when you end up at the end of a line of cars at a stoplight, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you close to within X/20 of the car ahead. Once the light turns green, the safety margin you and everyone el
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in a small city with a population of just over 50,000 and nearly as many more in nearby suburbs and sprawl. I can say with complete certainty that slow drivers cause significantly more congestion than occasional problems caused by those going too fast. I see traffic messes several times each week caused by someone going slower than the fl
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 w
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Insightful)
But that doesn't happen. Not everybody drives the posted speed. I grew up in the sticks, and I currently live in L.A. In neither place does everybody drive at the limit.
Do you have any idea of how dangerous it is to be behind some drooler who enters the freeway while going 40? I see this happen every day. The speed limit on the freeway is betw
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a friend who is a civil engineer, and he says the best way to set speed limits is to take all the signs down and measure the speed of a thousand cars passing by, then set the speed limit a standard deviation above the median.
Slowpokes cause a great many accidents. The speed at which the majority of people drive is by
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 wh
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:3)
you're making the assumption that the guys chasing you in the truck are following the firearms laws, and haven't just had a batch smuggled in from Eastern Europe. It would probably be easier to buy a full-auto AK-47 in England right now on the black market than it would be to do the paperwork for one in Texas. And machine guns are legal in Texas. (but heavily regulated.)
Re:Doesn't slower speed increase congestion? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have about as many gun deaths in Britain every year than you have in the US every day*. Read that last sentence again, because I'm sure it's news to you. The US, which has roughly five times Britain's population, has roughly 365 times as many gun deaths per year. And the number of non-fatal incidents is similarly disproportionate.
Of the UK fatalities, almost all involved handguns and shotguns (most of them illegally owned; there are a few, heavily-regulated, legitimate reasons, such as farming use, why someone might be permitted to a gun licence and gun ownership in the UK). Gun incidents in the UK involving machine guns are all but unheard of: on the rare occasions that they do occur, the tabloid press isn't slow to sensationalise that element of the crime, so when it does happen we do hear about it. The lack of machine gun usage in the few gun crimes that do occur is a good indicator that the country isn't awash with them and that they aren't as easy to come by as you think.
You paint this picture that getting an AK-47 in Britain isn't much more difficult than buying a beer. Your picture couldn't be further from the reality. I suggest you check the facts first before making such pithy throw-away comments about something as serious as guns and gun crime.
(*US gun deaths for 2001, the latest year for which I could find statistics: 29,573, or an average of 567 a week, or 81 a day. UK gun deaths for July 2003 to June 2004, the latest records available: 81.)
Skodas! (Score:5, Funny)
Wot's all this, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which reminds me of a joke (Score:4, Funny)
If you try really, really hard you can close the door on Jehovas Witnesses.
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:5, Insightful)
The real invasion of this system is that the raw data will be used not only to trigger a GPS speed limit. No, it will inevitably be used to halt cars driven speeders, then suspects of other crimes, then any "person of interest" to the police, or their political bosses. The stored records will be used to track people wherever they drive. The entire population will be tracked everywhere we go, and people's sense of privacy will go extinct.
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two kinds of privacy, and they're getting mixed up every time this issue comes up. There is a privacy that comes from not being seen or having one's presence otherwise perceived by fellow humans. You don't have this kind of privacy in a public place, granted. You only have it some kind of seclusion.
But there is another kind of privacy - that comes from not being monitored and/or identified. From not being *watched*. Unless you have police or a private eye tailing you, in a modern city you're almost perfectly anonymous, even as you're being seen by hundreds of people, likewise anonymous to you.
I would argue that the latter kind of privacy is far more important and it certainly is the kind we're losing. This is the kind of privacy you lose when being monitored by CCTV, spyware, cookies, RFID, whatever technology does these days. Even if it doesn't identify you by name, it identifies you by a number of characteristics that's sufficient for purpises of marketing, law-enforcement and, if anyone wants, invigilation.
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:3, Insightful)
But public places are, as you mention, defined by witnesses. Being seen in public means one's action
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:4, Insightful)
"You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up
against -- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful
gestures. We're after power and we mean it. Your fellows were pikers, but
we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to
rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack
down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes
them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible
for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding
citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws
that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted --
and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt.
Now that's the system...that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll
be easier to deal with."
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:3, Interesting)
"These days it's all secrecy, and no privacy."
- The
Re:Up Next--GPS Implants (Score:3, Interesting)
What about emergencies? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it's different in Britain though. I imagine there is less road there.
Re:What about emergencies? (Score:2)
Re:What about emergencies? (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen police in the US get away with speeding because they're the police. For some reason, I can't imagine it being much different elsewhere around the world since government corruption doesn't know geographic boundaries.
They'll come up with excuses like people trying to track law enforcement or something like that and that's why they won't be on the grid.
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:2)
Almost every time I see a police car (even with their lights off) they are almost always going faster than the majority of the traffic who themselves are going more than the speed limit.
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:2)
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:2)
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, that's when they're on emergency calls (Score:3, Funny)
Who's going to pull them over?
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:2)
Re:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:2)
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:And guess where they probably won't end up (Score:3, Informative)
Safety first means safety last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, everyone's seen school buses with their regulators, going 60mph on the highway. No one wants to be like them/
Re:Safety first means safety last? (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember how to override in an emergency (Score:3, Insightful)
When you notice that hazard, you maybe have a fraction of a second to decide that speeding up is the only away to avoid it. The time required to remember how to override the system may exceed that fraction.
So jam the signal. (Score:2, Insightful)
Will they not give you the congestion charge discount? Will they slow down the car until the GPS signal is re-acquired?
Re:So jam the signal. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So jam the signal. (Score:2)
Tampering... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:or normal GPS behavior (Score:3, Insightful)
nazi police state (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:nazi police state (Score:2)
Very dangerous (Score:2)
Anyone else find it funny they're considering offering a discount on a fee they just happen to be raising? Why can't they be honest and admit it's a fee not to use this.
I sure hope it doesn't mess up (Score:3, Insightful)
Speed limiters? Congestion charge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't like this sort of thing. can we lose the attitude that driving past the speed limit is the be all and end all of road safety. There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous".
Re:Speed limiters? Congestion charge? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is never a speed at which driving abruptly changes from "safe" to "dangerous"
There's never an age where a child suddenly becomes an adult either... does that mean we should eliminate statutory rape laws, let 10-year-olds drive, and let cigarrette companies sell to grade-schoolers?
Laws are about reasonable compromise; there are always cases where the line seems wrong, but overall you just have to pick a reasonably good place. Likewise, something doesn't have to be the "be-all end-all of road saf
Up next... (Score:3, Funny)
History (Score:2)
More info at http://www.tft.lth.se/research/ISA.htm [tft.lth.se]
From the page:
"Research and development on the concept of Intelligent Speed Adaptation is going on both regarding speed limits and dynamically changing limits due to the prevailing conditions (e.g. adverse road-, or weather conditions). The system investigated is based on the Active accel
This'll sort itself out in short order (Score:5, Funny)
Bitching about intrusive government limiting the speed of your luxury vehicle will seem utterly petty by around 2015-2020.
And besides, they invent a device called a "governor" and then expect the government NOT to put it on every vehicle? Who couldn't see this coming??
obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:2, Funny)
Fast Money (Score:2)
the wonderful thing with this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Folks- speed doesn't kill, and this is something few people (especially the "won't someone please think of the children" types) fail to understand. They point to statistics where "police site speed was a factor". It's not the speeding itself- it is usually a lack of judgement (very often obliterated by drugs, including alcohol) or experience, or going too fast for conditions. It is compounded by a driving public that has, for the most part, absolutely no idea (much less experience) at controlling a vehicle near its limits, or regaining control of an out-of-control vehicle.
An example- a high school kid in my town got a Mistubishi Eclipse when he passed his driving test. Two friends in the car, he's doing sixty down a local road. That's pretty damn fast, and yes, too fast for a country road with limited visibility. How did he crash? His friend at the last second yelled "turn here!", and the guy tried to do a 90 degree turn. At 60mph. Instead of just keeping on the road. Speed didn't cause the crash- stupidity and lack of experience with what the car was (and was NOT) capable of did. A huge number of accidents are caused by people being very reactionary, like risking taking a short space to turn, instead of waiting 5-10 seconds for a much longer one.
It is similar to the lack of distinction between "accidents" and "collisions". If an asteroid hits your car and you crash, that's an accident. Pretty much everything else is driver error.
Most people don't have the foggiest idea of how to control their vehicle. The simplest concepts, such as weight transfer, basic cornering technique, or friction circles (which describe the capabilities of a tire) - aren't taught or tested at all. Most people also have a "I put gas in it and oil, that's all I should have to do" mindset to car maintenance. When I'm talking to someone about car maintenance and I ask how old their brake fluid is, they a)can't remember and b)ask why. Brake fluid is like a dessicant- it absorbs water from the atmosphere. When it does, its boiling point drops substantially (brake fluid should be changed at a minimum of every 2 years, and that means flushing, not just siphoning out the reservoir).
Improving driver education would be a huge step in the right direction. Teach people what maintenance is required typically, and teach them HOW TO CONTROL a vehicle!
Speed kills! (Score:5, Insightful)
You probably survive if you have a frontal collision at 65-70km/h in a modern car. You will probaly die in the same collision if you go 150km/h.
These are the facts, taken from accident statistics.
double the speed, double the carnage, zOMG!!one!11 (Score:3, Insightful)
So we should all drive 30km/h (18mph!) any time there's a remote chance of someone being in the road? Seriously, you must be from Europe, where the EU has brought us the EURO-NCAP crash test for pedestrian safety. As Jeremey Clarkson on Top Gear put it, "There is an order for the people I care about in this world. Number one are my children in the back seat. Number two is ME. Somewhere, towards the bo
Re:the wonderful thing with this... (Score:4, Informative)
Err, no they didn't [dft.gov.uk]
Careless vs Necessary Speeding (Score:5, Insightful)
A car that decides to cross a road at a moment you are going through that road. In certain circumstances, the car could t-bone into you if the driver "assumes" you will continue to go faster. To avoid this, you speed up to miss him from hitting you from the side.
While probably very rare, if you are at a railroad crossing with about four tracks, and the speed limit there is 15 (I've seen areas with 5-10MPH signs near train tracks) and the gates start closing in on you, you can't accelerate to get out.
One time, a police officer sort of gave me "permission" to speed. It was an area where the highway forked, and traffic on the right side was at a standstill, and I was the only one of the left. Over the PA he gave me a "go ahead" to go faster than so he could get through to the other fork. There was no shoulder for me to turn off onto, so this was the only option of him to get by.
I'm sure there are a lot more examples where speeding is necessary on the road. Its the careless speeding that needs to be enforced. People that go 100+ on a highway of average 65-70 MPH drivers.
What the device should do, is somehow gather the average speed of cars in the area, and limit speed to the average so there are no careless speeders.
Make this optional (Score:4, Interesting)
Problems I See (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really want to stop speeding, increase the speed limit to say 90 mph on major highways, maybe 70 or 80 on minor ones. Basically, as fast as any reasonable person would attempt to travel on those roads. Personally, I wouldn't go 90 mph on any road unless it was basically straight and I had a good car. And I wouldn't break the 90 mph speed limit. Then, instead of having the police hide out with their radar guns, get them to find the people who are interfering with traffic and making problems.
Every time I see a police car, I hit the breaks automatically. Even if I'm going the speed limit. It's just a natural reaction now. That causes the car behind me to hit the breaks, and every car behind that one. This creates a hazard. If I didn't have to worry about the police, and the police stopped people who drive aggressively instead of people who stay in one lane and just go 70 instead of 60, you wouldn't have this kind of situation anymore. Also, they'd need to stop the idiots who go slower in the left lane than those the right lane is moving. But in general, instead of causing accidents they'd prevent them.
With regards to the argument made by those who appose this idea - that foolish drivers will abuse this trust - that's what the police are there for. Instead of stopping people who are just driving at their comfortable speed, they can be stopping idiots who aren't paying attention to the road or don't know how to drive well.
Thin end of the wedge (Score:4, Insightful)
More money is made invisibly by speeding (Score:3, Insightful)
Who wins? The insurance company as well as the government because a part of that increase is tax.
That's why speeding fines and abuse of the system is here to stay.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:2)
I'm not arguing the point one way or another, but I'd tend think something like this wouldn't be feasible in the US.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:2)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:2)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:2)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
That's only because you have a maladjusted sense of what "reasonable" is. That, or you drive a huge top-heavy truck.
Speed limits have been intentionally set 5-15 mph too low in all but the most settled areas, where a low speed really is a safety concern.
But on many, many, MANY of the roads in this counry, a halfway incompetent driver can still be as safe at +10 as they are at 0 or -10 (relative to the current posted speed limit.)
Why are the limits set where they are? Not because it makes drivers safer--it doesn't, those that die in high speed will ignore whatever limit you set--but because it generates revenue for the local court system.
Re: We Need this in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
Or go to the track or drag strip. There are places where it is legal to drive at fast speeds in real cars.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Funny)
A: A Speedbump
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:5, Funny)
That's fine just as long as you stay the hell out of the left lane.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoever modded you "Funny" needs a beating with the clue-stick.
Dolts who insist on "driving the limit" in the fast lane are an enormous traffic hazard. The OP's got that self-righteous tone that really leads one to suspect that he is a member of that particular group of mental defectives.
It doesn't matter what you think of the speed limit, camping in the fastlane is like arguing theology with a tsunami. All your protestations won't mak
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:2, Funny)
Wait a second. (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, that's stupid. There's a little something called "flow of traffic." You're blocking traffic if you're going 55. Sure, it may be the law to go at the speed limit (55 around where I live), and you _can_ get a ticket for going with the flow of traffic if you exceed the speed limit, but that does _not_ mean you don't have a responsibility to be mindful of the environment around you and your fellow drivers.
Re:Wait a second. (Score:2)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:5, Funny)
Congrats on achieving total faith in the infalibility of all transport authority figures, it's a rare and difficult creed. Not one in a hundred million match your devotion. BTW, your turn signal's been on for the last ten miles.
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to what, people who breath through their ears? What on earth are you talking about?
I follow the speed limits to the letter becasue I've NEVER seen an unreasonable speed limit anywhere in my travels.
Come to the UK. There isn't a single reasonable speed limit in the country. It's the same outside a school at 3pm as it is on a long, straight deserted road in the middle of nowhere at 6am. All the speed cameras are in non-dangerous places, where the speed limi
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars aren't the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. The speed limits havn't changed since the 50s, cars have.
How about human reaction times?
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 officia
Re:Cars aren't the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Cars can stop *much* faster now, once the driver has reacted. Why? Because brakes can exert more force on the wheel, tyres have more grip, suspension is better at keeping the wheels on the ground, and weight distribution and transfer has been considered in the design. And we have ABS too.
Cars handle *much* better now too. This is huge by itself. You can easily steer around obsticles you'd never have avoided 50 years ago. Again, engineering has improved ha
Re:So, by that rational (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We Need this in the US (Score:5, Funny)
So old timer how's life in the motorhome? Tell us some stories about vacuum tubes and punch cards.
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 b
Re:Question... (Score:2)
If (Score:2)
Re:Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also worth taking into consideration is a scenario in which someone is trying to flee a violent crime... Or perhaps rush a seriously wounded person to a hospital...
Personally, I normally set my cruise control right on the speed limit. I'm getting a little older and more mature, and paying speeding tickets just isn't as entertaining as it once was. Still, I can imagine several scenarios in which exceeding the posted speed limit would not only be justified, but the right thing to do.
I'll not be turning that decision making process over to an automated system, voluntarily, any time in the near future.
I haven't RTFA yet, but unless this system allows for some sort of "manual override" by the driver, I think it's a horribly bad implementation of an idea that wasn't all that good in the first place.
Re:Question... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll go you one better. In a free country, it's a necessity that EVERYONE have the ability to do something illegal when, in thier best judgement, it is necessary to do so.
"Of the people, by the people, and for the people"
NOT....
"Of the congress, by the president, and for the police..."
I agree th
Re:Question... (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Discount? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never driven on Germany's autobahns, but I've *been* driven on them... and it was a scary experience!
Only two lanes (compared to a three-lane UK motorway with a 70mph limit), trucks zooming down both lines like mobile walls, and the nearest thing to 'lane discipline' being "Hey, my car will fit through that gap! Woohoo!"
Now I love driving fast, and I'll freely admit that given a chance and a stretch of empty motorway I'll top the ton. But my German drivers cheerfully exceeded that on busy roads with other cars whipping out of junctions right in front of them, and frankly it scared the shit out of me. No wonder the world's best Grand Prix drivers come from countries like Germany, Italy and Brazil, where driving is treated like combat!
Re:Better idea - RFID tracking of vehicles... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why go to such an expensive system?
We have a system here in Australia called Safe-T-Cam, which for the moment applies only to heavy vehicles like trucks (and maybe buses). Digital camera systems are placed at various points along major highways to photograph licence plates as vehicles pass and feed them to a central system where they are timestamped. Since the positions of the cameras (and hence the dista