Safe Speed Forums

This appeared on a tech website today http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/05/gps_car_tracking/

Also published in the times, but that's normally time restricted.

Basically, it seems that GPS to limit your speed and stop you breaking the limit will save 1000 lives a year according to Leeds University.

What about all the lives it will cost if you cannot hit the override in an emergency....or all the lives lost while all these good little centrally controlled drivers crash because they are crap, but "safe" because they are not breaking the limit.

Thoughts anyone

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Drive down high street at 25 mph - cars parked all over place - no vision - stoping distance nil - kid pops out- hit kid - ok you're below limit.(OH NO YOU'RE NOT - THINK ABOUT IT)

THINK/THINK/THINK - WHAT WAS THE CORRECT SPEED -


Mororway at night all carriageways empty - driving at 70 -is this correct???

Didn't happen to mention if the reaserch was also part funded by the GPS industry. I have seen a similar report done by Leeds about a year ago with the same conclusion that was paid for by a sevice provider to promote the technology.

20 volunteers in Skodas does not represent the driving public

Basicaly it is complete rubbish.

Can't find the original "sponsored" link, but here is one they prepared earlier. Looks like Mira had a stake in it. Presumably to jump on the gravy train in the future.
http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/evsc/exec3.pdf#search='electronic%20vehicle%20speed%20limiting%20leeds%20university'

Looks like they have been banging this drum for years. A nice little earner.

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Speed camera policy Kills

this kind of stuff is years out anyway and even then would have to be phased in.

and the reason they have 'trials' for this stuff is cos no one has a good enough database of ALL the speed limits on all the roads in the country.

much better to make the first step fitment of a gps system that actually tells you the speed limit in that area and warns of black spots

A system like this would cause more accidents if it was engaged all the time with no way to override, as a driver faced with a potential collision would have less avoidance options available to them (i.e. any that involved temporarily exceeding the speed limit).

If, on the other hand, it worked the same way as cruise control, overridden easily by stomping the accelerator, then I imagine there would be a lot of people interested, especially members of the "9 Points Club".

The biggest oponents of this system would be the Government themselves, as it would put a dent in their revenue stream from speeding fines and hamper their aims to force people onto public transport through any means necessary.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

AFAIK, none of the driving authorities have expressed an aversion to limit violation warning systems, nor capping systems of various types. If it dents revenue streams from speeding fines, many people here should be jubilant about it. But none are. It makes me wonder if the real agenda is related to a deeper desire for fast and exiting driving, rather than road safety?

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The biggest problem is that drivers (for the most part, anyway) adjust their speed, spacing, positioning etc according to perceived hazards, potential hazards, road and weather conditions etc. This feedback mechanism is an essential part of accident avoidance and mitigation - without which the accident (and casualty) rate would be between one and three orders of magnitude higher than it is (that's between 10 and 1000 times)
Speed limiters (and speed limits) merely serve to impose an upper limit to the accident risk, but this upper limit is way, way above what could be termed as acceptable. If everybody drove around at the speed limit (wherever physically possible) without that essential feedback, and so only ever reacted to immediate and present danger, the accident and casualty rate would be very much higher than it is.
By imposing external speed control we run the risk of compromising that essential feedback mechanism - if, as research has already indicated, drivers simply drive on the limiter and 'switch off' to the road.
Compromising the feedback mechanism by just a small amount will have a massive effect on accident and casualty figures.

That is the real danger.

Cheers
Peter

Thanks Pete , put better than me .

I have tried to drive at 40mph through roadworks marked : Aside of going backwards rapidly, I tend to lose concentration on the road itself. 40MPH may well seem very slow - but it's bloody fast when things go wrong. In fact 40mph it a deadly speed if one is inattentive.

It's the old cry-wolf issue again. Why am I driving down this empty motorway at 3 in the morning at 50mph because all the warning lights are flashing, yet I have yet to come across the obstruction (and I have only been passing these signs for the last 10 miles or so!)?

You know better than that basingwerk. We are after road safety, not fast and exciting driving. But while road safety does not suffer from judicious excitement and fastabilityness, it will suffer if driving is turned into stultifying boredom. Let me put it like this: imagine the task of driving to the conditions as cooking a nice meal, preparing ingredients, getting the pan just the right temperature, cooking the meat for just the right amount of time, simmering the water for nice al dente pasta rather than the soggy boiled to buggery type, etc. With me so far? Okay. Then driving exactly on the limit with the aid of the GPS and electronics will be like boiling a kettle. As a result many drivers will devote as much attention to the task of driving safely as they put into making a cuppa. Sound like a good idea to you? We have too many TIBMINs about as it is. Do you really want something that's going to produce more of 'em?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

The Government are trying their hardest to ban speed camera detectors (see the various threads on the "Road Safety Bill"). All these devices do is prompt users to slow down ahead of accident blackspots, where cameras are supposed to be located. Statistics have shown users of such devices to have less accidents than those without, so why are the Government trying to ban them?

(The exclusion of pure-GPS devices from the proposed ban is a moot point, as these do not detect mobile camera vans, which are fast replacing the familiar fixed installations)

Couldn't be No, you're not suggesting ? It can't by any chance be anything to do with money???

Cash, cash, cash

ah.. so even better... active cruise control to control separation distance with max speed set by the gps.

now that would be easy peasy to do.

ed_m, that still doesn't solve the problem of drivers switching their brains off and relying on these devices to keep them out of trouble. The closer you get to having an autopliot in the car the more people will hand over all responsibility for staying safe, even if in reality the device is nowhere near capable of doing so. We risk COAST becoming COST and maybe only ST.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Overall control has to be kept in the hands of the driver, this is true, but electronic "aids" can be a good thing if the driver is given the choice whether to use them or not (like cruise control, traction control, parking aids etc).

A good go-between would be a GPS device which knows the limit of whatever road you're on and beeps at you if you exceed it. At least this would prevent drivers from having to keep looking at their speedos (and hence away from the road) in our camera-infested urban areas.

Of course, the Road Angel, Origin B2 etc already do this, but only when near a fixed camera site. How much effort would it take to make a similar device with "full-time" alerting? Obviously, the database would have to be more extensive, but it's not impossible. More interestingly, what would the Government's stance on such devices be?

..."The only people that buy these devices are those that have the desire to exceed speed limits, since those that obey the law would have no need for them. May I remind you that these people are a menace responsible for 1/3 of all accidents on our roads. These devices prevent us from securing prosecutions of these heinous babykillers, this is tantamount to Perverting the Course of Justice. If you are caught using one of these devices, you will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. It has nothing to with money. Nothing at all. Honest."

There are several GPS guided auto pilots for farm equipment. There not for safety though, more for accuracy. Some, the cheapo ones have a light bar to show you weather you need to steer left or right, others steer for you and you just override it when turning on field ends.

They cost in the area of £10k+ and so need to be pretty damn accurate.

So easy, that it has been done: http://www.mwerks.com/artman/publish/industry_news/article_761.shtml, and they are not the only ones: http://www.theautochannel.com/search/search.html?words=Radar%20Adaptive%20Cruise%20Control

There are also live versions that keep you in lane, so why not just switch off and read the paper?

sheesh.. lighten up you guys.

i know it has been done, i work for a tier 1 supplier that provides just such a system in production at present.
we currently have a range of lane guidance & lane departure warning systems available too.

and yes... i've seen a video of someone driving along reading the paper... made about 20years ago.

These are true fly by wire systems that can do auto-steer as well...


http://www.trimble.com/news/101904b.htm

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Speed camera policy Kills

I've seen those lane departure warning systems - they alert drivers that may have fallen asleep at the wheel (or lost concentration) on motorways by detecting whether the car is straying over the white lines in the road and sounding a loud alarm.

It's developments like this that have a REAL impact on accident figures - a specific problem exists (in this case, drivers nodding off) so a specific piece of technology is developed to address it. ABS and the various airbag systems all came about in the same way.

Now, if the Government's claim that one third of accidents are caused by drivers exceeding the speed limit was true, surely they would be SCREAMING at the car manufacturers to come up with a specific technology that addresses this too. In fact, they wouldn't need to - the car manufacturers would have addressed it years ago. GPS (and speed limiters) have been around for some time.

Locking brakes never caused anywhere near one third of all accidents, yet millions were spent developing ABS.

So even when it is demonstrated that a piece technology could indeed prevent "speeding" (and hence reduce accidents by a massive 33%), the Govt are totally uninterested!

Of course, when another technology comes along that allows drivers to speed whenever they want, but "grasses them up" to the Police over the mobile phone network when they do, this is touted as the next big thing in safety, even though it continues to allow 33% of drivers to DIE.

But, of course, it's nothing to with money. Not at all. Honest.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken