Safe Speed Forums

Having said a lot about this in the last few days, I thought an in depth discussion about it here would be great.

I see many issues and problems arising :

Firstly some clear definition about the use of brakes, I have had one person say NO they don't', and another say yes they do !

Problems :
The principal that anything 'taking over' your ability to use the throttle.
Your inability to use additional power when you need it for safety reasons.
Is there any benefit to Road Safety whatsoever - I do not think so.
Lessens driver responsibility.

Issues and Questions :
Is the accuracy going to be immediate - as a road works limit is ended for example so following cars WILL be accurately informed and updated?
Is weather not going to effect it ? What warning might you get if it does ?
What are the error warnings when the system fails ?
What about temporary road restrictions ?
What happens in an emergency - how long can you 'over-ride it'?
Do you have to keep your finger distracted and on the button or is it a toggle switch ?
IF enforced how and when and where is the data to be held by whom ?
If over-ride can be off then are mercy missions going to record a route driven and 'reported' - are we still to have to justify legal actions ?
The manufacturers are going to be open to Corporate Manslaughter when one of these devices is proven to have caused an accident - or has the Gov got around this for them ?
What happens when we go into Other Countries ?
What about foreign cars arriving into this Country?

Effects :
Cause fatigue to drivers,
Inattention increases,
Frustration increases,
Braking lights will start to be ignored / and if no brake light showing 'slowing' the following traffic will find it harder to tell the actions of the driver in front,
Predictable driving behaviour is altered and confused,
Adjust the perception of 'safety' and continues to imply that a safe limit is one that is just at a specific speed,
Lorry elephant racing will be reflected in car (horse racing) as engine and vehicle weight will start to depend on how you will be able to ever overtake or make other manoeuvres,
Lack of Driver Responsibility - as responsibility is removed from the driver, and we are being asked to start to 'rely' on technical equipment that is remotely controlled, - a 'remotely controlled car' !!
Perception of Safety is altered, as if they can use the throttle then assume safe !
Drivers may start to assume speed limits by whether their throttle works and pay no attention to the signs at all,
Zombie mode - Drivers start to pay less attention to the road as they become bored,
Employer Pressure - as even more pressure is placed on drivers to finish work targets, as they cannot achieve as much each day - we already have less lorry delivery drivers no longer achieving a 24hr service any more - so economic effects too ...
The increase to Frustration and Inattention will cause more accidents and potentially more deaths

Safe Speed Predictions :
It will take time for all drivers to learn about those that are driving with this device and its, and their, 'odd behaviours'.
Any 'survey's' taken and used, from those 'volunteers' wishing to obtain this device will be biased, so will not be reliable.
This uses real people and real world situations as guinea-pigs - appalling as it may cost lives, in this ridiculous approach to road safety through numeric values only.

Safe Driving is never measured in m.p.h. (miles per hour).

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

There's an essay on this subject on my website:

http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/limiters.html

The point about volunteer users being essentially self-selecting and therefore unrepresentative is an important one.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think that the thread: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=19281&start=20
could be moved here ?

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I had a Peugeot 407 on long term hire that had an optional speed limiter fitted. I found it to be useful on the VSL section of the m42, particulary when the limit was 40 yet the carriageway was clear and good for 70mph.

But...........

I choose when to switch it on and when to switch it off

And...........

I used it for the purpose of license preservation on a particularly sneaky section of motorway not for road safety purposes. I tend to you my eyes, ears, hands and feet for the latter.

Notwithstanding the fact that enforced speed limiters would hamper a drivers ability to have proper control of the vehicle it is also bsed on the false premise that a number on a sign has any bearing on road safety. The Government are now telling us that they would invest tens of billions on this 'hunch'

Of course.....auto speed limiting by GPS would also have an interesting secondary use.

There are lots of places where roads with different limits run very close to each other, and even cross under/over each other. I cannot believe that GPS would resolve these contradictions in a safe manner

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

One place where it could be lethal are limit changes on corners. There's one in Staffs which goes from 60 to 30 and the 30 starts part way round the bend! The bend is easy at 45-50 but if the brakes are suddenly applied to allow for the 30 then it would likely result in an accident. What happens when it slows down so much it would force a gear change? Entering bends in too high a gear is more likely to lead to a loss of control than entering the same bend at the same speed but in a more appropriate gear. Some cars just don't change gears mid bend well without causing serious instability. I don't imagine the numbnuts that have come up with this idea have even considered this.

Also what happens with those advisory speed limit signs?

What is going to happen when the first young people die as a result of doing the limit at night with a car full of people? Without the nannying would the driver have been more sensible about their chosen speed as they made an active and conscious choice?

Reminds me a little of arguments against evolution, if you will forgive me Prof, just because you cannot imagine a way of doing it does not mean it cannot be accomplished.

What I can believe is, that if possible, it will be neither cheap nor simple. GPS can detect altitude and location can be determined to very high accuracy given the right equipment, the level of mapping detail needed would be very high though and making sure updates were distributed accurately and in a timely fashion would take some infrastructure. Making it fail safe in all conditions is not a job I would like to take on!

If drivers want to use a speed limiter then fine, they should use the speed limit information system known as the MKI eyeball.

What about making drivers using auto-speed limiting have a big 'A' plate on their car? The rest of us could then just Avoid the Amateur Automaton.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Road engineering, part of the project of mapping in detail where limits change should identify such issues and rectify them. After my post in reply to Prof Beard I am starting feel a little bit like Devils Advocate now, all I hope to do is examine objections critically so they cannot be easily countered.

On a similar point to yours however, I have, for some reason, started notice how some speed limit signs become visible too late to be able to reduce speed for them without using brakes.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

i think personaly speed limiters, will come in the day they invent tarmac that defrosts ice and snow, why have limiters anyway, lets make all our town centres pedestrian like centre parcs, with tramways,

never have seen a tram overtake or tailgate between blackpools south shore or fleetwood

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now retired

If it came in then such problems would be ironed out, speed limit changes would all be on straight sections of road.

I would imagine there would be fewer speed limit changes anyway. All urban areas would end up being blanket 20 zones.

Obviously I am vehemently opposed to it, but I can see how it would work.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

My concerns? having read Belgiam accounts of how some interpreted "cruise comtol" - taken in conjunction with the post middle aged woman who called to the Vine prog claiming this would be he "salvation" after a ping at 34 mph .. A Speed Aware course wheyeby she apparently met her school year group

I would ask her how.

Sure it may keep her licence safe from speed endorsementts .. but how about a careless driving charge when she thinks the darned thing does her thinking for her? :scratchchn:

It;s a tool. It may be a useful took as I admit to setting a gadget to blip on overspeed warning /. just in case ;wink:

but in-ar tools? You have to learn how to use them else they are useless as guides and helpimng gizmos to us all.

OK .. have limiters . but train folk to use them and when it may be appropriate to hit the over-ride buttom to accelerate out of a potentiial dangers as needs may arise.

I am saying that we canot sacrifice learned and acquired human skills to some device. The spirit of manknd has to think for itself and take the hjard knocks to survive its destiny

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I think it will depend on the vehicle. Although I have no idea how these systems will ultimately work (especially of retro-fitted to vehicle originally designed without them!), I think they can work either or both ways on existing vehicles designed with this in mind. I'm pretty certain some of the fancier Jags with the radar-controlled distance-keeping feature can regulate throttle and brakes to maintain a preset gap form the car in front, so the technology exists - at a price!


Most cars with Electronic Stability Control do that already. They can all take over the control of the throttle and partial control of the brakes from you as and when they see fit. For the majority of drivers that doesn't seem to be a problem and might well be a benefit. As for a really good driver, well, there might be some benefits in being able to over-ride such a system, but you'd have to be pretty damned good, I think - well beyond the abilities of the vast majority of drivers. They banned all sorts of electronic aids from Formula 1 because they were just too good - and those guys are generally half-decent drivers!

I freely admit to not being a particularly outstanding driver by any stretch of the definition. Also, I've been fortunate enough to have been in very few genuine "panic situations" in my driving experience thus far. That said, I honestly don't think I can ever remember a situation where more power would have prevented (or even mitigated) the panic! Is it really that common to be able to extricate oneself from a tricky situation with more power?



I don't have any answers for several of those questions but in general, I IMAGINE tthat:
I doubt the weather would affect it (indeed, that's probbaly going to be one of the biggest problems with such a system)!
When it fails, I imagine it will put a warning light on and "fail-safe" by leaving your car working like a car that doesn't have it fitted (much like a failed ABS or throttle-by-wire system does currently).
All I'm going on is the stuff in the press that says it wi llbe optional so I guess it could be overridden, but whether you'd be able to do it fast enough in an emergency situation is debatable - you might even have to turn the ignition off and then turn it on again in "manual" mode or something daft like that for all I know!
The manufacturers are already open to corprorate manslaughter charges for everything else they put on a car. I doubt this would be much different.



Yeah. Of all those I think the "dumbing down" / inattention / boredom / abdication of responsibility ones are the key problems.


I think this is going to be a REALLY important part of the whole thing. I have a VERY real fear that initially, it will show a POSITIVE benefit in road safety. All those who want a system like this (government included) will go off on a mass orgy of mutual back-slapping, self-congratulation and finger-wagging at those horrible Safespeed luddites who ever dared question the idea that "speed kills" was a load of over simplistic cobblers! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it will deliver benefits NOT because it limits speeds, but BECAUSE it makes the cars behave "oddly". My feeling is that the vast majority of drivers are actually sensible, responsible people. When confronted by something that's working differently to expected, such people will be on the alert, pay more attention, and be extra cautious in case they end up in any of the situations that you outlined above. This is similar to thse trials done in various countries where tey remove traffic signs, lights, road markings etc (in theory making things MORE dangerous) and lo and behold, the accident rate in that area goes down! I really worry that this will (initially!) work in exactly the same way and deliver a transient improvement - but not for the reason imagined!

...and then a few years after everyone has become used to it and "switched off" again, the figures will be right back where they were (and maybe even worse than before!) but by then the ready-made excuses will be tripping off the politicians' tongues beautifully - "oh but traffic volumes have increased". "oh but when you look at the increased mileage vehicles are doing..." and so on.
Any 'survey's' taken and used, from those 'volunteers' wishing to obtain this device will be biased, so will not be reliable.
This uses real people and real world situations as guinea-pigs - appalling as it may cost lives, in this ridiculous approach to road safety through numeric values only.

Safe Driving is never measured in m.p.h. (miles per hour).[/quote]

That's what I really meant I can't believe it can be implemented safely by a UK govt, if you like

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

once again mr mole sneaks in before me...

as to the issues and questions, so much of the answers are very much dependant on the implementation of the system and how it's requirements are defined in the first place.
there are a number of options to use as inputs to the system and a number of options as to how best to control the speed of the vehicle, anything else; fault detection, time delays, overrides etc etc etc is only partly dependant on the inputs/outputs used and mostly dependant on the software.... which is entirely dependant on how the system is specified.

from my POV:
knowing all the functional requirements for such a system is probably the first big hurdle.
doing the safety analysis to feed into the requirements is the second.
implementing it is probably the simplist bit.
and then validating the system against the functional & safety requirements is a big task.

and thats before the headaches of rolling it out.

I used to live in Sheffield in the '80 back when the buses were cheap and frequent, while cars were allowed in the city centre there just weren't many of them.

If there are sufficient park & ride car parks that have cheap frequent bus/tram services with provision for getting larger goods, e.g. televisions, back to your car then

If you can park for free, take your folding bike out of the car, cycle in, get a secure locker for it and have your purchases delivered back to the car park

Who wants to drive through a traffic jam if it can be avoided?

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

So, if the government do decide to bring in speed limiters, will the police and the courts then stop prosecuting people who are apparently caught driving 1 or 2 mph over the limit, contest this on the basis that they were using cruise control set at 1 mph below the limit and are then done for not being in control of their vehicle?

This is what has happened to people and is ludicrous, based on the ability to override cruise control - in the end, apart from cruise control be voluntary and set by the driver, is there that much difference?

I am not saying we should have speed limiters, I think they are most definitely dangerous, but cruise control can be useful when driving, say a motorway, late at night or early hours of the morning through road works that are all coned off with no-one working but the speed is set at 40mph and cameras are in use! It is extremely difficult in that situation to stick to 40mph over several miles! I have even seen this on the M5 when it has just been the hard shoulder coned off! I'm sure it is just another way to catch out drivers and make more money!

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Can anything that makes money for the government and/or gives more control over the lives of individuals be safely implemented by any UK government, especially the current one?

What about the advantages? What are they?

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Andrew.

and for whom?

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May