The Nanny State is Coming: Europe to Make GPS-Controlled Speed Limiters Mandatory

[Dave A]

Educating drivers better will not solve accidents. We already do it (for example) via speed awareness courses and the benefits appear very much limited.

Speed awareness courses work, they have a notable effect on how drivers respond in the months afterwards. The problem with speed awareness courses is they are always after the fact not before and they are focused on speed awareness. Major problems include speeding, but are not limited to it.

Drink and drug driving is a big problem, distration drving causes a lot of deaths, and inexperienced drivers who tend to just make mistakes are at high risk of causing a fatal accident too. None of these things involve speeding per se, they might in some cases. A GPS controled speed limiting device could actually cause accidents IMO as it removes control from the driver. Yes, the driver should be reducing thier speed anyway if a GPS lmiter would (assuming it's all working hunky dory), but that change of control could prompt a dangerous reaction from the driver.

In addition I think it will contribute to driver stupidity. People will go flat out more often and stop paying attention to the speed they are going becuase flat out it's legal right. The whole thing to me sounds like a really bad way to takle a problem far more complex than a simple electronic solution can handle.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Speed awareness courses work, they have a notable effect on how drivers respond in the months afterwards. The problem with speed awareness courses is they are always after the fact not before and they are focused on speed awareness. Major problems include speeding, but are not limited to it.

Drink and drug driving is a big problem, distration drving causes a lot of deaths, and inexperienced drivers who tend to just make mistakes are at high risk of causing a fatal accident too.

Just for the record I'm all for increased driver education, but what I'm noticing here with a number of peoples arguments is that they to expect any proposed solution to simultaneously solve ALL causes of accidents and be completely effective... setting that as a benchmark for a solution is a great way of making sure nothing gets done. The percentage decrease in re-offending after a speed awareness course is low, it's not an effective method. It's not effective (IMHO) because the longer people drive without an accident the more it affirms whatever their attitude to driving is... whether it's reasonable or not, and whether or not they've only not had an accident because of luck or judgement.

 

[Dave A]

Just for the record I'm all for increased driver education, but what I'm noticing here with a number of peoples arguments is that they to expect any proposed solution to simultaneously solve ALL causes of accidents and be completely effective... setting that as a benchmark for a solution is a great way of making sure nothing gets done. The percentage decrease in re-offending after a speed awareness course is low, it's not an effective method. It's not effective (IMHO) because the longer people drive without an accident the more it affirms whatever their attitude to driving is... whether it's reasonable or not, and whether or not they've only not had an accident because of luck or judgement.

I totally agree, there is no one solution to fix all idea out there, but this particular one IMO will decrease the amount of thought that goes into driving and as a result will increase driver stupidity. Additionally it will potentially increase use of innapropriate speed in the process as the appropriate speed isn't always the speed limit. It's not a good solution IMO, but driver safety can and should be improved.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

If I might add constructively to the conversation.

 

[Z4CoupeGroupe]

I wrote a nice long post but decided to cut it down to,
A. Speed doesn't kill, in fact most accident happen under the speed limit. Fact.
B. This has nothing to do with saving lives. It's about controlling the masses and nothing more.

Enjoy the future. Those that were aware all saw this coming

 

[TexRex]

Speed doesn't kill, in fact most accident happen under the speed limit. Fact.

What percentage of those sub-limit motor vehicle collisions result in death (the "kill" part to which you referred)? How does that compare to the percentage of in-excess-of-limit motor vehicle collisions that result in death?

 

[MatskiMonk]

What percentage of those sub-limit motor vehicle collisions result in death (the "kill" part to which you referred)? How does that compare to the percentage of in-excess-of-limit motor vehicle collisions that result in death?

Whilst I do think Z4CoupeGroupe sounds like a flat earther, this statistic is backed up by government research, I posted on the previous page; 1657 fatal incidents (of 1 or more people getting killed), of which 144 had speeding as a contributing factor (so 8.7%). Interestingly I believe in only 818 of those it was the driver that died, so it does seem that those who choose to speed are more likely to do harm to other, rather than just themselves... which seems kinda selfish. Also, the number of fatal incidents due to speeding in HGV's is only 0.4% of total HGV fatal incidents.. HGV's are often speed limited... make of that what you will.

 

[TexRex]

Whilst I do think Z4CoupeGroupe sounds like a flat earther, this statistic is backed up by government research, I posted on the previous page; 1657 fatal incidents (of 1 or more people getting killed), of which 144 had speeding as a contributing factor (so 8.7%). Interestingly I believe in only 818 of those it was the driver that died, so it does seem that those who choose to speed are more likely to do harm to other, rather than just themselves... which seems kinda selfish. Also, the number of fatal incidents due to speeding in HGV's is only 0.4% of total HGV fatal incidents.. HGV's are often speed limited... make of that what you will.

I appreciate the input, I do, but it seems to me that it runs parallel to what I was seeking rather than addressing it directly. Of course what I was seeking may not actually be recorded.

Still, I know that if I'm going to be in a motor vehicle collision (to say absolutely nothing of what caused it), I'd prefer that none of the vehicles involved be travelling in excess of posted limits.

And since it occurs to me that I haven't actually posted on-topic (just parallel to it), I'll add that I'm not in support of such legislation.

 

[MatskiMonk]

I appreciate the input, I do, but it seems to me that it runs parallel to what I was seeking rather than addressing it directly. Of course what I was seeking may not actually be recorded.

Still, I know that if I'm going to be in a motor vehicle collision (to say absolutely nothing of what caused it), I'd prefer that none of the vehicles involved be travelling in excess of posted limits.

And since it occurs to me that I haven't actually posted on-topic (just parallel to it), I'll add that I'm not in support of such legislation.

Ah, perhaps I misunderstood.

FWIW, I don't like the sound of it either, but I'm not going to attempt to justify disliking it with some of the stupid reasons people are coming up with here.

 

[Famine]

If anything it will actually compound the problem by giving people false security that they're in a safe car so it's just fine to drive at 60mph on this single-carriageway road with five feet of visibility due to fog and the road surface at -2 degrees. If it was dangerous, the car would slow them down, right?

As this has been resurrected, I'm sitting in a pub on top of the North York Moors right now having just driven here on a 60mph limit road at 20mph...

... because clear visibility was five feet in front of the car, due to fog, with no more than about fifty feet of diffuse visibility before completely obscured road. There are no street lights, reflective road markings, reflective studs or reflective posts up here, just white lines, a winding road and fog. And anyone coming the other way blinds you because their lights refract through the fog too.

ISA would judge 60mph to be the safe maximum. The guy in the Qashqai tailgating me was probably similarly unaware of the danger of that, although when I pulled into the pub car park and he didn't have me as a guiding beacon, I hope he'd have picked it up quick enough...

 

[TexRex]

Ah, perhaps I misunderstood.

There's a distinct possibility that I'm doing some of that myself.

FWIW, I don't like the sound of it either, but I'm not going to attempt to justify disliking it with some of the stupid reasons people are coming up with here.

 

[MatskiMonk]

... because clear visibility was five feet in front of the car, due to fog, with no more than about fifty feet of diffuse visibility before completely obscured road. There are no street lights, reflective road markings, reflective studs or reflective posts up here, just white lines, a winding road and fog. And anyone coming the other way blinds you because their lights refract through the fog too.

ISA would judge 60mph to be the safe maximum. The guy in the Qashqai tailgating me was probably similarly unaware of the danger of that, although when I pulled into the pub car park and he didn't have me as a guiding beacon, I hope he'd have picked it up quick enough...

.. doesn't help with the werewolves anyway.