the call for speed limiters

[3state]

I heard on the news today that there are calls for a new technology to be compulsorily fitted to all cars in the state of NSW, Australia and that the technology is already being trialled in Europe and in the state of Victoria, Australia.

This technology uses satellite technology to pinpoint the car's location and limit the speed of the car to the speed of the road it's on.

What are people's thoughts on this? Personally, I'm in prinicple against it although logically I can find no reason to oppose it. It just seems like an overly intrusive act. Besides, I still am of the view that it is impatience, rather than speed that kills. Spead kills primarily when it is a component of inpatience.

As an aside, will the government want this technology, given the revenue they raise from speeding tickets?

[JGM]

I'm very much against the idea of speed limiters, not so much for the principle of defending speeding but on the grounds of safety and responsibility. There are many situations on the road where accelerating quickly to a high speed is the ONLY way to get out of a potentially very dangerous situation. Suppose you are overtaking a very long lorry on a road which requires the use of the opposite carriageway for this purpose and then a vehicle suddenly appears coming in the other direction, perhaps travelling very fast. Another vehicle has closed up behind the lorry so you can't go back. The only way out is to accelerate as fast as you can, perhaps to an illegal speed, to save your life and perhaps the lives of others. And what happens then? The computer chips in and says 'sorry, I'm not going to let you go as fast as you want...' And five seconds later you're dead. It's no use saying that you should be more careful about overtaking large vehicles. This type of situation happens to just about every driver sooner or later.

There are also important issues of responsibility. Who is in control of the car? Who/what really caused the accident? The lawyers would have a field day with this. I believe that speed limits are necessary and that they should be enforced with a modicom of common sense. I also believe that the person driving the car should be 100% in control of the car and consequently held to be 100% responsible for his actions in contolling the car.

[Bluebottle]

One of the many things I can see happening with this is people will use the throttle pedal like a switch, the car will get to the speed limit and stop accelerating. How many roads dio you know with a 'National Speed Limit' which can't be safely driven at 30mph let alone 65mph- even though thats what the government satellites tell your car is a safe speed....

This is a very silly idea -do any of you remember voting for it?

[Mattracer]

Massive loss of revenue for govts. Also massive costs in set up and monitoring. Either way the tax payer foots the bill.

The provisos for safe road transportation are:

proper driver training, regular testing of existing licence holders

thorough zero tolerance on unroadworthiness of vehicles- have a look around the shopping centre car park for the balatantlt obviuos things like bald tyres, and what about wiper blades, rust and lights?

proper maintenance of roads with good design.



Yes, inappropriate speed kills, but unfortunately not everyone is taught to respect laws, themselves and others.

[steve_r]

This is awful. What happens when you are trying to get away from the Cops? Police chases will last for hours because both cars will be going the exact same speed.