Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a61532276/mandatory-speed-limiters-europe-cars/

by speckx • 2 years ago

109 386 2 years ago

ghaff2• 2 years ago

A number of years back I had a rental car (in Arizona possibly) that had a speed limiter that was at the speed limit--or just above--as I recall and it was incredibly annoying.

shortrounddev24• 2 years ago

What was annoying about it?

brink• 2 years ago

Nobody drives exactly the speed limit - except apparently Europeans now.

lolinder12• 2 years ago

Not OP, but I can hazard some guesses:

* Very few people drive the speed limit, so you're now stuck at being the slowest car on the road. (This will still be a problem under this law because new vehicles are the only ones affected.)

* Inaccurate/out of date speed limits.

* Impossible to pass anyone on a two lane road.

* Having the car take over control is very disorienting for a skilled driver who expects the machine to function as an extension of their body. See the number of people who prefer manual transmission and who eschew cruise control.

cheeseomlit• 2 years ago

Nobody follows the speed limit that closely, in the US at least. If my car was hard-capped at the posted limit I'd have a mile-long line of honking tailgaters behind me in no time

oneepic• 2 years ago

I would have to guess you can't speed up to pass another vehicle (think bus or truck, or maybe a dangerous situation) and then you will piss off anyone in the fast lane who does not have these limiters.

Swizec2• 2 years ago

My experience of learning to drive in Europe is that there are roads where the speed limit is 90kph but any non-local sane person will drive 60kph (most mountain roads) and there are roads where the limit is 130kph but regular traffic flows at 140kph and many people cruise (safely) at 150kph. The people actually doing 130kph on the left lane (trucks go 90 on the right) can be a safety hazard.

And like others have said, the laws actually say "speed limit unless passing". Because passing is dangerous and should be done as quickly as possible.

ghaff2• 2 years ago

Basically it kept cutting out right around the speed limit (may have been 5mph over) on the highway. It wasn't "smart" just an absolute limit. (I think wherever I was had a relatively high speed limit for the time--maybe 70--so it was probably some standard governor setting which was sort of unreasonable for where I was, but a long time ago.)

richwater2• 2 years ago

Just another data point for the eventual "EU social credit score"

cm2187• 2 years ago

And another nail in the coffin of the EU. Annoying your voters, great way to salvage your sinking popularity.

richwater2• 2 years ago

I don't understand the downvotes. The surveillance potential of this is _massive_ and dystopian.

CalRobert6• 2 years ago

While it can be overridden, hopefully this saves many lives. We limit speeds on scooters and e bikes so cars are only fair

lacy_tinpot• 2 years ago

I'm almost certain that the Autobahn is inside the EU and it's famous for the very thing this law supposedly limits.

gambiting14• 2 years ago

And on the derestricted section of the autobahn it will do nothing, given that there is no speed limit.

gambiting14• 2 years ago

We don't limit the speed of ebikes - we limit the point at which the electric motor cuts off, but there's nothing stopping you from just pedalling faster.

CalRobert6• 2 years ago

Isn't stopping the powered propulsion the same mechanism? I suppose you are free to put pedals on your car as well if you like.

comprev3• 2 years ago

It won't stop reckless driving on roads where the legal limit is way above the practical limit.

Although I have absolutely zero stats to backup my argument, I'd say deaths on twisty country roads where the vehicle was under the legal speed limit far exceeds those on straight motorways breaking the limit.

adrianN7• 2 years ago

My hope is that it lowers the number of people who do 50km/h on 30km/h residential streets and prevents pedestrian deaths.

josephcsible• 2 years ago

roads where the legal limit is way above the practical limit

Can you give an example of such a road? At least in the US, I've never seen one.

wiredfool• 2 years ago

Was driving a rental with speed limit indicators and warning beeps this weekend in Germany. Over the course of a couple days, it was maybe 95% correct, but had major issues with what were probably former construction zones on the Autobhan and some limits near towns. There were a few times where it was giving technically correct "national speed limit" answers for .. not fast roads.

On the Autobahn, it wanted me to slow to 80 in a no speed limit zone a few times, when the general flow of traffic was ~ 130 or so. It was increasingly annoying beeping, but had it actually slowed down, it would have been a severe issue.

This is the first time I've been driving a car with lane assist or active speed control, and I'd say that it increased the congnitive load, especially in trickier situations where there were narrow shifting lanes (due to construction). It may have helped in the easy case, but that's the easy case, and I can handle it.

Alerts were definitely distracting, to the point of taking my attention from the road at potentially bad times. I'll also point out that there was a medium screen tilted toward the driver, that had a freaking youtube app on it, and the instrument cluster is basically a video game now. So a couple of alerts are just the tip of the iceberg.

I may be old enough to yell at clouds now, but I really prefered the full analog, numbers only view of the car's instruments. Text is slow.

rickydroll• 2 years ago

I agree with you. My partner's car has lane-keeping and active cruise control. I also find lane-keeping to be more exhausting than helpful. On the other hand, active cruise control is wonderful. It keeps me from getting bored because I'm watching traffic and trying to anticipate when the cruise control changes the speed up or down.

I use cruise control whenever possible, even around town. We have some communities where speeding fines are considered city revenue, so I set my cruise control to what the sign says, and I don't worry about losing track and accidentally speeding. Since I have a plug-in hybrid, I can brake faster because I can grab the regenerative braking paddle on the steering wheel faster than I can move my foot to the brake pedal.

akira25017• 2 years ago

hopefully this saves many lives.

That's very unlikely. More than half of roadway fatalities in the USA involve drugs or alcohol. You'd have much better luck putting a brethalyzer ignition interlock on all vehicles.

One minute of thinking should make it obvious how easily that would be defeated as well.

CalRobert6• 2 years ago

This is not in the USA.

Also, I'm particularly interested in the effects on pedestrian and cyclist deaths, and it should be large. The relationship between speed and severe injury is nonlinear.

https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve...

Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph

seydor3• 2 years ago

Or we might see many cities raising speed limits

seydor3• 2 years ago

Is there actual data that these make driving safe?

croes8• 2 years ago

Hardly because they didn't exist widespread before.

Speed limits on the other hand are proven to reduce accidents.

kbolino3• 2 years ago

Speed limits on the other hand are proven to reduce accidents.

There have been speed limits on every road in the US for over half a century; how did they conduct a controlled study?

teraflop• 2 years ago

Seems misleading for the headline to call this a "speed limiter", since depending on the implementation it either doesn't affect the car's speed at all, or slows it down in an immediately overrideable way. So there is no actual limit on the car's speed.

throw_a_grenade2• 2 years ago

From TFA: “The EU regulations permit a system that can use [...], or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.”

Sounds a hell lot like an actual limiter.

itishappy2• 2 years ago

"Even in the case of speed control function, where the car speed will be automatically gently reduced, the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper," the European Commission adds.

gambiting14• 2 years ago

This is one example of legislation that mandates fantasy tech that doesn't exist. You'd think that something as simple as speed limiter should be very easy to implement, and it couldn't be further from the truth - watch any review of a car with this tech and every reviewer will complain that it's not the presence of the system that's the problem, it's the fact that it constantly gets the speed limit wrong. Either reading the wrong signs(from parallel streets or signs which have been vandalized and moved facing the wrong way, or literally just reading the speed incorrectly) or getting the GPS speed wrong, or when on a private road defaulting to 20mph so beeping at you when driving in your own driveway.

Generally personally I actually think this is a potentially good thing - but the implementation is universally flawed, across every brand, every model. Now the selling point is whether the car has a shortcut button on the dash to disable this system.

VyseofArcadia• 2 years ago

Agreed that the general case is hard to solve.

I think you could at least make a case for solving a simpler problem. What's the highest legal speed limit in the country in which the car was sold? Set a global speed limit to that.

mr_mitm2• 2 years ago

That will finally stop the Swiss from speeding in Germany

kodt3• 2 years ago

This could make it impossible or dangerous to pass in many situations where it may be necessary to temporarily exceed the speed limit.

causalmodels• 2 years ago

Doesn't the autobahn have unrestricted sections with no speed limit?

ncruces2• 2 years ago

Yeah, this. Geofencing countries would work for highway speeds (except for Germany, but that's their problem to fix).

But it won't do much to reduce pedestrian fatalities, unless you allow cities to (roughly) geofence lower limits.

cogman102• 2 years ago

What's the highest legal speed limit in the country in which the car was sold? Set a global speed limit to that.

Bad move. Particularly because scenarios where lanes end somewhat unexpectedly are not uncommon (think construction). Further, legislation can change the highest legal speed limit at the drop of a hat. It's the "why are timezones so hard" problem times 10.

veeti• 2 years ago

People drive between countries.

mikestew3• 2 years ago

In the U. S. state of Washington, it is legal to exceed the speed limit when passing (might be restricted to two-lane roads, but the point stands).

Negitivefrags• 2 years ago

If we can’t even reliably know what the speed limit is, how can we even be close to self driving cars?

Not only is it a way simpler problem, but it’s actually a requirement for self driving also.

illiac7864• 2 years ago

That. I am thus convinced we are decades away from self driving cars capable of taking you home via a dirt road. And unfortunately, the entire value proposition of self driving cars only unfolds if you really can go anywhere, like a cab driver could.

“Sorry m’am, I can go any any further on this road, please get out and carry your luggage over the remaining mile”. And then of course it’d be raining under the scorching sun, I guarantee you that.

slau3• 2 years ago

I actually quite like it. There’s obviously a few quirks, and it works heaps and bounds better when you’re driving in the country where the system was designed (Germany vs Denmark in my case).

My main issue is when speed limits are reduced but for some reason the car is not getting the update. Copenhagen reduced a huge number of big arteries from 60 km/h to 50 km/h, but over two years later, my car still applies the old value.

I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t even be able to contest this in court.

kkfx• 2 years ago

In mere existence terms... It exists, my cars almost detect correctly all speed limits it see around, almost because sometimes it detect wrong one or for a wrong road tract (like a temporary limit due to some road works, kept after that just because there is a missing end sign), but in mandatory (present and on by default) means that we will get wrong actions, as per phantom breaks (I got three in three last days, for instance, in one case exaggerated and too hard, the other two for not valid reasons though not hard).

That's aside the mere fact we should been able to ignore speed limits under specific circumstances that's are typically emergencies so we do not have time to dig in the vehicle tablet menu to deactivate some ADAS...

ExoticPearTree• 2 years ago

I did a drive test about two weeks or so ago with two new cars, 2023 models. They beeped every time the speed was about, I think, more than 10kph more than the TSR system read. At first I had no idea why the car was beeping for no reason.

So I had to find a place to stop, go into car settings - which annoyingly enough are disabled while the car is not in Park, and disable features until I found the TSR option, disabled it, car stopped beeping.

I have a couple of issues with this: - my current car has TSR and I use it to remember what the speed limit was on a road segment. Quite handy if you miss the speed limit change sign. As a workaround I could use Waze/Google Maps with CarPlay to tell me what the speed limit is, but it is an extra hoop I have to jump through - beeping is annoying, but it only beeps for a second or two, so I guess with time you just tune it out - reducing the speed to match the posted speed limit is beyond madness. Most roads haven't had signs changed in decades when cars would brake in a longer distance, no ABS or any other electronic assistance systems were available. Any car from the past 20 years or so can drive safely at greater speeds and stop in a very short distance. - not all signs are properly recognized, like no overtake zones and so on. Not to mention cases where the overtake zone finishes there are no signs indicating that. Same goes for lane keeping assist where temporary markings make the car wobble because it confuses the system and thinks you're driving between the lanes.

emporas2• 2 years ago

This is one example of legislation that mandates fantasy tech that doesn't exist.

If the goal is to increase the minimal cost of any vehicle which drives on a road then the worse the legislation is, the better it serves the purpose. Incumbents gain a lot by obstructing any newcomer from capturing market share.

Also, if cars are moving towards the direction of driving themselves, it goes without saying that an accurate speed limit will be one of the first functionalities to implement.

Given that cars 95% of the time are not moving anywhere, then self driving cars could reduce the car consumption by 10 times, an order of magnitude less. Car ownership is one of the biggest financial bubbles out there. By limiting access to newcomers, which will implement self-driving, they keep the bubble going.

See also, tariffs to BYD, from USA and Europe. Imagine people using BYD (or another car) and installing custom software, open source, auditable and extensible. As soon as a good combination of sensors and software is implemented which drives itself, then anyone can download and install it to his own car. Then the bubble will pop, and politicians will have failed to their mission.

Ancapistani• 2 years ago

Given that cars 95% of the time are not moving anywhere, then self driving cars could reduce the car consumption by 10 times, an order of magnitude less.

I question this assertion.

Granted, I'm coming at this from a semi-rural American perspective, but I don't think true full self-driving would cause a reduction in emissions. If anything, I think it might increase them.

Urban areas are where emissions are most immediately an issue. Those areas also have limited parking. If vehicles were capable of autonomous operation, I would expect more people to drive, exit the vehicle at their destination, then allow the vehicle to park itself. This would incentivize companies to add additional offsite parking, which in turn would mean that vehicles would drive themselves to and from those parking areas - a net increase in distance driven, and therefore emissions.

That's not even considering things like vacations. My family and I drive 10+ hours about once each month. About half of those trips are for pleasure, and the only reason we take one vehicle is because it doesn't make sense for both my wife and I to drive separately. Otherwise, if I'm spending a week at the beach, I'd prefer to be able to drive my Jeep around while we're there. My Jeep doesn't fit my family and our luggage comfortably, so we don't take it right now. If it could drive itself, the only reason not to have it come along would be the cost of fuel and wear.

temporarely• 2 years ago

Smart(er) roads. A lot of this stuff becomes simpler if there is complementary tech on infrastructure. Instead of relying on reading 20th century tech (signs).

gambiting14• 2 years ago

Sure, which is another fantasy tech - my country doesn't have money to do basic road maintanance, but it will find money to change millions of street signs into "smart" ones? Very very doubtful.

illiac7864• 2 years ago

Too expensive. We don’t even have enough money to fix potholes…

nedt2• 2 years ago

It was exactly the same when incandescent light bulbs were banned. The alternatives weren't as good and almost no improvements were made. After the ban it took like 5-10 years, but suddenly there was progress. By now even halogen lamps are gone, because LED became so much better.

And in the end it's not the fault of the legislation. If it wouldn't be so common to go above the limit there wouldn't have been any need to a beeping device. Just look at those idiots still arguing about their tachometer being 10% off, always, and therefore thinking it's fine to always go 5-10 km/h above the limit, never below.

Benigitor• 2 years ago

And now we're coming full circle on consumption given most people just install a truck load of those and most are extremely oversized in wattage.

I have a few 9W/1500lm bulbs from 6/7 years ago but nowadays every light appliance is 20/30/40 even 60W. I've got and RGBCCW light strip rated at 15W/m! 3 meters of it outputs less light than a single one of said 9W bulbs.

floren• 2 years ago

Leaving aside the myriad political & economic implications of this, my VW's navigation quite frequently thinks I'm on a different road, or it misses a speed limit sign, etc. It's bad enough when it jerks the wheel a little because it got confused by an off-ramp, or slams on the brakes in the parking lot because someone is walking a mere 30 yards behind me, but boy if my car started dropping speed to 35 because it confused the freeway with the frontage road I'd be pretty mad.

angrygoat• 2 years ago

My car has this stuff in it too (BYD Dolphin) and it's a mixed bag. I find the "watch out, car/object moving into your path" stuff really useful – here in Australia, driving in the bush, it's picked up roos I'd likely have missed otherwise.

It whinges if it thinks I'm speeding, but it's often totally wrong on the speed limit: reading the wrong signs, holding a lower limit when I've turned onto a road with a higher limit. I find the alerts extremely distracting, and unfortunately they use the same sound as alerts I might want to know about. It also makes that same sound every time it reads a new sign. And then it feels the need to claim I'm speeding all over again, even if the limit hasn't changed.

I turn it off most times I get in the car, although there's no shortcut for it, so it's just a constant annoyance: the car won't remember the setting.

kylehotchkiss• 2 years ago

Please oh please add them to German cars sold to USA too. I would really enjoy watching all the BMWs and Mercedes going the speed limit all the time instead of flying past me with plate obscuring devices and never seeing any consequences

alfalfasprout3• 2 years ago

This isn't a problem if you just stay in the right lane.

anunes• 2 years ago

Yeah, if only a pedestrian or a cyclist or a regular person who isn't out of their mind would "stay in the right lane" and let me go vrooom vrooom, then we would be satisfied! /s

nunez3• 2 years ago

No, it's a problem if you're in the right lane. I spent years trying to do this (Houston, TX). You'll get tailgated, and you'll _also_ deal with the drivers that cross four lanes of traffic to hit that exit.

ZoomerCretin• 2 years ago

There will be four ways in which ISA systems will work to slow the vehicle down, and it will be up to the manufacturers to pick which one they want to use. The EU regulations permit a system that can use a cascaded acoustic warning, a cascaded vibrating warning, an accelerator pedal with haptic feedback, or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.
"Even in the case of speed control function, where the car speed will be automatically gently reduced, the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper," the European Commission adds.

So not speed limiters, but speed warners. Still, given that ebikes and escooters have been limited by legislation to 20-25mph, it only made sense to do the same for the much more obviously dangerous vehicles on the road. I hope we can do the same in the US, or at least make your car annoy you when you speed the way it annoys you when you don't have your seatbelt on.

knallfrosch2• 2 years ago

You pin the "disable speed warner" to your infotainment favorites and click it once when starting the car.

With wireless-phone-as-key, keyless ignition and automatic transmissions, drivers of modern cars who disable the speed warner this way still do less than people driving older cars.

The current effect on race drivers is small. It's about the cultural shift towards respecting speed limits and forcing car manufacturers to implement reliable speed recognition tech. Once that in place, the time will be ready to switch to speed limiters.

bowmessage• 2 years ago

Hopefully the EU's right to repair allows consumers to fix their cars by removing this malware.

croes8• 2 years ago

If you have relatives who got killed by a speeder you may think differently.

gambiting14• 2 years ago

Given that the tech doesn't actually work reliably I'd remove it even without any intention to speed.

It's the same reason why I keep lane keeping assistance off in my car - not because I disagree with the idea, but because the implementation is so bad it's actively dangerous.

ars2• 2 years ago

The slight speed increase that ordinary people do does not kill people.

We aren't talking about people going freeway speed in a residential area.

alfalfasprout3• 2 years ago

Crashing into another person is the problem-- not that they were speeding. Unless they were driving recklessly in a congested area in which case this would do nothing to help.

peppermint_gum• 2 years ago

There will be four ways in which ISA systems will work to slow the vehicle down, and it will be up to the manufacturers to pick which one they want to use. The EU regulations permit a system that can use a cascaded acoustic warning, a cascaded vibrating warning, an accelerator pedal with haptic feedback, or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.

This is more like a "speed warner" than a "speed limiter".

dyauspitr• 2 years ago

A cascading vibration warning sounds like it would make going fast feel more exciting.

seattle_spring• 2 years ago

Like a Rumble Pak[1] for your car!

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_Pak

prions3• 2 years ago

Bit funny how the article states that the systems are unobtrusive as to be essentially useless, which ignores the fact that these systems are defanged to appease entitled speeders.

Governments around the world impose various requirements on vehicle speeds, most notably ebikes being capped at 20mph for "safety reasons". Meanwhile private cars can travel at over 100mph for no apparent reason other than to not upset drivers at the expense of everyone else on the road.

robertlagrant4• 2 years ago

Ebikes go where bikes go, that's why. They can mingle with pedestrians. They don't require a licence to operate.

prions3• 2 years ago

Class B and C mopeds in NYC are speed limited and require a license and registration

adrianN7• 2 years ago

Cars mingle with pedestrians and cyclists every day.

knallfrosch2• 2 years ago

The limit in Germany is 25kmh, which translates to around 15.5 mph. And yet we have quite some unlimited Autobahns. The 10% fastest cars on the Autobahn section near my home go 200kmh/125mph on average. You can guess what the top 5% or 1% drive.

That's the contrast we live with.

gruturo• 2 years ago

This is terrifying. I routinely cross a bridge with a 30ton weight limit, which my car mistakes for a 30km/h speed limit sign. I would cause an average of 2 accidents per month if I suddenly slowed from 70 to 30 and the people behind me weren't paying attention.

The technology is _not_ there and this won't save lives, potentially it will cause deaths.

(Yes I read the article, this is initially only "for the driver's information" and not (yet) a hard limit.... but it's the first step in a very wrong direction)

shortrounddev24• 2 years ago

This uses GPS data, not optical recognition

jshier• 2 years ago

You can also turn it off every time you start your vehicle.

gwbas1c5• 2 years ago

From TFA:

Cars have been able to figure out when they're speeding for a while, thanks to GPS as well as traffic sign recognition

stavros11• 2 years ago

It uses both, AFAIK.

mulmen• 2 years ago

Presumably GPS data and a database of speed limits. The bridge to my neighborhood was closed for two years. It took Lyft over three months to notice it reopened. Why should we trust the speed limit databases?

silisili• 2 years ago

If that's similar to what Google Maps uses, it's wildly inaccurate. There are three places I drive regularly that it's way, way off on.

nexuist• 2 years ago

Awesome, so in addition to confusing aircraft and sending them in the wrong directions, Putin can also stop everyone from driving in Europe whenever he feels like it.

ars2• 2 years ago

The article said it uses optical recognition.

And in any case GPS is not accurate enough for this. If you drive an access road right near a freeway GPS can not tell which one your are on.

GPS also doesn't work in many downtowns because of the tall buildings.

fifilura• 2 years ago

The real test is whether is able to understand that you are driving on the highway under a bridge and not on the bridge with much slower traffic.

It happened to me once while driving an ID4 on a 110km/h highway and it slowed down to 50km/h under the bridge.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

Yea, yea, people are going to get into accidents and maybe die, but think about all the shareholder value that will be created by companies as they try to make these systems barely work and sell them to car manufacturers who are mandated to buy them! Won't someone please think of the shareholder value for a change?

EDIT: Jeez, nobody gets sarcasm unless you end your post with /s

its_ethan9• 2 years ago

Here, it looks like you dropped this:

https://cloudflare-cdn.ncmedical.com/images/dynamic/768x768/...

onlyrealcuzzo2• 2 years ago

Literally everything causes death.

The question is: will this prevent more deaths from speeding than it causes from mistaken slowdowns?

jvanderbot2• 2 years ago

I wonder how long we can ignore the natural human tendancy to need blame / attribution.

The way I think about it is: If, in the limiting case, we replace all driver mistakes with software mistakes, and there's 1/2 as many deaths from these mistakes, but they are uniformly distributed, I am honestly not sure how acceptable this would be to the public. It's like sacrificing people randomly to disallow dangerous drivers from causing accidents, even when those accidents would probably have disproportionately affected those very same dangerous drivers (and anyone nearby).

nasmorn2• 2 years ago

I used the ACC with automatic speed recognition for about two months but it did too many stupid brakings. I think using GPS to limit to the highest possible speed for highway/roads/city would be fine. But as long as the car can decide that on this highway it really thinks the 40 sign is for the main lane and not the off ramp, I would rather not have it

akira25017• 2 years ago

Is the category of "deaths from speeding" large enough to justify any action whatsoever? Are "deaths from speeding" typically single vehicle or multiple vehicle accidents? Why does the Autobahn still not have speed limits on large parts of the road and why does this not cause massive problems?

umvi2• 2 years ago

The question is: will this prevent more deaths [than the alternative]

I hate that question. It's pure utilitarianism and is used all the time to rationalize removing/limiting freedoms in exchange for safety and security. Deaths prevented should not be the ultimate metric unless a totalitarian police state that keeps everyone perfectly safe at all times is the desired end goal.

In this case I would rather have the freedom to intentionally speed (because I need to get my wife to the hospital more quickly, because I'm in the middle of nowhere and want to, or any other reason I deem rational) than be marginally more "safe" thanks to my vehicle nannying me.

scoot• 2 years ago

Apparently you didn't. The most proactive method is "a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced", and "the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper", so your hyperbolic reaction is overwrought.

EricE3• 2 years ago

Is it though? When has government regulation ever decreased?

Give them an inch...

jstummbillig• 2 years ago

You clearly identify the important pieces and then chose to ignore them to arrive at the weirdest of conclusions. I am confused.

leephillips2• 2 years ago

This is the fallacy of the slippery slope. The regulation is not necessarily a first step. It can and might very well stop at the driver alert stage. To become an automatic speed limiter would be a new set of regulations, with a new debate and regulatory process behind it.

stavros11• 2 years ago

Sure, but it's that much easier now. The limiter is already there, all they need to do is make it mandatory.

lolinder12• 2 years ago

At some point along the way any use of a slippery slope became a fallacy on HN, and I'm at a loss to explain how.

Would it be more helpful to talk about it in terms of set points? You can change things a very small amount from the status quo without making people upset. Accepting a change in one direction makes it easier for them to later swallow what would have been more drastic changes in that direction.

Obviously this is a fallacy if change A isn't actually a step towards change B, but surely you can see that having accepted already installed speed limiters in all cars makes it dramatically more likely that they'll later be required to actually limit the speed of the car?

eigenket• 2 years ago

There will be four ways in which ISA systems will work to slow the vehicle down, and it will be up to the manufacturers to pick which one they want to use. The EU regulations permit a system that can use a cascaded acoustic warning, a cascaded vibrating warning, an accelerator pedal with haptic feedback, or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.

Haptic feedback isn't gonna kill anyone anytime soon.

SoftTalker2• 2 years ago

How many people lift their foot from the brake pedal the first time they experience the antilock system activating?

parl_match3• 2 years ago

Yes I read the article

Then you'd read that automatic slowing was one of many options, and it's gradual.

but it's the first step in a very wrong direction

Please explain how, because your current complaint is not based in reality.

its_ethan9• 2 years ago

If cars are required by law to have speed limiting, that means they can know when and where a car is speeding. Cars are closely tied to their owners in many ways (registration, insurance, etc.). One way this could be seen as being a step in the wrong direction is that it not only sets a precedent for collecting that information, but is forcing car manufacturers to start building up that ability.

I personally think it's pretty obvious why people might not want an entity (public governments, or private companies) to have access to that kind of information. You might say well that's all easily mitigated by encrypting the data or making tracking individuals illegal, to which I would ask: what gives you any confidence that the EU (or any government) would enforce/protect that, when there's evidence they are actively anti-encryption and pro-snooping in other domains?

If you need to be walked through the reasoning behind why it might be a bad idea to ~allow~ require these systems to be built, idk what to tell you lol

croes8• 2 years ago

or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.

Not suddenly, gradually.

bluefirebrand6• 2 years ago

It still turns you into a road hazard and puts you in a dangerous situation

How about we don't take control away from the people in the driver seat

If we can't trust them to operate the vehicle then we should not be letting them operate the vehicle

We cannot solve the problem of terrible driver training with tech

kivle• 2 years ago

There's a tunnel in my town where my Tesla hard breaks 3 separate places if I'm on cruise control / auto pilot. If this legislation will force this to happen even outside of auto pilot it will be "great" for sure...

nedt2• 2 years ago

"[...] cause an average of 2 accidents per month if [...] people [...] weren't paying attention"

gfna2• 2 years ago

Well this is going to be interesting if they rely on GPS. Possibly due to gps jamming by our neighbour country i have had to disable the feature where the car tries to predict the road ahead and suddenly brakes on the motorway because it thinks it is on a side road 10s of kilometers away.

zombiwoof• 2 years ago

About time. Why have rules for cars if they can’t be enforced

christkv• 2 years ago

I swear i remember my old TomTom device having something like this built in but maybe im remembering wrong.

Lammy• 2 years ago

I am going to hold on to my 2013 car for as long as possible. Fuck this future where everything “““needs””” to spy on me and everywhere I go.

oaththrowaway• 2 years ago

Even my 2013 has OnStar. I gotta figure out how to kill that as well

mikeyouse3• 2 years ago

AFAIK - pre-2015 OnStar used 2G cellular radios which no longer work since we shutdown that cellular network a few years ago. You can check your VIN here to verify but I don't think you have anything to worry about: https://activate.onstar.com/en-US

HenryBemis• 2 years ago

Expect that soon enough they will ask people to put some colored sticker in their car, depending on the age of the car, the technology of the engine, and then you won't be allowed to drive "here" or "there" or you will need a super expensive "pollution-pass".

uyzstvqs• 2 years ago

Rooted cars will be a thing soon enough. If that doesn't work for you, consult your local Amish community for transportation options.

alright2565• 2 years ago

This is wonderful. Even if it's just a warning, I'd expect this to significantly reduce traffic injury & death.

baggy_trough2• 2 years ago

Our accursed state senator Wiener is trying to bring the same thing to California.

rsingel• 2 years ago

Love it and love Wiener. One of the most effective legislators in California.

Speed limiters/governors are way past due and will save lives and help make streets more liveable

alfalfasprout3• 2 years ago

Glad I left California. You guys can keep your limiters.

baggy_trough2• 2 years ago

Not something or someone I'm a fan of, to put it mildly.

EricE3• 2 years ago

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvV3nn_de2k

tremarley• 2 years ago

Rules like this m, mandated by unelected officials are one of the reasons millions of people in the UK voted for Brexit.

galdosdi6• 2 years ago

Or, just add speed bumps, curves, narrowings in the road, etc, to naturally bring the speed down. Then it works on everyone, whether they have the nanny tech or not, and you avoid the difficult problem of determining the speed limit accurately 100% of the time across every segment of road everywhere.

This is kind of like the (apocryphal) "NASA spent millions on a pen that would work without gravity; russians just used pencil" parable.

DoingIsLearning• 2 years ago

Not sure why you are getting downvoted.

Urban design is a much more effective approach to saving lives (a large fraction of speeding deaths are pedestrians) with the bonus of giving large areas of the city back to pedestrians.

"Traffic calming" is a well established evidence based field. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming

galdosdi6• 2 years ago

Especially considering the top 5 threads on this article are all complaining about how speed limiting and speed limit recognition technology sucks. That's why I thought this was the most logical response.

stavros11• 2 years ago

Leaving aside the concerns about the tech not working well, I'm really not a fan of this pre-crime stuff. This feels very Big Brother, where someone (or some system) is watching over you so you don't break any laws.

Things like this lead to cultural ossification and are a nightmare scenario for me.

umvi2• 2 years ago

One possible future includes one or more of:

- AI guns that won't shoot at other people, only authorized in-season animals.

- AI keyboards that won't let you type "hate speech"

- AI browsers that only let you visit approved, legal sites.

- AI smartphones that contact the police if you are breaking curfew, trespassing, recording unauthorized (copyrighted) public or audio, etc.

stavros11• 2 years ago

You don't need AI for the browser thing, stuff is already blocked at the DNS level.

novagameco13• 2 years ago

- AI guns that won't shoot at other people, only authorized in-season animals.

That sounds like a legitimately good idea, why would you need a gun that shoots people

novagameco13• 2 years ago

But on the highway they are watching over you so you don't break any laws. They have police officers who patrol the highways and traffic cameras. If this had any implications on people's basic human rights, I might agree but driving is a privilege, not a right.

stavros11• 2 years ago

It's very different to watch 1% of drivers, 1% of the time, and to watch 100% of drivers, 100% of the time.

There's no room for change if law enforcement is absolute. Imagine if gay people could never sex, because a microchip zapped their brain whenever they got a sexual thought about a member of the same sex. Homosexuality would still be illegal.

Boltgolt• 2 years ago

Is it "pre-crime" if it activates once you are speeding? Surely we can agree that is a crime

stavros11• 2 years ago

Not if it makes it so you can't speed.

its_ethan9• 2 years ago

Is it a crime where "100% enforcement" is worth surrendering (even more) individual privacy?

Camlinked• 2 years ago

No we don't agree.

Also once this is in place what is "legal" today will be "illegal" tomorrow.

We have much better cars than 50 years ago and speed limits remained the same. Now they are lowering them bit by bit. Think of the children, think of the environment etc

Won't matter anyway when all there is are robotaxis.

tech_ken5• 2 years ago

This feels very Big Brother, where someone (or some system) is watching over you so you don't break any laws

Is having a speed-limit in the first place 'pre-crime prevention'? Regulating technology that can have public health implications is standard for governments, so to me it seems normal that they might site this regulation in the vehicle itself, rather than at usage-time. Is requiring cars to have like an ABS system preventing users from committing the crime of vehicular manslaughter? Or is it protecting the pedestrian from being killed by a negligent driver?

stavros11• 2 years ago

There's no downside to ABS. There's plenty of downside to a system that blanket bans speeding, even when the operator knows better than the system and is taking a calculated risk.

nunez3• 2 years ago

Well if so many folks didn't speed all the damn time, and if speeding wasn't one of the top cause of vehicular accidents (in the US), then we wouldn't need this

stavros11• 2 years ago

"One of the top" is a nice weasel phrase. Lightning strike is one of the top causes of death in the US too, for a large enough number of causes. Not wearing a seat belt caused more deaths than speeding, yet cars don't refuse to start without a seat belt.

drusepth• 2 years ago

Seems like a net positive change to me, assuming the tech doesn't succumb to some of the FUD takes here (and/or can be improved over time...).

I've had family killed by speeders. I've had friends and family permanently maimed and disabled by speeders. For people who think speed limits are just a suggestion or don't always apply, I can see how this would be "annoying". But the point of speed limits are for driving safety -- something humans are notably absolutely terrible at as a species. Anything that enforces them a bit better than the limited (and tbh flawed) resource of just traffic stops is an improvement in my book.

avalys• 2 years ago

The problem with automated enforcement of laws like this, is that the laws were not written for 100% automatic enforcement.

Everyone who has ever followed a car driving 5 mph below the speed limit on a two-lane road knows that it is basically impossible to ever pass them while staying under the speed limit. Legally, that's what you're supposed to do, but everyone - the police, the legislators, the courts, and drivers - understands that in practice it's acceptable to exceed the speed limit a bit when making a pass.

This is just one of countless areas in which the law is not actually written with the expectation of being enforced 100% of the time.

thiht3• 2 years ago

everyone - the police, the legislators, the courts, and drivers - understands that in practice it's acceptable to exceed the speed limit a bit when making a pass

Not in France. When passing a car, you MUST stay below the speed limit. The only exception would be an immediate danger, like for example if you follow someone visibly drunk. Wanting to pass someone because they drive 5kmh below the speed limit is not an immediate danger, just be patient, you’ll be late by 5 minutes at most.

Speed limits are laws, not suggestions.

lolinder12• 2 years ago

Speed limits are laws, not suggestions.

This depends a lot on where you live. In much of the US the speed limit only gets enforced at 10mph above the speed limit, which means that 5 under without good reason is actually hazardous—you're actively impeding traffic that wants to be going ~13mph faster than you are.

mglz• 2 years ago

Normally I am a big fan of the EU but this is crap legislation. If you want to stop speeding, just do what France is doing: Frequent speed cameras and high fines. It is very rare to encounter somebody speeding there.

gwbas1c5• 2 years ago

Honestly, I think it makes more sense to start with limiting cars somewhere around 90-110MPH; IE, the fastest that anyone would ever drive on a public road.

Where I live, speed limits are routinely set artificially low due to a cultural belief that rules are meant to be broken. IE, if the safest speed is 75MPH, then the speed limit is set to 55MPH because everyone will break the rule. If the limit was really 75MPH, then everyone would drive faster.

I do think we need frank discussions about what is a safe speed to drive, and the general public's tolerance for risk, before "speed limit aware" limiters are commonplace. Otherwise, these just smell like a scheme from an "enthusiastic rule follower" to try force unneeded rules when these rules don't need to exist.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

Otherwise, these just smell like a scheme from an "enthusiastic rule follower" to try force unneeded rules when these rules don't need to exist.

Also, a lot of these "enthusiastic rule follower" lawmakers who push for these things are really only interested in making other people follow the rules. They will find a way to exempt themselves.

akira25017• 2 years ago

then the speed limit is set to 55MPH

The speed limit is set to 55MPH because the road services vehicles that weigh 600lbs all the way up to 80,000lbs. "Safe speed" is not a single universal number for a given stretch of road.

The laws even acknowledge this, as if the weather is extremely unfavorable, you can be pulled over for driving _at_ the speed limit as it will be declared "unsafe speed under given conditions."

This doesn't even approach things like construction zones, traffic accidents and other roadway hazards that can't be flagged in a way for the automated system to recognize correctly.

gwbas1c5• 2 years ago

because the road services vehicles that weigh 600lbs all the way up to 80,000lbs

The laws recognize that those vehicles are different. Where I live those vehicles are only allowed to drive in the right two lanes.

There's already a federal push to have speed limiters in vehicles like that and it is getting a lot of pushback: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fmcsa-delays-speed-limiter...

Again, That's why I said it's important to have a frank discussion about the general public's tolerance for risk. Otherwise, whatever authority is pushing for speed limiters under the claim of "safety" is just unintentionally taking an authoritarian approach.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40880764

barryrandall• 2 years ago

"The objective is to protect Europeans against traffic accidents, poor air quality and climate change, empower them with new mobility solutions that match their changing needs, and defend the competitiveness of European industry,"

Do speed limiters, as proposed, meaningfully contribute to achieving those objectives?

SV_BubbleTime2• 2 years ago

When the issue is supported by random claims that no one cares to check, why can’t the solution?

Gare• 2 years ago

Well, all that mandatory tech does make the cars more expensive...

throw_a_grenade2• 2 years ago

This system is already in use for lorries, which are hard limited (like the last option described in TFA — engine loses power if driver attepts to accelerate beyond the limit). It's an absolute hell for other users of the road, because they're hard limited to 100 km/h, even on roads where the legal limit is higher. Now the problem is, no two vehicles have exactly the same limit, it varies a noticeable amount, so inevitably one lorry driver will attempt to overtake another one — with speed difference below 1 km/h, at about 100 km/h where legal limit is 140 km/h. It takes about 2 min and usually causes 2-3 km "jams" on motorways.

eschneider• 2 years ago

I'm curious what the Venn diagram of folks who think this is a hard problem and folks who thing self driving is doable looks like.

seydor3• 2 years ago

It might be more prudent to mandate self-driving

masterj3• 2 years ago

Hacker News: This is absurd! The tech doesn't exist!

Reality: It's existed for years, and has already been successfully tested in pilots https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/027-23/mayor-ad...

Sometimes you should try looking at the real world instead of trying to assume from first principles.

Zigurd3• 2 years ago

At about 1.4 million annually, and roughly half are people not in cars, it's only surprising cars and speeds are not more closely regulated. Instead, vehicle makers are allowed to raise the hood line on trucks because it's macho. Which causes more death and worse injury.

skrebbel• 2 years ago

I’d hate for this to become mandatory but at the same time you’ll pry my Ford’s slightly intelligent speed limiter from my cold dead hands. If this change in law means that somehow cars become better at reading speed limit signs (radio signals on roads or sth? maintained by the people who put up the signs? no idea but this gives it a mandate), then I’m only going to love it more.

Though if they make it obligatory to turn on and/or annoying, i’m going to be angry. That shit is going to only make Audi drivers more frustrated than they already are.

8xeh• 2 years ago

Please make speed limit signs broadcast speeds by radio!

That would be incredible. If the road noise outside my house gets too loud, I can transmit a lower speed limit instead of turning up my TV.

morgunkorn• 2 years ago

We're driving a Tesla Model 3 refresh 2024, and it has the speed nag at every start up. It also has a lot of wrong speeds for portions of roads around our place.

Sometimes it's temporary speed limits that were set during road construction and then never went away, sometimes it doesn't understand that you left a type of road and went onto another one with a different default speed limit, it's pretty infuriating.

And that's a car that has cameras all around, onboard image analysis software and permanent internet connection. I can't imagine how that'd even work in cars with less capabilities.

monort• 2 years ago

This law makes an intelligent speed limiter mandatory to be present in a car, but it does not currently require it to be activated. The software for road sign recognition is currently of poor quality, making a mandatory system impractical.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=PI_...

randerson5• 2 years ago

This might be effective if all existing cars on the road were somehow retrofitted with speed limiters. But what we'll see instead is an even more dangerous combination of people in older cars (the majority of cars) speeding while people in newer cars are causing a dangerous speed differential in the flow of traffic. Not to mention the economic impact this could have on on new car sales when people decide en masse that they'll just hold onto their old cars without limits for longer.

CodeWriter23• 2 years ago

Next step: frustrated by variances between acutal and reckoned speed limits, consumers demand the limit is returned by an authoritative government API. Of course, authentication will be required to prevent abuse

Next next step: speed API uses social credit score as an input and imposes lower limit for those disfavored by credit system

hofo• 2 years ago

Starting in 2022 all newly introduced car models in the EU have had Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) installed, but now all new vehicles must feature them.

Huh? What’s the difference between “installed” and “featured“ here?

grujicd2• 2 years ago

I think the difference is between "only new models" and "all new vehicles". So previously you could buy a new car, just model from a year or two ago without this tech. Now these cars can't be sold any more.

penguin_booze• 2 years ago

2024 must be the year of the speed limits (cue: Year of the <animal> in Chinese calendar), or something is in the waters. Right now, in the UK, there's an enthusiastic drive to convert roads to 20mph. And now this, from the EU.

gnicholas• 2 years ago

It seems understood that people typically go about 5-10 MPH over the limit. I assume that speed limits are set with the knowledge that this is common. If technology like this becomes widespread and results in the actual speeds more closely matching the posted limits, will the speed limits eventually be increased, since it was always understood that people could safely drive a bit faster than the old posted speeds?

Secondly, I remember hearing that some car companies calibrate their speedometers to be a bit conservative (reporting a higher speed than is actually being driven), in part so they aren't sued by customers who get tickets. If different cars show different speeds, what will this do to the flow of traffic? Will everyone end up going as slow as the most heavily down-calibrated vehicles?

aftbit• 2 years ago

Eww it is not the car's job to enforce speed limits. More nanny state nonsense.

Speed limiters now mandatory in all new EU cars

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