Even at 30mph a 2 ton Range Rover still has an awful lot of energy behind itIt might not have made it through the fence though..
Even at 30mph a 2 ton Range Rover still has an awful lot of energy behind itIt might not have made it through the fence though..
Why would an emergency brake application crack a car windscreen?Imagine if UK roads had Railway TPWS fitted.... emergency brake applications.... every windscreen in the country would be cracked within the hour.
Presumably through people and/or things flying through it due to the rapid deceleration.Why would an emergency brake application crack a car windscreen?
Unless it was an unbelted driver/passenger, (which would tend to be a salutory lesson to belt up), - there aren't that many owners stupid enough to have loose clutter located where a heavy brake application would turn it into a laminated glass piercing missile.Presumably through people and/or things flying through it due to the rapid deceleration.
Mine takes a fair while to realise that I have ignored its advice and stayed on the motorway - I wouldn’t want it killing the power because it thinks I had hit the 30 limit on the slip road!Anyone who uses gps regularly will know that it wanders and places in the wrong place therefore at present wouldn’t be a suitable system
It's a KIA , I think the settings can be changed on the screen. I've not bothered to try changing anything tbh.What car is that? So I can avoid it whilst looking for my new one......
I think its very clear that variable speed limiters in vehicles are not sufficiently reliable. Its surprising that all new cars made or imported into UK are not limited to 79mph. The number of company vehicles that have limiters installed shows it would be straightforward and cheap to implement. In long term an upgraded licence could be required to drive a car without a limiter for use on track days etc. The ability to drive at extremely high speeds isn't a God given right and should be quickly revoked if drivers commit offences. 79mph would mean people wouldn't get fined for accidentally exceeding limit on motorway and allow them to go full speed if they take their car to the continent.
Given that most speed enforcement uses 10% + 2mph or similar, and given that the speedo will over-read by a few percent as well, it really would take an incredibly incompetent driver to accidentally get caught for speeding on a motorway with the 70 limit in place.
These days with "smart motorways" the norm, the excessive speeding you used to see (90mph+) is in my experience rather rare. The prevailing speed on most motorways these days seems to be between 65mph and about 80mph at most.
Given that most speed enforcement uses 10% + 2mph or similar, and given that the speedo will over-read by a few percent as well, it really would take an incredibly incompetent driver to accidentally get caught for speeding on a motorway with the 70 limit in place.
Why not? How much more dangerous is that than at 70?Cruising continuously at 80 really isn't on
Why not? How much more dangerous is that than at 70?
if we have physically limited speeds why not make it 80?
Why not? How much more dangerous is that than at 70?
if we have physically limited speeds why not make it 80?
These days with "smart motorways" the norm, the excessive speeding you used to see (90mph+) is in my experience rather rare. The prevailing speed on most motorways these days seems to be between 65mph and about 80mph at most.
Never going to be perfect but would prevent idiots driving all over the place at excess speed, but even better, make it much easier for the police to catch criminals, particularly car thieves if they could only run away at 30 mphI have to wonder then what the actual point of such a system would be. In my local area the road which must have the highest amount of speeding is a few miles of 50mph dual carriageway, sandwiched by 30 miles plus of a continuous 70mph limit. (The road itself doesn't change in quality, but has a lower speed limit as that section is through a town and has substandard short sliproads) On this road invariably the left lane is doing exactly 50mph, the right lane for those ignoring the limit and doing 60 plus. Your system would prevent few from speeding there, but would make it considerably more dangerous.
Only if the system doesn't have a driver override! Which as has been said upthread in itself brings a whole load of potential safety issues, not to mention accountability and liability if such a system is shown to be a contributory factor in an accident (e.g. loss of power when acceleration could have got you out of trouble).Never going to be perfect but would prevent idiots driving all over the place at excess speed, but even better, make it much easier for the police to catch criminals, particularly car thieves if they could only run away at 30 mph
The obvious problem with an undefeatable limit system is that there are places where there are no speed limit such as race tracks where I've taken my car and plan to do so again, plenty of others do the same with road legal cars.If people are considering such ideas then rather than having a variable speed limiter deciding which road you are on, as there are too many variables with location, time, weather, GPS accuracy etc, why not simply set an undefeatable upper speed limit within the cars engine management system and make its operation part of the MOT? say an absolute limit of 85mph which simply drops the throttle if you exceed that speed. Works in exactly the same way the speed limiter within the cruise control settings works except this is mandatory and not voluntary.
There should be a legally defined transition when a vehicle is moved off the public highway and into an uncontrolled area. There are many aspects of vehicle performance that would make a track-ready car non-compliant with the Construction and Use regulations. That would include emissions, noise levels, tyre specifications and conditions. If a non-defeatable speed governor was fitted, there could be a formal process to disable it, with a visible indicator. There should also be a non-erasable GPS time stamped electronic log onboard of any locations where the vehicle had been run in that condition. The process should have a similar legal weight to the SORN rules, as the vehicle keeper would effectively be removing the vehicle from public highway use eligibility.The obvious problem with an undefeatable limit system is that there are places where there are no speed limit such as race tracks where I've taken my car and plan to do so again, plenty of others do the same with road legal cars.
I wasn't suggesting that GPS is used to detect a speed limit. I was saying that is a speed limiter was disabled (e.g. so that the vehicle could be driven at speed on a race track), GPS could confirm that it was in such a location.Realistically it wouldn't work. Having a fixed upper speed limit won't eliminate the problem of a motorist blasting along at 60 passed a school at chuckout time. SatNavs regularly demonstrate GPS isn't reliably accurate enough to enforce speed limits and may well kick in at a moment that actually puts a road user in danger such as during an overtaking maneuver, or to avoid a collision. Besides, pool cars would simply have the limiter bypassed. They aren't taxed or insured and won't be road legal for a number of reasons so a speed limiter being defeated isn't going to make any difference...
I too used to exceed the 70mph speed limit in the few years after passing the test when I was driving cars hired by employers, - I didn't care how much fuel costed.I must admit, when I first started to drive (or rather once I'd been driving a few months and was a bit more confidence) I would regularly cruise at 80mph on quieter motorways when conditions allowed. After all, petrol was only 72.9p a litre. Nowadays I wouldn't dream of doing so, not just because detection is more automated and more widespread, but because with fuel costs having pretty much doubled, it isn't worth it.
So no need to spend millions on R&D to improve GPS or fit balises every 50yds, nor to continue to feed the ego of the world's greatest vapourware salesman.
It would certainly help some car drivers to learn when not to overtake tractors or caravans, and just wait a while.A bus adjusting to 20/30 mph in an urban location isn’t the same as having the power cut out when, say, overtaking a tractor or caravan on a single carriageway road.