i think it was BMW that was testing a system that reads vertical signals and then alerts you if you are doing something wrong...
bingo...the finns are awesome drivers and it takes a long time to get your license (so i have been told my a finnish chic i know). With the skid pans, gravel and dirt track driving people will grasp a greater understanding of vehicles and will be massively confident with it which is awesome imo. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT... The mention of retesting is also a top idea, say £50 every ten years to retest people and once you hit 65, make it free and every 5 years. i'm not trying to take peoples freedom away, but if it means that there are less fatalities on the roads then those people obviously shouldnt be driving, afterall its a priviledge not a given right to drive. With this in mind the idea that your speed is controlled by technology is fubar, my immediate concern is overtaking as its been mentioned before, the consequences of that on a motorway would be life ending. However, it may have its uses, in a 20 zone where its been disignated this for reasons like there being a first school near by or something then maybe a restiction of 25mph could be enforced, then atleast you have 5mph of flexibility to play with if a situation did occur. As for the motorways, force people to learn the basic rules of motorway driving, if the lane on your left is free, use it unless overtaking. I'm one of those w*****s who will flash his lights, bang his horn and send hand signals to monkeys who dont use the motorways properly, the centre lane owners club drivers can p$ss off imo. if used properly by people paying attention the motorway is safer than a normal road imo, even if we're doing 100mph on it! RANT END?! Technology is wonderful and can make our lives better, but the idea of using technology like this to compensate for other people's incompetence is a bit silly, maybe restricted use can work, but widespread use would have me modding my car so that it isnt limited! Oh wait, i just remember something my driving instructor said to me once, whilst travelling at high speeds on motorways can be dangerous, those people exceeding the limit by a conciderable margin are less likely to have an accident because they are aware of what they are doing, therefore they are paying 100% attention to what they are doing unlike alot of drivers on the motorway who are really the unsafe drivers...his credentials, metropolitan police office for 20 years qualified in high speed driving for both cars and bikes so he knows his stuff. hmm, i think stray away from the exact point, but my argument is that the idea is massively flawed and there are alot of other, more effective ways of tackling the problem. peace fatman
Prevent the cars from driving too fast? no thanks, thats just stupid nannystate crap. Better thing to do would be to have a point system similar to germany or italy, how does it work? for each offense you get a certain amount of points in addition to the normal punishment, that way you can easily keep track of the repeat offenders and eventually force them to redo the driving license, or prevent them from getting one again or whatever punishment you will have for them.
nope thats electronic, the engine management just retards the fueling. controlling maxmium speed isn't the problem, its the constant varying of the maxmium speed allowed, plus the control of braking to reduce speed in restricted areas. as i previously said, its not the vechical that needs limiting, its the people to be trained not to exceed the limit.
Sorry Dave, I can't let you go that fast. Banning teenage males from driving would achieve the same ends. Testosterone kills.
I've always thought that there should be 10-15 year renewal periods for licenses, especially when the driver gets past the age of 60. However, I don't think speed is the biggest cause of accidents, I can tear down the highway at 130mph and it's less likely for me to crash then someone going 50mph and talking on the phone to crash.. Sure, speeding is dangerous, but distracted drivers are 6x as dangerous, because they'll suddenly merge, pull out, brake, accelerate, turn, out of the blues and without paying ANY attention at all to other cars/obstacles around them, and most of the time, those people drive huge SUVs so 90% of the time, they're fine in the event they crash. Sometimes I speed because I want to get away from a group of SUVs on the highway, I avoid a good amount of people crashing into me everyday on the highway, where I'm just driving at the limit, and they start to merge, or swerve randomly, or just drift sideways because they're yapping on the phone, brushing their teeth, smoking a cigarette, and brushing their hair all at the same time. I mean hell, might as well sleep while driving at that point. I'm actually glad I have a fast car, because it makes it easier to zip ahead of people in the event they're not paying attention and start to pose a danger to me.
Or simply restrict their licence to a certain engine size/performance class until they have driven competently for 5 years. Most can't afford a powerful car anyway --insurance sees to that. But there are always those who get around that by being included on the insurance of their parents' Landrover V6.
I'm learning to drive at the moment, and would hate the idea of going through the cost and hassle of more lessons in 10 years, but I can see the benifits to it, also if a person needs more lessons to pass, then it would be a good thing for to have them. They should make the theory test harder, I managed to get 50/50 last week, and it only took me 13mins (including going back over my answers), and they allow a hour. It should be at least 100 questions in the hour. I thought the hazard perseption part was good though.
@ Mr Mario : After 10 years of driving you won’t need more lessons, a retest would test that you are a capable road user, not that you keep both hands on the wheel and don’t cross your arms. (I imagine, God help us if I am wrong) Totally agree on the speed limits being stupid, if I want to go faster than 70 on a motorway in a position I judge safe then that’s my choice. However it won’t happen for the simple reason that they would have to fit it to every car on the road to become compulsory. And the cost rules that out instantly.
I'd welcome this as a feature that I could turn on or off to prevent accidental speeding, I use cruise control to the same effect where its safe to do so but I tend to glance at the speedo every 5-6 seconds anyway. I use my own judgement to decide what speed is safe for the conditions I'm driving in, but it would be nice to have the option to flick a switch to prevent speeding points on my license.
Most of them don't need a powerful car to drive like an idiot. However in my 1.2 nova I developed the tendancy so carry more speed through corners/up hills because I couldn't just accelerate when I needed to, I simply didn't have enough power. Now I have the mondeo which is much more powerful my driving is much more relaxed.
"Government think tanks" != "In their right minds" Darklord - I know exactly what you mean about SUV's. Last year I had a guy about 10 feet from my rear bumper who would repeatedly let go of the steering wheel to change hands on his cellphone, despite hand-held cellphone use being illegal here in the UK. This went on for about 10 miles in heavy traffic so I couldn't escape him. There are several claimed reasons for the 70mph limit, which was imposed in 1965. <Clarkson> Some say that it was to stop people racing trains, which paralleled the M1, Or that it was to stop Jaguar using the M1 as a test track when delivering to London. All we know is... it's a pain in the a$$. </Clarkson>
A few people have mentioned already about a "optional" system you can turn on and off. Well, it exists, and it's already out there. Many Mercedes have a user set speed limiter. You set 30, and no matter how hard you press the gas, it will not do more than 30. For me, that's sufficient. Taking away more control is dangerous. Speed cameras already create problems: People spend far too much time looking at the instruments instead of the road.. paranoid about speed. They also create a feeling of safety - "I'm doing 30, so I'm safe" and proceed to drive like cocks in other respects because they're "being safe" at 30. Sure.. fewer people are killed or seriously injured, but only because the speeds involved are lower! So our government thinks it's OK to say "We can't stop you driving stupidly, so we're gonna make sure you're going so slow when you do crash, no one is killed". Brilliant... I bet the insurance companies are loving that. How about a MUCH stiffer driving test, and regular, RANDOM retests. It could be 20 years.... it could be next week... you just don't know. I promise you that WILL reduce road fatalities. We need better driver education in this country, not a way to remotely control our millions of s**t drivers in a forlorn attempt to stop ourselves from killing one another. Just as Switzerland has the most guns per household coupled with the lowest gun fatalities, I'm prepared to put hard cash on a bet that Finland has fewer car fatalities per head than we do. Why? They take driving seriously, and train accordingly. We don't. My biggest worry is what others have said: 60mph A road... slow truck ahead.. foot down, pull out to pass... halfway through the overtake you pass into a 40mph zone you weren't aware of because you don't know the area, GPS cuts power, or even applies the brakes while you're on the wrong side of the road.... with no power to get past. crash... death.. etc. Fab idea... bring it on! Dickheads. We.. as a country... are crap. I'm sorry, but we just are, and this is yet another example of why we are. Ruled by morons, health and Safety, and left wing, do gooders who insist on remedial measures to solve problems instead of just having the balls to tackle issues head on. Like I said.. buy a car that has the feature.,.. it's already out there. The only drawback is that you may have it set for 40 and enter a 30 zone.... but you know what? If you can't see a red, white and black circular sign measuring 3 feet across, strapped to a 10ft pole you have no business being behind the wheel of a car. All signs denoting a CHANGE in speed limit are massive! Won't work. Most chavs and arseholes already drive 1.0 cars and are still the scourge of the roads. Again, this is a British way of doing things... "We can't stop them, so let's minimise the damage when they do crash" (sigh).. such a wrong way to solve this problem.
Ooh, I wasn't aware that it was already available. I follow changes in speed limits, I just don't want to creep over them.
I know of several Mercedes that have it, and a couple pf Mazdas.. I'm pretty sure there are loads more therefore. It's like a cruise control.. you just set it to a speed, and will not let you exceed it. No one does.... but what we need is some common sense. Driving at 34 occasionally, is not dangerous IF you are a good driver. I'd rather have well trained drivers who don't spend 40% of their time looking at the speedo than a nation of zombies who forsake hazard awareness, lane discipline, and spatial awareness for that holy grail of "Within the limit" As we all know... if you do 30 or less.. you're a safe driver. The fact that most couldn't recognise a hazard if it bit them on the ass is irrelevant. "I'm doing 30, therefore I'm being a safe driver.... (bump)... what was that?" LOL The world is mad... I tell ya!
there has been lots of accidents around here due to the rain, people go on what we call "via reservada" (basically a road that is reserved to motorcycles of over and including 125cc and cars and has the same rules as a highway with a speed limit of 100Km/h) and drive on it like if it was summer, the maintenance guys are getting annoyed of replacing the rails on the side of the road due to much idiots driving like idiots.... and crashing. edit: the newspaper is talking about guys going at 200Km/h in the rain....
This is a great idea, stop everybody going so god damn fast, cars should be made to go walking speed and no faster, curb the deaths man
I believe in drving safely but limiting cars is silly. I like to drive fast but ONLY when its appropriate to do so. For instance, I drive to work most mornings at 5am, I go through a 20 & 30 zone, I very rarely see anyone at that time of the morning, so why go at 30mph? As long as the conditions are safe why not go a little faster? Regards GiGo
I spent 8 hours driving from Aberdeen to derby yesterday so had plenty of time to think about this. Driving on the M6 in good conditions, probably 50% of vehicles are doing more than 70. But if the speed limit was raised to 80mph, would 50% of people still speed? Would people drive any faster? The real people who are dangerous aren't strictly the people going fast, it's people going too fast in heavy traffic or poor visibility. Most drivers can sensibly use speed, but there needs to be a system of rooting out those that can't (eg white van man). Compulsory re-tests would help, but not completely. That said, slow drivers can be just as much of a danger to others, forcing people to take chances overtaking on A and B roads, and causing traffic to compress into the fast lane on the motorways. If you can't safely travel at 70mph on a motorway in normal conditions, you can't safely travel. When I was getting driving lessons, most of it focused on driving round the town. The was very little emphasis on driving on country A and B roads, which is presumably why you see so many boy-racers upside down in a field. And there was obviously no motorway training - learners aren't even allowed on a motorway. I think motorway driving should be a compulsory part of learning to drive, because the challenges aren't in using roundabouts or staying on the road, it's in appropriate use of lanes and using the right speed in poor weather, which isn't necessarily taught at any other point.
I hate all this bs to do with speed. I can't stand it when I need to go to a city I've never been to before or don't go to very often, there is a huge amount of traffic around me to avoid, I need to read the signs to see where I'm meant to be going, make sure I'm in the right lane etc. and all the time I'm being watched by hundreds of cameras that will send me a bill and increase my insurance premium if I go 5mph faster than I should! Not knowing where any cameras are, do I go a bit quicker to pull in infront of this lorry before the lane closes, or do I stick the brakes on and cause a mess, all for the sake of 5mph? Agree with Xen0 above - I find it a lot easier and a lot more relaxing to drive a car with a reasonable amount of power. Pookeyhead too - good points. A guy recently ploughed into me by driving too fast on a road literally inches deep in mud - I was creeping along (it was a NSL, and I was probably doing 10, if that) due to the surface only to round a corner and have a guy slide a huge distance and hit me sideways. Still bugs me how I was taking a massive amount of care over what I was doing, and it didn't make a difference.
