I saw a video yesterday of cars fleeing the 2011 tsunami in Japan, I’m willing to bet those people exceeded 10mph over the posted speed limit trying to get away from the water.
Limiting the speed of the vehicles isn’t going to improve driving skills or eliminate distractions. It isn’t going to make people drive safer, just slower. I’m sure any situation where people need to go 10+ miles over the speed limit is going to be exceedingly rare and limited to things like fleeing forest fires or tsunamis, but limiting the speed isn’t going to have a huge impact on accidents.
It could decrease fuel consumption and emissions though 🤷♂️.
But it still seems like a problem that could be solved with better enforcement.As a somewhat recent arrival to NZ, I found it interesting — starting with our rental car — that the speed limit is displayed on your dashboard. It changes colour as soon as you go 1 km over the limit.
All very cool. The most notable issue with this is there are sections of roads where this doesn’t work at all.
That said, there is a LOT of traffic calming here.
There’s still the occasional assclown that goes way over the limit. Unsurprisingly, that usually happens on long, straight roads without traffic calming.
What about in an emergency? What is someone needs to go over that limit for evasive maneuvers or something?
I get it, people speed, but put the cameras up and just fine them. That’s all.
It says it allows the driver to temporarily override the speed restriction.
Authoritarian nonsense.
10mph over? Have they driven on CA freeways? The vast majority of traffic is moving at 15+ mph over.
This will cause traffic slow downs and more road rage.
One interesting about speeding in traffic. Often you’re rushing just to stop.
It’s been proven that if you cap the max speed in heavy traffic everyone gets through it faster. Less stop and go with merges and guesses.
Think of all the times someone sped up to prevent you from changing lanes? Or someone blocks you during a zipper merge.
Traffic wouldn’t suck as much if people didn’t suck. I can’t wait until a few decades from now we’ve got AI cars Managing it for us.
Since a lot of discussion is happening around how they’re going to implement this, and the article doesn’t go into the details, here’s more information: https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20240124-senator-wiener-introduces-groundbreaking-bills-slash-california-road-deaths-epidemic
In line with NTSB recommendations, SB 961 requires every passenger vehicle, truck, and bus manufactured or sold in the state to be equipped with speed governors that limits the vehicle’s speed based on the speed limit for the roadway segment. The maximum speed threshold over the speed limit for that segment that the speed governor may permit the vehicle to travel at is 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. SB 961 also permits the vehicle operator to temporarily override the speed governor function. SB 961’s speed governor requirement does not apply to emergency vehicles.
And if anyone really wants to dive into it, the actual text for the bill is here: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB961
Old cars for the win!
Yet another reason that old cars are looking better and better. We’ll be Cuba at some point.
I love old cars and trucks.
Has Scott Wiener ever driven on a freeway with clear traffic?
Isn’t that just going to cause accidents? For all the non regulated cars on the highway, what happens if you need to merge into a lane where the flow of traffic is faster than the speed limit? It doesn’t even have to be a highway, but lane changes in any city can have that problem I imagine.
I can only imagine going to pass and failing to do so in as timeless manner as needs to occur…
That would make passing so much more dangerous as people are in the other lane even longer.
This is a good idea if they only put it in public service government issue cars.
What about if it was some type of close range radio signal or passive transmitter that communicates to your car when speed limits change?
Then again, when I was in Germany the car I rented had the posted speed limit displayed on the digital gauges. Maybe a GPS system that brings up the speed data for the road you’re on.
OR, what about a visual camera system that limits the car to the posted signage?
My 7 year old Renault audibly complains if I exceed the posted speed limit.
It doesnt know about daily school schedules or roadworks speeds, nor does it physically slow my car down, but its still useful. Ive never had a speeding ticket in it. And I can turn the alert off if I want.
Seven isn’t that old, what have you done to it?
I’m currently in a rental that reads street signs and keeps the limit on the dash. Very handy for double-checking when you’re suddenly not going the same speed as traffic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic-sign_recognition
In my experience with them by Dodge is the speed is wrong often enough where it can be a problem.
Saying 25mph when it is 45mph is one thing, but the 45mph when it is 25mph is another. There are a few rural roads where it said 30mph when it was 55mph. I would see the speed on the dash and think it was an odd speed for the road and Waze said something other than the car, so I would be in this total state of not knowing to trust the car, myself, or Waze. Eventually I just started to ignore the car and use my experience and observations weighted against Waze.
If it were a perfect system, that’d be cool.
Hopefully they improve it, sounds useful.
So this reminds of this book I read called The Circle, in which everyone’s fascination with technology and tracking and data collecting slippery-sloped at breakneck speed into 1984, except any stranger with an internet connection became your Big Brother.
We have many other environmental ways to encourage people to drive slower, like narrower lanes, or those long thin rumble-strip-style speed bumps, or landscaping with greenery.
BTW, why is it so hard to get information off google on traffic calming studies for freeways? Everything is about urban or suburban areas, smh. When I use “freeways” in quotes, suddenly I get a whole bunch of irrelevant results about people trying to get over their fear of driving on the freeway. Wtf google.
I’m assuming the answer is yes but I’m gonna ask anyway just in case. Have you tried using highway or motorway instead of freeway?
Absolutely horrendous. And if I can hack it out or jailbreak it I would.
And on the flipside I doubt the system for enforcing it would be particularly safe. GPS locations can be spoofed and some kind of transmitter in the sign can be stolen and moved somewhere else if not replicated outright. All a bad actor would have to do to cause a pileup would be to suddenly turn a 60mph zone into a 20mph zone at an opportune moment.
How about also 50 km/h hard limit in city?
I am not a “muh freedom” guy, I don’t drive more than 10 over anyway. But this is just logistically a bad way to stop speeding.
Where does my car get the current speed limit information? How and when does it update as speed limits change? Will school systems around the country have to submit a list of which days are “school days” for school zone speed limits?
What if the GPS registers you on the 30mph road below or next to the 70mph highway, long term or even for a momentary glitch? Who is at fault if that causes you to be in an accident?
