Culturally, this would go down like a lead balloon in
the UK - Singapore or Switzerland would be better
targets. There is a lot less effort/interest in speed
limit enforcement than the U.S. Where the UK does
have problems is city-speeding - people zipping around
narrow roads and killing pedestrians in densely
populated urban areas.
In high congestion areas (like 101 anytime!) we might
benefit from speed equalization via such devices.
Think of a virtual train of cars all GPS at 50mph -
better than a 5mph crawl?
Now watch out if GEICO gets a hold of this idea ... "a
10% discount for installing big brother in your car"
Craig
--- "Au H. Nguyen" <aunguyen@cisco.com> wrote:
> ... the Brits are proposing that new cars should
> have
> speed limiters which use input from GPS receivers
> and CD-ROM maps.
>
> Au
>
>
>
http://www.drive.com.au/news/default.asp?section=news&page=http://drive.fairfax.com.au/content/20000211/news/news2.html
>
>
>
> Now it's satellites to stop you
> speeding
> First Published: The Sydney Morning Herald
> Friday, February 11, 2000
>
> There are serious
> moves in
> Britain and
> Australia to use
> spy-in-the-sky
> technology to
> make speeding
> impossible.
> Bob Jennings reports
> on the
> end of the speeding
> ticket.
>
> Road traffic
> authorities in
> Australia are
> closely examining
> the results of tests
> on
> satellite-controlled
> electronic
> speed limiters which
> could be
> fitted to all cars
> in the UK within
> 10 years.
>
> And similar schemes
> are on test
> in the Netherlands
> and Sweden.
>
> But, according to a report to the UK's Transport
> Secretary John Prescott,
> the results of the three-year investigation into
> the feasibility of installing
> "intelligent speed adaptation" would present the
> Government with its
> biggest hot potato in transport policy since the
> arguments over the
> introduction of seatbelts.
>
> Safety campaigners in the UK maintain that fitting
> the devices to all private
> cars would save two-thirds of the 3,500 deaths
> caused on the roads every
> year and reduce by a third the annual total of
> 320,000 accident injuries.
>
> The report claims that the devices, which use
> Global Positioning System
> satellites to pinpoint the exact locations of
> cars, would virtually eliminate
> speeding.
>
> This is being viewed with interest by authorities
> in Australia, where the
> irony is that it would mean the sacrifice of huge
> revenues from speed
> cameras; in NSW alone last year, revenue from
> speed cameras was $25.4
> million.
>
> According to Lachlan McIntosh, president of
> Intelligent Road Systems
> Australia, there are other options on the speed
> limiters in addition to
> control by the satellites used for GPS in-car
> navigation systems.
>
> These included a system in which the limiter could
> be set by the motorist
> in the car, much in the manner of speed warning
> devices such as those
> already found in cars such as the Commodore. Other
> versions could be
> activated by roadside beacons which triggered the
> speed limiter by
> microwave link.
>
> "Yes, in Australia we are very aware of these
> trials - in fact I have driven a
> car in the Netherlands with one of the devices,"
> Mr McIntosh said.
>
> "There is a potential for trials to be conducted
> in Australia and the Traffic
> Accident Commission in Victoria is monitoring it
> very closely. However,
> the implementation of such devices would be
> another matter altogether; it
> would require us to look very carefully at the
> implications."
>
> The UK system uses the combination of a satellite
> navigation system to
> pinpoint the location of each vehicle, an in-car
> computer loaded with a
> digital road map encoded with the speed limits for
> each street in the
> country, and a device to slow the car if the speed
> restrictions are
> breached.
>
> The system involves careful mapping of the speed
> limits in any given area,
> and linking this information to the in-car
> satellite mapping systems which
> are already widely used in Australia and overseas.
>
> The black box monitors speed, and if the car
> attempts to break the speed
> limit for the area, the vehicle's pace is
> immediately reduced by engine and
> braking controls, much in the way that engine
> rev-limiters and anti-lock
> brakes are operated.
>
> In the UK, a report to the Government by a team
> from Leeds University
> and the Motor Industry Research Association has
> already recommended
> fitting the devices to cars to eliminate speeding,
> and it wants the devices
> phased in within a decade.
>
> The report claims that extensive trials have been
> so successful that a
> phased program introducing a new generation of
> vehicle speed governors
> in the UK would dramatically reduce traffic
> congestion, cut road accidents
> and save lives.
>
> Although the equipment would initially cost around
> $500 it would be likely
> to get cheaper in future.
>
> The final report is expected to recommend that the
> system remain
> voluntary for existing cars but be required on all
> new cars by 2005,
> becoming mandatory once sufficient adapted
> vehicles were on the road -
> perhaps by as early as 2010.
>
> The report will claim that positive benefits would
> start to flow from the
> system once 60 percent of vehicles were fitted
> with it, since that would
> have the effect of slowing down the overall speed
> of traffic.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Copyright 1999 John Fairfax Holdings
> Ltd.
> All rights reserved
>
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