This system may govern speed laws, but:
IMHO braking the law does not create accidents,
driving too fast for given conditions does!
No system can govern that. Unless everything
is slowed to worst case all the time:
English fog with freezing rain and black ice on an august day
in San Diego.
Maximum speed: 3 mpH
What's the programmed speed limit
for Candlestick parking lot? Will the public
be allowed to park their SUV's with wide open throttle
in 2nd gear on a 49'ers weekend or will we
autox at 5 mpH ?
"Au H. Nguyen" 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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