This is terrifying. I routinely cross a bridge with a 30ton weight limit, which my car mistakes for a 30km/h speed limit sign. I would cause an average of 2 accidents per month if I suddenly slowed from 70 to 30 and the people behind me weren't paying attention.
The technology is _not_ there and this won't save lives, potentially it will cause deaths.
(Yes I read the article, this is initially only "for the driver's information" and not (yet) a hard limit.... but it's the first step in a very wrong direction)
>There will be four ways in which ISA systems will work to slow the vehicle down, and it will be up to the manufacturers to pick which one they want to use. The EU regulations permit a system that can use a cascaded acoustic warning, a cascaded vibrating warning, an accelerator pedal with haptic feedback, or a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced.
> The question is: will this prevent more deaths [than the alternative]
I hate that question. It's pure utilitarianism and is used all the time to rationalize removing/limiting freedoms in exchange for safety and security. Deaths prevented should not be the ultimate metric unless a totalitarian police state that keeps everyone perfectly safe at all times is the desired end goal.
In this case I would rather have the freedom to intentionally speed (because I need to get my wife to the hospital more quickly, because I'm in the middle of nowhere and want to, or any other reason I deem rational) than be marginally more "safe" thanks to my vehicle nannying me.
The limit of freedom is generally agreed to be "one person's freedom ends when it begins to infringe the freedom of others". Speeding definitely crosses that line.
> In this case I would rather have the freedom to intentionally speed (because I need to get my wife to the hospital more quickly, because I'm in the middle of nowhere and want to, or any other reason I deem rational) than be marginally more "safe" thanks to my vehicle nannying me.
It's not you that your vehicle is keeping safe. It's the other people you put at risk with your decision to speed. Your actions affect other people.
"Because you need to get your wife to the hospital more quickly" is not a good reason to speed. I'm a first responder, and one of the things they teach you in the cert class is to not make more patients. There are numerous examples of people making bad situations worse by taking risks that don't meaningful improve their patient's chances.
And the reality is, people who try to justify speeding, mostly just speed because they're impatient. The "taking wife to hospital" hypothetical is rare and even in the rare cases where it happens, speeding isn't helpful.
> The limit of freedom is generally agreed to be "one person's freedom ends when it begins to infringe the freedom of others". Speeding definitely crosses that line.
The reason I'm not free to assault others is because I'm directly causing them to lose their right to life and/or well-being. Whereas speeding merely creates a risk of harm, not harm itself.
Almost anything could be argued to create a risk of harm to others, including driving itself. If we outlawed driving, we would certainly be saving a lot of lives. But we don't, so clearly there is more at play here than the mere fact of creating risk for another human being.
So I think your wholesale dismissal of the argument for personal freedom and judgment, on the basis of infringement of other's rights, does not really hold up to practical scrutiny.
> The reason I'm not free to assault others is because I'm directly causing them to lose their right to life and/or well-being. Whereas speeding merely creates a risk of harm, not harm itself.
And speeding is illegal. So it seems we as a society have agreed this is not a violation of personal freedoms.
Your argument here is really "speeding is okay and speeding creates risk to others, therefore I should be able to create risk to others"? Do you see how maybe that doesn't work here? Let's start with: "speeding is okay" isn't in evidence. That's the thing you're trying to prove, so you can't just start by saying it's true.
> Almost anything could be argued to create a risk of harm to others, including driving itself. If we outlawed driving, we would certainly be saving a lot of lives.
This isn't an honest argument. Obviously there's some tradeoffs involved, which you know.
> And speeding is illegal. So it seems we as a society have agreed this is not a violation of personal freedoms.
Correct. And nobody in this thread is arguing that speeding should not be illegal.
> Your argument here is really "speeding is okay and speeding creates risk to others, therefore I should be able to create risk to others"?
Nope. Never said anything of the sort. You're again straying from the actual topic at hand, which is, specifically, my car automatically forcing me to drive a certain speed.
> This isn't an honest argument. Obviously there's some tradeoffs involved, which you know.
It wasn't an argument at all. It was a statement, taken out of context. The context being that you can't dismiss the argument of personal freedom purely on the basis that someone is creating risk for others.
The concept that a driver would sometimes be given the freedom to surpass the speed limit, when they judge it necessary, is not even particularly controversial. Police use broad discretion to not enforce speed limits to the letter of the law. In fact many states have laws that crack down on police departments staging "speed traps" to generate speeding ticket revenue. Which is society's way of saying that, yes, speeding is illegal, but that illegality isn't meant to be a lever for government oppression.
> The context being that you can't dismiss the argument of personal freedom purely on the basis that someone is creating risk for others.
You can, in fact, dismiss the argument of personal freedom purely on the basis that someone is creating a life and death risk for others, though. You've presented no cogent argument otherwise.
> The concept that a driver would sometimes be given the freedom to surpass the speed limit, when they judge it necessary, is not even particularly controversial.
We're in the middle of a controversy on this topic, therefore it is in fact controversial. QED.
> Police use broad discretion to not enforce speed limits to the letter of the law.
Yes, and that is clearly an abuse of power--one of many police abuses of power that our society is struggling to curb. Is that really the argument you want to be making?
> In fact many states have laws that crack down on police departments staging "speed traps" to generate speeding ticket revenue.
Yes: and why is that? Is it because they think police should have discretion to not enforce the letter of the law? How on earth does that follow?
> Which is society's way of saying that, yes, speeding is illegal, but that illegality isn't meant to be a lever for government oppression.
Alternative explanation: this is society's way of saying that, yes, speeding is illegal, but road infrastructure should be designed to make the law useful and possible to follow.
The "no speed traps" laws I'm aware of are focused on a) giving drivers signage that adequately indicates a change in speed limit in advance to give drivers a chance to adjust their speed, and b) removing police perverse incentives to enforce the law in ways that don't achieve its purpose. These laws address very specific problems that have nothing to do with your vague "lever for government oppression" idea.
Be honest with yourself: you've experienced having the ability to speed "at your discretion" if you've driven a car, because cars currently don't have speed limiters. Have you ever, even once used that discretion to speed for a good reason? Or are you just grasping at straws to justify why you should be allowed to put other people's lives in danger because you're impatient?
You're again straying from the topic, to instead go ad hominem and score rhetorical points against a strawman who simply enjoys speeding and doesn't want the government to stop him.
As a reminder, I'm not arguing speeding should be legal. I'm arguing that mandating speed limiters in cars is not a good solution. And the onus would be on the one arguing for the institution of such a regulation to justify it, which you have not done.
> You can, in fact, dismiss the argument of personal freedom purely on the basis that someone is creating a life and death risk for others, though.
You're contradicting yourself now. Whatever happened to "obviously there's some tradeoffs involved" in the case of banning driving? Either creating risk for others alone is sufficient justification for the removal of a freedom, or it isn't. Obviously the degree of risk created is not the criteria either, since, as we've already covered, banning driving would save 100x more lives than speed limiters would. So obviously there are more factors involved in the decision than just the creation of risk, nor the amount or degree of risk.
Therefore, no, "creating a life and death risk for others" alone is not a sufficient argument. While I do agree that it is one factor involved, it is not the sole factor. You have to also consider the cost of the solution, the real-world measurable benefits of the solution, inefficiencies and inaccuracies of the solution (e.g. missing or defaced signage, signage read incorrectly), the risk that the solution itself creates (e.g. a car is being followed closely. Now when the speed limit changes, slowing down automatically, rather than at the driver's own discretion, creates risk for this driver) and many other factors.
(This EU law, specifically, is merely a "soft" approach, since many of the mandated options aren't actually speed limiters, they are simply warnings to the driver. I'm specifically arguing against a "hard" approach where cars limit their own speed.)
The rest of your post is focused on a point I made about how society (in general, at least where I live - I don't know where you live and I obviously can't speak for you personally) already does not view speeding as something that could reasonably be enforced by mechanical limiter (since there are many situations where drivers facing unusual or extenuating circumstances are given leniency by cops and judges, and society tends to view this favorably, and tends to view harsh enforcement very unfavorably. This stands in contrast to the treatment and attitude toward most other crimes, where no excuse or extenuating circumstance tends to warrant leniency, unless the person literally had no other choice.) If you disagree with society on that point, then that's something you should take up with society. Regardless, it was a tangential point. (It was only worth mentioning because, society are the ones who elect the lawmakers at the end of the day. So they are ultimately the benchmark of whether a given legal doctrine is considered controversial or not.)
> As a reminder, I'm not arguing speeding should be legal. I'm arguing that mandating speed limiters in cars is not a good solution. And the onus would be on the one arguing for the institution of such a regulation to justify it, which you have not done.
I would think that the reason for having speed limiters is fairly obvious: people don't follow speed limits, law enforcement is ineffective and unequally applied, and the result is that car accidents are the number 1 killer of people under 40 in the US. If mass death isn't enough justification for you, I don't know what will be.
And to be specific: this is the only solution on the table which has a real chance of changing the above.
> Whatever happened to "obviously there's some tradeoffs involved" in the case of banning driving?
This is absurd. Banning driving clearly has massive negative effects which far outstrip the risks to others which driving causes. You know this.
> Either creating risk for others alone is sufficient justification for the removal of a freedom, or it isn't.
Alone, it is.
But in the case of banning driving completely, it's not alone, there are other factors. Which you know.
There aren't other issues present with speeding. There literally is no reason to speed.
Stop trying to present this as a black and white issue: the world is full of shades of grey and nuance.
> You have to also consider the cost of the solution, the real-world measurable benefits of the solution, inefficiencies and inaccuracies of the solution (e.g. missing or defaced signage, signage read incorrectly), the risk that the solution itself creates (e.g. a car is being followed closely. Now when the speed limit changes, slowing down automatically, rather than at the driver's own discretion, creates risk for this driver) and many other factors.
Cost of the solution: cheaper than the medical cost of treating millions of car accident injuries, the cost of road cleanup, etc., probably. And that's just in terms of dollars: surely we can agree that human life has some non-monetary value.
Real world measurable benefits: fewer speeding deaths, less inequitable police enforcement of speeding laws, less cost.
Inefficiencies and inaccuracies: you seem to be dismissing speed limiters outright without actually picking a solution so that you can wave your hands about inefficiencies and inaccuracies of a solution which isn't actually specific enough for anyone to tell you what the inefficiencies and inaccuracies of the solution is. It seems you're aware that the issues you bring up such as missing and defaced signage, are already addressed in the proposed legislation, so what solution are you actually objecting to?
Consider the following speed limiter solution: in the US, the highest speed limits I'm aware of are 80mph, and most states max out at 70mph. Would you be opposed to a governor which simply prevents cars from driving faster than 80mph? What are the inefficiencies and inaccuracies of not being able to drag race with factory cars on public highways?
> The rest of your post is focused on a point I made about how society (in general, at least where I live - I don't know where you live and I obviously can't speak for you personally) already does not view speeding as something that could reasonably be enforced by mechanical limiter (since there are many situations where drivers facing unusual or extenuating circumstances are given leniency by cops and judges, and society tends to view this favorably, and tends to view harsh enforcement very unfavorably. This stands in contrast to the treatment and attitude toward most other crimes, where no excuse or extenuating circumstance tends to warrant leniency, unless the person literally had no other choice.) If you disagree with society on that point, then that's something you should take up with society. Regardless, it was a tangential point. (It was only worth mentioning because, society are the ones who elect the lawmakers at the end of the day. So they are ultimately the benchmark of whether a given legal doctrine is considered controversial or not.)
Yeah, that's because societal opinion on whether this could be enforced by a mechanical limiter is not in evidence. You're claiming society backs you up on this, which is simply not proven. Your examples of anti-speed-trap legislation are practically unrelated non sequiturs which assume a nonsensical motivation for those laws.
I completely agree let’s just frame this as my freedom not to be mown down by speeding distracted drivers and be done with it. If you want to speed, pay for a track day.
I used the ACC with automatic speed recognition for about two months but it did too many stupid brakings. I think using GPS to limit to the highest possible speed for highway/roads/city would be fine. But as long as the car can decide that on this highway it really thinks the 40 sign is for the main lane and not the off ramp, I would rather not have it
I guess you are right it is the same problem really. Where I live you could at least limit it to 80km/h in the city limits since there is no higher limit anywhere. But more granular limits might be hard
I wonder how long we can ignore the natural human tendancy to need blame / attribution.
The way I think about it is: If, in the limiting case, we replace all driver mistakes with software mistakes, and there's 1/2 as many deaths from these mistakes, but they are uniformly distributed, I am honestly not sure how acceptable this would be to the public. It's like sacrificing people randomly to disallow dangerous drivers from causing accidents, even when those accidents would probably have disproportionately affected those very same dangerous drivers (and anyone nearby).
As a safe driver, I am comfortable with this tradeoff. I estimate the chance of me getting killed/maimed by some other speeding/dangerous driver is much greater than getting killed/maimed by a software error.
OK, makes sense if you believe the chances are much different. I'm wondering at what point do we breakeven? 1/2 the chance? 1/4 the chance? 90% the chance?
In fact, as a (ostensibly) safe driver, your odds of dying from software-related random choice might even be higher than from dangerous driving today. How many lives would you be willing to save to take on that extra risk to yourself?
Is the category of "deaths from speeding" large enough to justify any action whatsoever? Are "deaths from speeding" typically single vehicle or multiple vehicle accidents? Why does the Autobahn still not have speed limits on large parts of the road and why does this not cause massive problems?
> Why does the Autobahn still not have speed limits on large parts of the road and why does this not cause massive problems?
That's a bit like asking "Why are guns freely available in the US and why does this not cause massive problems?"
Not having speed limits on the Autobahn does cause problems. Accident numbers are fine because of good road design and good driver education, but every study says that introducing a speed limit would make the situation even better. But people like their freedoms, and powerful lobbies are against the limit.
Not quite. 8k of those are motorcycles. 8k are pedestrians. Half of those are drivers who had drugs or alcohol in their system. One quarter are male drivers under 25. Most fatalities happen at night.
> and speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes.
Not quite. It's mostly lack of seatbelt usage.
> Most speeding issues do not occur on highways, but on local roads.
Not quite. It's about 50/50.
To add to all of this, more people die on Texas roads than California roads. Not per capita, but TOTAL. California has 10m more people in it than Texas. This alone should give pause.
> but if a car kills someone else not in a car, they still die.
I don't know if you know this, but sometimes pedestrians die due to bad road design or walking on unlit highways at night. Just because a car was involved does not mean the car was the primary reason the death occurred or that speed had any hand in the fatality.
> "speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes."
Except we have safety systems which are designed to ameliorate this. If you don't use them, that's when the _fatalities_ occur, as opposed to just _injuries_.
> "For every 10 mph of increased speed, the risk of dying in a crash doubles."
"Risk of dying in a crash" is a nonsense statistical statement. Crashes are not identical. "For every 10mph of increased _sudden deceleration_" you might be able to make the case for, and it highlights the exact issue with single minded focus on speed.
You could increase the safety factor by much wider margins if you just focused on the _other problems_ first.
> Except we have safety systems which are designed to ameliorate this. If you don't use them, that's when the _fatalities_ occur, as opposed to just _injuries_.
The people you hit with the cars like pedestrians doesn't have this, they get saved by reduced speeds.
> Cars kill 40k+ people in the US each year, and speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes.
But what actually causes crashes?
Speed alone does not cause crashes
It's reckless driving, distracted driving, poor driver training, drunk or otherwise inebriated driving, poor road design, drivers suffering medical emergencies behind the wheel, etc
Why so much focus on fixing speeding and so little on training people to be better and more responsible drivers? Or removing terrible drivers from the road?
>It still turns you into a road hazard and puts you in a dangerous situation
How do you know?
You make assumptions about a system, that doesn't even is put in place. No car manufacture will use the forth way and risks getting sued if it doesn't work good enough.
> How do you know? You make assumptions about a system, that doesn't even is put in place
It seems obvious that any situation that unexpectedly decreases a driver's control over their vehicle creates a hazard and becomes dangerous
This is true with any situation regardless of if the loss of control is caused by hydroplaning, slipping on black ice, an unexpected flat tire, or a speed limiting system misreading a road sign and reducing your maximum speed lower than the traffic around you
Depends on the degree of speed change. It is unlikely that it would be an emergency stop.
The systems can also be deactivated, at least until the next time the vehicle is started.
There's a tunnel in my town where my Tesla hard breaks 3 separate places if I'm on cruise control / auto pilot. If this legislation will force this to happen even outside of auto pilot it will be "great" for sure...
If cars are required by law to have speed limiting, that means they can know when and where a car is speeding. Cars are closely tied to their owners in many ways (registration, insurance, etc.). One way this could be seen as being a step in the wrong direction is that it not only sets a precedent for collecting that information, but is forcing car manufacturers to start building up that ability.
I personally think it's pretty obvious why people might not want an entity (public governments, or private companies) to have access to that kind of information. You might say well that's all easily mitigated by encrypting the data or making tracking individuals illegal, to which I would ask: what gives you any confidence that the EU (or any government) would enforce/protect that, when there's evidence they are actively anti-encryption and pro-snooping in other domains?
If you need to be walked through the reasoning behind why it might be a bad idea to ~allow~ require these systems to be built, idk what to tell you lol
> that means they can know when and where a car is speeding
These systems don't require reporting data back, and there is no technical reason for them to do so. In fact, nothing in the legislation suggests this.
> it not only sets a precedent for collecting that information, but is forcing car manufacturers to start building up that ability.
Not only have states and cities started doing this, via ALPR, but cars are increasingly being provisioned with cell modems, and have truly awful privacy policies. Manufacturers view this information as a revenue stream.
So, not only does the "possible" situation you describe already exist, but the worst of it is non-state incentivized data collection from car makers. Both of those are (serious, imo) problems, but already exist, and are independent of speed alerting.
I said that they can know this data, not that they will... Not requiring data reporting doesn't mean that the data won't be reported, as you seem to be already aware of.
I am also in no way in support of the things you're referencing, just because they already exist doesn't mean it's just OK to accept further erosion of privacy. ALPR, cars with cell modems - these things are part of the same "slippery slope" of privacy wrt cars. As far as I can tell, you're saying "what you're worried about is already happening, so why bother being concerned about it getting worse?". How exactly is that helpful?
So maybe you're right, this isn't a "bad first step" - because it's actually the continuation of steps along a path that was no good form the start.
The point still stands that having the government get involved, making it a legal requirement for new cars to develop these bad systems, is a bad thing for individual privacy. It's not independent of requiring speed alerting, because the government is effectively saying "not only do we not care that this is happening, we're now requiring it".
> As far as I can tell, you're saying "what you're worried about is already happening, so why bother being concerned about it getting worse?".
I called them "serious problems". I don't know how you extrapolated "why bother being concerned" from "serious problems".
And my point still stands that the situation you described, is, incredibly, not only not based in reality, but also simultaneously exists through other means.
There are, of course, reasons to oppose something like this - but, the reasons you're choosing to oppose this are moot, in every feasible way.
The concern I'm raising is that this legislation opens the door for further reductions in the privacy of location. In what way is that concern not based in reality?
Apparently you didn't. The most proactive method is "a speed control function in which the speed of the vehicle will be gradually reduced", and "the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper", so your hyperbolic reaction is overwrought.
There are pretty easy examples of decreasing regulations, both in the US and in Europe. The US is particularly easy to come up with examples: the supreme court has banished many regulations, reverting to more laissez faire states, whether related to gun control, campaign finances, TV broadcast rules, rules on marriage, the scope of CDC's or EPA's power, etc. The tax system gets simplified every few decades, after it accumulates cruft.
Gun control has gotten looser on state level. Federal seems to get worse every couple decades. It started with the NFA, then the GCA, then the hughes amendment. Finally everything became a felony so they just disarmed undesirable people and races that way.
Except for the things that most affect common Americans. Like how most housing has onerous zoning and code requirements, banking has kyc/AML and reporting, OSHA controls our work conditions, kids families can be investigated for practicing age appropriate child independence, and family law now often essentially makes the higher earner a slave on a short leash to jail if their spouse divorces them.
Government regulation is constantly decreased. Weed is now legal in most US states for recreational use (I think; at any rate, many of them). The recent US Supreme Court Chevron decision will, for better or worse, probably lead to significant deregulation.
Weed is illegal everywhere in the US by federal law and defacto illegal by state law in most 'legal' states if you are anything other than a homeless bum, as driving a car with metabolites or owning a gun (or just living in same house) as a user are both crimes.
Yea, yea, people are going to get into accidents and maybe die, but think about all the shareholder value that will be created by companies as they try to make these systems barely work and sell them to car manufacturers who are mandated to buy them! Won't someone please think of the shareholder value for a change?
EDIT: Jeez, nobody gets sarcasm unless you end your post with /s
Presumably GPS data and a database of speed limits. The bridge to my neighborhood was closed for two years. It took Lyft over three months to notice it reopened. Why should we trust the speed limit databases?
Which, IMO, is one of the reasons why I think speed-limit based speed limiters are a poor idea now. (I didn't mention much in my other post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919908)
Personally, I think this (speed-limit aware speed limiters) are going to trigger Congress to either fast-track legislation to disable them. Specifically, once the general public is aware of what's going on, they will stop buying new cars and car manufacturers will push on Congress.
I also think the legislation was written by someone who is very naive about engineering. What I remember is they tolerate a 10% error rate. If 10% of the cars are going too slow during rush hour, it's just going to create a major traffic jam.
GPS plus mapping/routing software with some idea of how roads connect would get you a long way though. Even Strava and similar apps do this for trails which are close but not connected.
Awesome, so in addition to confusing aircraft and sending them in the wrong directions, Putin can also stop everyone from driving in Europe whenever he feels like it.
This is the fallacy of the slippery slope. The regulation is not necessarily a first step. It can and might very well stop at the driver alert stage. To become an automatic speed limiter would be a new set of regulations, with a new debate and regulatory process behind it.
At some point along the way any use of a slippery slope became a fallacy on HN, and I'm at a loss to explain how.
Would it be more helpful to talk about it in terms of set points? You can change things a very small amount from the status quo without making people upset. Accepting a change in one direction makes it easier for them to later swallow what would have been more drastic changes in that direction.
Obviously this is a fallacy if change A isn't actually a step towards change B, but surely you can see that having accepted already installed speed limiters in all cars makes it dramatically more likely that they'll later be required to actually limit the speed of the car?
The technology is _not_ there and this won't save lives, potentially it will cause deaths.
(Yes I read the article, this is initially only "for the driver's information" and not (yet) a hard limit.... but it's the first step in a very wrong direction)