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Comment by PostOnce | Hacker News Reader

I don't want Volvo, or a computer, or a mechanical system to kill my family because it didn't account for an edge case.

Everyone here is talking about normal highway use, but, as everyone knows, not all situations are normal. Bad things happen.

My imagination is limited, but for example: Fires can spread quickly and surround you (e.g. a valley with one road out), a tsunami can happen with only a couple of minutes warning, some hospital trips can't wait for an ambulance, sometimes people try to kill you (jealous ex? opposing political group or religion in some countries, who knows what the future holds).

So, die in a fire I guess, it's for your own safety.

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So do we allow someone who is reckless to go 150mph and kill your family on the highway while we wait to account for all the edge cases? I think you have to assign a probability to each event and then in sum decide which ones you want to handle/not handle.

I've never once driven above 112mph in my life so far. Outside of fun, I've never even gotten close.

I find this argument rediculous.

We should not allow a huge negative behaviour every single day, just on the off chance that there’s a possibility it would restrict us in a very unusual event.

Hundreds of people should die because maybe we can save a few?

Makes no sense.

How many auto fatalities are a result of people driving 150? Almost none, I'd wager. So then is my argument still ridiculous?

Freedom has value. Just because we can force some people to do some things more safely in some cases doesn't mean we should always do it. Otherwise, we can just outlaw cars entirely and force everyone to only go places where rails take them at government-approved speeds.

Fortunately, somebody has actually studied this and has found that yes, speed does matter:

"In Rheinland-Pfalz, a 130 km speed limit was also introduced on a 167km section of the A61 in 1991 and has been retained since then. This measure was combined with a ban on overtaking for heavy good vehicles. The impact of these two measures was a 30% reduction in fatal and severe injury accidents (comparing one year after and one year before their introduction – Rheinland-Pfalz Ministry of Transport)."

https://etsc.eu/wp-content/uploads/Speed_Fact_Sheet_1.pdf

1] I'm not opposed to speed limits, I'm opposed to the car enforcing them even when there is an exceptional case it's unaware of.

2] You can drive super dangerous without driving super fast

3] Almost no one drives super fast

4] The same pdf also says the death rate is exactly the same on roads without speed limits as those with speed limits... but I assume we're going to ignore that part and other contradictory studies to drive your point home?

i.e. 67% of roads have no permanent limit, 67% of deaths occur there...

And then you'll say "yes but that doesn't take into account the traffic volume on those stretches of road"

and I'll point to something else, and it'll get old, and you don't appear interested in considering other viewpoints anyway.

  Fires can spread quickly and surround you

In a wildfire situation, you won't have the forward visibility to drive that fast. You'd rear-end the first car you caught up to.

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