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Comment by ttyyzz | Hacker News Reader

I come from Germany / Bavaria. I've been driving on the A8 autobahn between Stuttgart and Munich for many years.

About 2.5 years ago, the maximum speed of 120 was introduced in a 10 km long section near Augsburg, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There are some many exits in quick succession. It is generally very dangerous when people traveling at very high speeds (i.e. people who are just driving there) meet people who are traveling at very low speeds (i.e. people who are trying to get onto the motorway in slow cars or trucks).

There have been many accidents in the past. Since the speed was set at 120, there have been far fewer accidents on this section, and therefore fewer seriously injured / killed.

I generally observe a harmonization of traffic flow. And I'm less stuck in traffic!

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There is a conundrum that you see in the Netherlands:

make perfect, immaculate highways and people will start getting bored and floor the pedal because even 130 will seem slow. "I can easily drive faster here"

Not a problem in 1970 when barely any car could reach that speed but in a modern automobile you can zip along. So they had to fix this problem with speed cameras every few kilometres to keep people in check.

There is a solution which EU is actually implementing: automatic speed limiters in every car. Unfortunately the auto industry lobbies successfully to delay it and cripple it so instead of having it obligatory in every car 10 years ago we will have a crippled version of it in some cars (new ones) starting in a year. It's a start though. 20 more years and the problem will be solved.

> automatic speed limiters in every car.

this is literally the nightmare of every driver.

I'm a driver and would prefer that.

I drive to go from a to b and not to race.

I care more about not getting a fine than traveling as fast as possible

I am a driver to for some three decades or so and noticed when you watch the speedometer you generally don’t get fines.

I'm in Germany there are plenty of speed changes. Sometimes it's not always clear if I missed like a speedlimit cancelation or not.

Or they reduce from unlimited to 100, 80 and 60 in no time.

It's not a big issue but because I don't care for a hard limit it's for me a better deal

in general this is just a way for the state to collect money from drivers.

I think this is stupid and not true.

it’s not about racing. it’s about having the freedom to go fast if needed.

The single need to go fast (wtf?) Is not as important than the safety for everyone using a street.

For emergencies there are proper laws.

And no your taco bell getting cold is not a good reason

As long as it can be turned off when it malfunctions, why is it a nightmare? At least in the Netherlands, most people are going the speed limit or near it. Everyone stays to the right unless passing. In this case, it doesn’t sound like a nightmare.

Somewhere like the US or where people speed often, yeah, it sounds like this feature could get you killed. Like somewhere like Atlanta, you’d probably get rear ended fairly quickly driving the speed limit on the interstate.

so why would anyone need this tech if almost everyone already sticks to the limit?

Cognitive load. A lot of speed limits are dynamic or based on the time of day or dependent on what city you’re in. For example, a nearby street to my house is a short 30 zone but the sign isn’t obvious so a lot of people are accidentally going 50.

How are you going to get laid if you cant demonstrate your ability to go fast in a car to members of the opposite sex?

Absolutely not, I want to stick to the speed limit (or go slower, 100km/h is fine). It's much easier to do that if everyone else is forced to do it too.

you can do it yourself without a machine forcing you to do it.

The problem is that safe drivers are bullied by aggressive ones, and the lack of punishment means the aggressive drivers become more emboldened. I’ve seen accidents caused by this where the guy honking at someone until they went an unsafe speed or ran a light drove off unscathed.

If cars can’t go faster than the legal limit, driving would be much less stressful with lower congestion as a bonus.

There is no need for any car to go faster than 80 or 90 mph. The fuel efficiency at those speeds is terrible.

such a generalisation when we have a whole planet driving is a bit absurd.

When do cars need to go faster than 80mph?

What would you say is the average speed on every lane?

In my experience in the NL, the far right lane is held by people going under the speed limit (truckers, cautious drivers). But if it’s not being held, people move into it and pass as needed. If it’s busy, the second lane will be held by people going the speed limit and the third lane by people passing them. The fourth lane is usually open all the time except to pass people passing people. Speed cameras are usually based on “average speed” so you can “save up” speed by going slower than the speed limit for awhile.

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