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Comment by ermir | Hacker News Reader

Next step: have a speed tracker on the car that will report speeding straight to the cops, no need for them to see you with a radar or anything like that.

In general there's lots of politicians and "administrators" who salivate at tech like this that constrain people and make them manageable. I find these attempts very undignified and totalitarian.

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You're operating fast moving heavy machinery in a public space, an activity that kills thousands each year. If you want freedom then do it elsewhere.

> If you want freedom then do it elsewhere.

EU in a nutshell.

Well, why not have alcohol breath sensors in all cars? Why not have the car not start at all without the seatbelts being in place, and not just have the annoying alarm? Why not have the car stop going over 20 km/h if it's unregistered?

Overall limiting cars to a maximum of 160 km/h seems like a good idea. Apart from some stretches of the Autobahn - there's not much reason cars should go that fast.

Less reason for them to accelerate like they do. 0-100 km/h in 5 seconds will kill people in a city if you do it by accident, which already happens.

Cars these days can accelerate to 100 in < 2 seconds. Imho acceleration should also be limited. There’s absolutely no reason for that in cities.

some exotic cars do, but I was thinking of cars popular with young men who cause senseless accidents by treating cities roads as race tracks. A BMW 3-series is popular with them and is about 5 seconds 0-100.

Tbh, I was thinking of SUVs and middle-aged men as they have access to high performing tanks — my father being one of them.

I had an old bmw 320d; it did about 9s; and I think that was too much.

You are almost right with your thinking expect those SUV owners are often also dad and thus the sons have access to far too powerful cars.

I live in a small street, and at the crossing to the next big street, it's very hard to see the traffic from one of the sides.

The only thing I can really do is creep forward until I get a glimpse into the traffic, and if it's clear, accelerate the hell out of it.

So, at least for the first, let's say 30 to 50km/h, I'm very glad of the high torque and acceleration of my hybrid card.

I'd be fine with a hard speed limit though. I'd be fine with limiting the Autobahn to 130km/h.

I’d argue that we should be limiting acceleration as well.

I see no reason why a 2 tonne car should accelerate to 100km in less than 5 seconds, but here we are.

5 seconds is still too quick in my eyes, the current VW Golf can do this, the Mark 1 took 9 seconds. Why would you need this as a default? If it's an option that you have to toggle and it comes with a visible sign and the data tracker kicking in, that'd be okay.

Limiting acceleration could be dangerous: you need it when overtaking slower vehicles (not necessary cars, it can be a tractor in rural areas).

>Overall limiting cars to a maximum of 160 km/h seems like a good idea.

Ridiculous. People use cars for things besides going from A to B. In Germany significant parts of the streets are without speed limit and you can easily go 200km/h+.

Of the streets? No

Of the Autobahn? Yes. All of it? No

The speed limiter is enough, I'm sure that insurance companies will soon offer discounts if you submit those speed logs in case of accidents or in general with live-speed-tracking.

The problem though remains: Too much horse power and it's particularly sad with young men not being in full control of those cars causing accidents of all sort. Here's a recent interview with a public prosecutor in Germany: https://archive.is/20240703123415/https://www.sueddeutsche.d...

You haven't read the article.

Sure I have, my objection is on the greater tendency for legislators to use technological means to constrain ordinary behavior. Today is a speed limiter, tomorrow is a embedded car snitch, or an automatic hate speech detector, or whatever else you can think of.

They understood this in the 90s, why not today? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4HEEiJuGo

This whole system seems set up like nagware. Having the car distract the motorist with alerts while driving will surely increase risks of accidents, as will the anger induced by the frustration of knowing that a machine is fighting him instead of working for him.

Everyone except the managers hates micromanaging for good reason, it treats me like an idiot who cannot be trusted to make his own calls. And I know better than some remote manager the best choice to make in a given situation - especially while operating high speed machinery. There have been more than a few times on the road that flooring it was safer than slowing down.

Absolute trash idea - even worse than Auto Idle Stop, I will ensure it is removed from any future car I purchase.

Your argument works fine until you remember that distraction, in the form of smartphone-usage during the drive, has risen to one of the top three causes of road accidents.

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