Literally everything causes death.
The question is: will this prevent more deaths from speeding than it causes from mistaken slowdowns?
The question is: will this prevent more deaths from speeding than it causes from mistaken slowdowns?
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.
> 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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
Driving is a privilege. Hence why it needs training and a certificate.
If you're driving adjacent to or above/below a slower road, the technology needs to know that you're entitled to drive at the faster speed.
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).
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?
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.
Cars kill 40k+ people in the US each year, and speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes.
> Why does the Autobahn still not have speed limits on large parts of the road and why does this not cause massive problems?
It's designed for these speeds. Most speeding issues do not occur on highways, but on local roads.
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.
I don't know if you know this, but if a car kills someone else not in a car, they still die.
https://twitter.com/VisionZeroYVR/status/1650630980062052353
> Not quite. It's mostly lack of seatbelt usage.
I said "speed (really momentum) is a large factor in the lethality of crashes."
"For every 10 mph of increased speed, the risk of dying in a crash doubles." https://www.emcinsurance.com/losscontrol/insights-d/2020/08/...
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.
The people you hit with the cars like pedestrians doesn't have this, they get saved by reduced speeds.
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?
Speeding causes as many deaths in the U.S. as drunk driving does. But people like to speed, so there isn't the political will to deal with it.