New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous | Hacker News Reader

New anti-speeding system coming to Australia is dangerous

carexpert.com.au

I have one of the cars with this system and I believe it is dangerous, as the car is beeping for your attention, it causes regular split second distractions from your situational awareness. The main issue is that these aren’t the only beeps the car does, it has many other beeps, including one for when it notices the speed limit has changed. So you have to spend some mental power figuring out which beep you’re getting. It’s very distracting. Not to mention the fact that the system is wrong just as often as it is right. It often mistakes speed bump speeds for whole street speeds and beeps at you for not going 20 the full length of the street. It also has about 33% accuracy with school zones. Sometimes it knows it’s a school zone but mostly it will beep if you go over 40 in a school zone even at times when the limit is not 40. I do think it is a dangerous system as it aggressively draws your attention away from the road. Also for what it’s worth I’m actually on the slightly slow side of driving! I don’t push the limit, and this system is still an issue.

My car is from before this time but I've driven a few rentals with these features and it is absolutely terrible. Feels like you're driving a theme park ride, with all that flashing and beeping.

What's also terrible is how they're constantly correcting the steering wheel because of invariably incorrect lane detection and one car would even happily overcorrect but then steer me right over the opposite line because it would never correct its own manoeuvres.

I will never buy a car like this and I will happily drive second hand vehicles instead.

No way. Car manufacturers just suck at software, always have and always will, and these systems make everything worse and less safe.

I've had that problem, especially in construction areas temporarily routing around the painted lines. Kinda scary when you feel the wheel veer you into oncoming traffic.

You can drive without lane assist in most cases. Many models require you to explicitly turn it on each time you want to use it (like cruise control).

I'm in Europe, so no, it's mandatory that it is on and impossible to disable for new models.

Care to explain what you mean with "mandatory" and "impossible"? I just bought a new car after test driving a few, all hybrids so no vintage, and in NONE of them it was mandatory on, and also could be enabled and disabled at will - I tried that feature too.

I think what they mean is that the features re-enable themselves every time they start the car. In the EU these features, and that behavior, have been mandatory for all vehicles released since 2022.

    4.   Advanced emergency braking systems and emergency lane-keeping systems shall meet the following requirements in particular:
    
    (a) it shall only be possible to switch off such systems one at a time by a sequence of actions to be carried out by the driver;
    (b) the systems shall be in normal operation mode upon each activation of the vehicle master control switch;
    (c) it shall be possible to easily suppress audible warnings, but such action shall not at the same time suppress system functions other than audible warnings;
    (d) it shall be possible for the driver to override such systems.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32...

That sounds horrid.

Adding my own anecdote, I recently drove a rental Camry that had a speed limit detection system out in the middle of Alaska. It didn't do much if I went over, and I was surprised at how often it seemed to detect the right speed limit, but there were obvious errors, and no awareness of construction zones.

Makes me wonder if folks in the future will troll these systems with t-shirts and bumper stickers of 5, 10 km/h (or mph) signs. IIRC, simple flat images already confuse systems on board some Teslas.

An overly sensitive speed alert system that triggers warnings for even 1 km/h over the limit is a misguided approach to road safety. It fails to account for minor fluctuations in speed that naturally occur during normal driving, potentially causing more distraction and stress than it prevents. This system could lead to drivers constantly focusing on their speedometer rather than the road, ironically decreasing overall safety. Additionally, it ignores the context-dependent nature of safe driving speeds and the small margins of error in both vehicle speedometers and speed limit postings. Ultimately, such a system risks creating overly anxious drivers and diminishing respect for speed limits, rather than promoting genuinely safer driving practices.

This will either be ignored after the first week, or more likely, removed via the aftermarket.

People defending the system: are you presupposing it is perfect?

Because let me tell you:

- Start-stop when it first came out was not perfect, still isn't *

- Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal

- Crash detection systems are horrendously bad

- My car thinks it knows the speed limits of the road I'm on but it's often wrong

I'd love to know what new modern cars you drive with perfect 'safety' systems (I've driven a lot of modern cars)

* I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars. At least on manuals you can keep the clutch pressed to pause it. Need to pull away quickly? Sorry, wait a second for the engine to turn back on...

> - Automatic headlights were and still are pretty abysmal

I've had these in three cars, they're not too bad; other than the ones without an easy way to turn them off are terrible for ferries and drive-in movies. Automatic high-beams are pretty terrible though, but IMHO, you should rarely have your high beams on if you're within 2 miles of another car.

> I still find that start-stop incredibly annoying on automatic cars

I've rented a variety of cars with different systems. Some of them are truly awful, but the ones that sense when you start to pull your foot off the brake, and have a short start time aren't awful. Probably I'm not buying anything with start-stop; my last new vehicle was half a model year before they added it, and my next new vehicle is going to be a hybrid, and I if I buy more old vehicles, they're likely to predate start-stop, probably by a significant amount.

I will also add that existing cars that report the speed limit to me are often wrong in both directions, so I wouldn't trust anything other than a very mild warning. You want to show the speed limit in black when I'm under it, and red when I'm above it (preferably by at least 3-5 mph), go for it... that sounds nice and useful. You want to beep at me once gently if I go 10 mph over and maybe once more at 15-25 over? Reasonable, I suppose; maybe even a reminder beep every 5 minutes. Anything more and your data had better be completely accurate.

One place this would definitely be dangerous is in my city in the US. There's an interstate highway with a posted limit of 55mph, but everyone does 70mph+ (there is no police enforcement, because it's too dangerous---pulling people over here causes more accidents due to rubbernecking and traffic). If you were to actually go the speed limit, you'd be constantly passed (on both sides) by aggressive drivers and cause unnecessary lane switching behind you.

Where I live, the police won't pull you over for speeding if everyone is doing that speed because it wouldn't be safe for you to drive the posted speed limit as it would cause accidents.

We have many studies that show speeding is dangerous. Sounds like this system is very effective at discouraging speeding. Until I see studies showing more people are dying on road because of this system than because of speeding, sounds like it’s working as intended.

I frequently pass cars that have signs of an impaired driver. Usually the driver is texting, but the signs are usually failure to maintain lane, frequent (unnecessary) brake tapping, and sporadic acceleration.

Something that impedes my ability to pass unsafe drivers is unsafe.

If you're following close enough for them to be a danger to you then your driving is already unsafe.

I regularly see drivers who are obviously drunk and intoxicated and swerving all over the road, variously speeding up and slowing down. The safest thing to do is to accelerate well clear of these drivers and leave them far behind, not slow down to an absurdly slow speed and drive behind them for miles and miles.

Close enough to be a danger in a car is "visible" (even if the view of them is blocked). More specific to the example is someone going 20 under the ambient traffic. They are someone you should get past safely, not stay behind.

An unsafe driver ahead of you is safer than one behind you.

(If you're not keeping enough of a distance, then the unsafe driver is you.)

Whenever I keep safe distance, I'll have cars close behind me and other cars filling in the gap I created. Then my problem is the same: an unsafe driver ahead of me who could easily cause an accident, and not enough time to react.

It's much better to pass and forget.

If someone's being dangerously erratic, it may be best to just turn and take a different route.

No one ever suffered ill effects from speeding. People are fine after taking a 900 km/h transcontinental flight.

It's the sudden stop that's problematic.

Drivers going 51 km/h in a 50 zone are not the cause of carnage on the roads.

Many places have ridiculously low speed limits. Drivers blow past the limits, and yet those places do not show accidents.

Perhaps what's needed is a system that intelligently detects erratic driving, from a combination of factors, like a combination of severely excessive speed, frequent lane departure, tail gating, "weaving" left and right, and such.

I'm generally strongly in favor of technical system for making speeding impossible -- for example I don't think it should be legal to sell cars that are able to go 100km/h on city streets. But this implementation seems designed to elicit backlash. Beeping is bad, and setting the tolerance at zero is not friendly given general driver behavior. I'd find it much more sensible to have "smooth" systems, such as a constant "buzzing" sound whose volume increases with the square of the speed excess, or translating pedal pressure into speed in such a way that convexly increasing amounts of pressure are required to go further above the limit.

What about ambulances, police cars and firetrucks, would you prevent them from speeding as well ?

No.

How do you stop people making speeding vehicles for firemen and medics from making speeding cars for themselves and their friends then ?

Once it goes beyond alerting, this is going to kill someone.

A driver will be on a 2-lane road (1 lane each way), and attempt to pass the driver in front of them. A car will be coming the other way, and they won't be able to get in front in time.

They'll try to slow and get back in, but the other cars will have filled the space. They'll have nowhere to go.

Perhaps in this example the driver shouldn't have tried to pass in the first place, but removing an "out" from this situation, in which everyone gets to go home to their families, is a horrible idea.

This scenario is terribly specified. If you don't have clear time to pass a car in front of you without going an absurd amount over the posted speed limit, you almost certainly are putting yourself in danger already? I'll go further and say that people that take excess speeds in this scenario are already causing more accidents today, than a limiter would cause in the future.

Edit: I should say I think it would be a bad idea to have the car force you to go slower than 1km over a limit. Having it visually alert that you are speeding, though, seems far more reasonable.

You're also going to be aware of this system when you attempt to pass another car. It isn't going to be installed in your car mid pass.

I wholeheartedly disagree. When you’re passing someone on a two-lane highway you should always speed way up to get the hell out of the lane of oncoming traffic.

In general, you shouldn't be passing in a scenario that requires you jumping over ~10mph over the limit. And if you can see oncoming traffic, pretty much at all, you should probably not pass.

If you've passed a car before, it feels pretty clear that minimizing your time spent in the same lane as oncoming traffic is a much bigger priority than minimizing how much you go over the speed limit.

I've passed plenty of cars. Usually, in this scenario, I can exceed their speed by 15+ without even crossing the speed limit. If I had to go 10+ over the overall speed limit to pass them, I almost certainly just setup a situation where I'm either speeding in general to stay ahead of them, or I moved a single car's distance in the line that I was in. Which... seems silly to argue for.

If you are in a place with very flat/straight roads, you can pass while seeing oncoming traffic. I don’t know how it is in Australia (who are known to have some of the flattest straightest roads on earth) but in Nebraska this is definitely feasible.

Fair that I can't say you should never do so. I'd stand by it as a general safe rule, though? If the road is that long and straight, I'd imagine it also has a rather high base speed limit already.

Definitely on a twisty and/or hilly road you don’t want to pass if you can see above or around. But there are lots of places in the country where you pass if you can see the oncoming cars are far enough away. And you are usually passing a truck or RV going 40 so it’s not that hard.

However, I’m so glad I live in an urban area now where such driving skills aren’t really needed much anymore. I’d defer to people living in rural areas that do this many times a day.

Agreed that it can be subjective and can/does happen often. I further agree with you that you are most often to want to pass if someone is doing 40 and the limit is 50+. In those cases, we wouldn't be in the scenario offered in this thread, as you often don't even have to speed to execute that pass.

That said, I underline again that I think a system that impacts throttle at merely 1 over the limit would be a bad idea.

Yes. And if you're pulled over for speeding way up, I have never heard of a traffic cop who will ticket you.

Some online study aids for passing start with "increase your speed so you may finish the pass quickly" and end with "maintain a safe passing speed until you have created sufficient distance to resume a safe cruising speed." Others recommend a full 10mph speed difference to keep the passing time short.

I've known people to get a ticket in this exact scenario. Speeding is not allowed just to pass and will often times get you hit with a reckless driving charge, as well. Especially so if you go 10+ over the limit.

Now, if you mean someone that went less than 5 over the limit, I'm back in agreement with you. But, that is within the realm of speed that probably won't get you pulled over even when not passing?

I think the whole thing is quite subjective and certainly in part the subjection would depend on that particular officer's mood on that particular time on that particular day at that particular place.

The subjective assessment would be along the lines of differentiating between "driver slowly and casually accelerated to 10 mph over the limit, passed the car with a wide berth, and merged back with a large buffer" versus "driver suddenly accelerated from 10 mph below the speed limit to 3 above, spitefully passed closely to another car before dangerously cutting 2 feet in front of them"

I think most officers have been driving long enough to tell if someone is driving like a dick or cruising at 10 mph over and being chill. The latter will still get you a ticket, sure, but the likelihood of getting excoriated by them is less than say, 5 mph over the limit and you're tailgating and cutting people off. Some of those things maybe the cop can't legally write you up for, but the cop will see, can tell, and will make sure that you'll get written up for some thing or another. And hey that's a good thing, nobody likes a douchey driver.

If you casually and slowly accelerated to 10 over, passed with a large berth, and then presumably dropped back to speed; this was not a rapidly executed pass and I question if you should have even done it?

You are right that they have discretion. So, yeah, it is subjective. People online get way too defensive of aggressive driving. Seemingly without realizing they are describing aggressive behavior. And if you are at all worried you will have to exceed the posted limit to successfully overtake another vehicle, make no mistake you are driving aggressively.

It is poorly specified but also pretty common with the obvious variations. Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.

If this is common where you are, you are near some pretty bad drivers? Passing on a two lane road is something that you pretty much should only do if the lead car is below the speed limit.

Half half the drivers on the road are worse than median. And road rage is a very real thing. Being passed triggers road rage like you wouldn't believe sometimes.

Yes, even when they're going under the speed limit.

Funny framing of it, but that isn't necessarily how the median works. Consider, what are the median number of fingers on a person's hand? How many people have less than the median number of fingers? :D

Is a fair point that it could be more common than I'd expect. I remember being a teenage driver and we were quite bad. Would love to see data on this.

The normal way I hear it stated is "half of X are worse than average". But an average would not work with that statement in a pedantic environment. HN is a pedantic environment.

"On a distribution curve of driver skill, half of the drivers will be of lower skill than the driver at the median of the data set. Unless there's an even number of entries, in which case there is no median driver, just an inferred skill value based on the values to either side of the middle of the data set."

Before I finish typing this, I want to make it clear that I'm just having fun with the numbers/math/language here.

Even that statement doesn't really work outside of fully unique values across a specific distribution. Take samples where you have many duplicates, and you can easily have the vast majority of values flat out be the average/median when you have some distributions. Is why I picked average number of fingers. The VAST majority of counts there are the same value. The outliers being dwarfed to insignificance both high and low.

For more continuous distributions, https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/326304/in-a-given-... is a pretty good quick google of what I mean.

Now, what is the distribution of driving ability? I have no idea. I see no reason to think it is a normal distribution, though.

There is nothing passive aggressive about speeding up when being passed. The previous behavior of going too slow is what was passive aggressive; but once that driver accelerates, they have disrobed themselves of all pretence of passivity.

That might be true but only if we know their motives, which we usually don’t. One could argue that any driver isn’t passive aggressive because they are actively driving their vehicle. However part of the passive aggressive definition includes intentionally making mistakes in response to others demands. All of that being said, the difference is subtle and probably not worth arguing in this context.

> Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.

Happens all the time to me. It's usually people in big trucks who get angy that a car dares to pass them. They'll go up over 80mph in a 45mph zone if you don't (or can't) finish the pass, or give up. And if you give up, they'll brake check you for your audacity.

Having your controls start misbehaving while accelerating, or loud beeping (which is currently reserved for "you're about to hit something" while driving) is asking for a driver to lose control.

Here's a protip for dealing with impulsive / aggressive big truck drivers.

Big trucks go max 30 mph uphill. It's their achilles heel.

Cool your jets let them cuck you and be in front of you going slow all they want. When that big hill comes up, with that sweet passing lane, just pedal to the floor.

Now, if you get in front of them, or any car, and have the balls, and it's hilly country, you do this. Imagine they're tailgating you hard. You're going down a big hill. Put your gas pedal to the floor, downhill, You're max-accelerating. BUT .. ... LIGHTLY touch your brake pedal. Brake lights on. The tailgater will now back off because brake lights, as you rocket ahead at maximum acceleration. Aha! The tailgater catches onto the ploy and puts their pedal the floor as well. Now they too max-accelerate. Now you're at the bottom of the hill. Now you let go completely of the gas pedal, and the brake. You are now going uphill and you are slowing down quite aggressively, just from the uphill consuming momentum.... ... BUT your brake lights are now OFF! Thusly: you have maximally accelerated while braking, and maximally braked while accelerating. This will melt in anger the mind of any aggressive tailgator and they will either back off believing you're a total psycho, or shoot you (also believing you're a psycho). But it is a lesson in non-impulsive tactics & strategy versus impulsive driving. Patient strategy wins every time.

The big trucks I'm referring to are a Dodge Ram, or Ford 250, etc. They have more than enough power to do hills.

Shitty semi drivers are thankfully super rare, if you drive normally. AKA, I've never had a semi driver get annoyed at me. Might help that their CDL can be pulled regardless of who's at fault in an accident if the DOT thinks they could have de-escalated the scenario.

I think your tactic is too much of an escalation. Prefer Morse code on the brake light: it will make them think, wonder who or what you are, get less angry.

Or when a car behind you tries to double dip on the overtake so you are forced to commit with them barreling up behind you.

Drove a rented Kia in Central Australia recently that had this. It was fine: just stick below the speed limit. "Dangerous" to someone who continuously rides the speed limit perhaps.

I own one, unfortunately it is often wrong about what the speed limit is. So it’s not quite so straightforward.

We’ve a fairly new car with a similar system (that can be ignored/disabled thankfully). It seems to have both a some GPS/location based awareness of what the speed is meant to be that it falls back to as well as a camera based detection. I find it useful as a reference incase I don’t know what the speed is and missed the previous sign, but it’s also regularly wrong and not to be entirely trusted. For example the on ramp to the closest freeway near us it consistently reports as 10km/h when it’s actually 100km/h. I don’t know what it is about that sign specifically it can’t read as it looks fine to the human eye, but it would try to cap our speed on the freeway to >=90 km/h slower than the rest of the traffic (most are traveling slightly above) if we were to have the system enabled. As others in the comments have suggested it also can’t be trusted to get the speed right in school zones or for the correct distance for variable recommendations (e.g., speed bumps, roundabouts, etc.)

The worst in my previous car was trucks bearing stickers indicating their max speed was 80 kph, and the car spotting this as the new limit and beeping me for leisurely passing at 120...

The speed limit is the speed you should be driving in most circumstances, and is set far below the maximum safe speed for the road. Driving significantly below the pasted speed is as dangerous driving significantly above it.

Some roads have ridiculously low posted limits. Everyone goes well over, yet those roads are not noted for accidents. If they set the speed limit according to how everyone drives there, then I'd be in more in favor of alerting those who go even 1 km/h over that.

Driving significantly below the pasted speed Without good reason will get you failed in the UK driving test for not making adequate progress. As my office colleague found out recently.

I don't see anything wrong with this and hope that countries and manufacturers start to cut power or refuse to exceed limits.

At the very least within cities and towns. New modes of transit have geofenced speed govenors, I don't think we should grandfather cars exceptions.

I rode in a waymo for the first time yesterday, and it was going the speed limit in downtown SF (20 MPH) while cars were speeding around us. It seems like in the future if all cars are driven by robots, traffic would go much slower, maybe to the detriment of intended capacity (the roads still felt really busy, I assume if all the cars were going 20 it would quickly jam to much less than that).

From the article: "To put it simply, the system is dangerous."

And then it proceeds to spend zero time at all describing exactly what is dangerous about it. Seriously, the article doesn't even hypothesize about what makes this dangerous, it just says that it's bad.

The car I drove about 10 years ago had trouble exceeding the speed limit at times because it was a diesel! It was never dangerous.

Trucks including rental trucks are already governed to very low speeds and they don't cause a problem.

Articles like this feel to me a little bit like the seat belt deniers of the past. They'll all have to sheepishly eat their words when passenger and pedestrian deaths go down after the program is implemented.

Cars aren't toys. They are transportation devices. They kill people. They really aren't about freedom or whatever, not when I'm trying not to get killed by a maniac.

I think there's a fundamental issue here that the posted speed limit is often not the same thing as a reasonable maximum speed that's appropriate for conditions. Speed limits are set for all sorts of reasons that don't often match up with safety, and even then, they're usually set for normal conditions; when you have great visibility, dry pavement, and low traffic, it's often not unsafe to exceed the posted limit; just the same as when there's poor visibility, wet or icy pavement, or heavy traffic, following the posted limit is unsafe.

Having an alarm that distracts the driver when they're driving a safe and reasonable speed is an unnecessary distraction. And it won't help drivers maintain a safe and reasonable speed in unfavorable conditions, unless this also comes with real time updates for pavement conditions, visibility, construction, etc.

For cars that have trouble exceeding the speed limit, it can be dangerous --- sometimes there are scenarios where exceeding the speed limit is the safest course of action; but experience with the vehicle would help you anticipate its capabilities, and it is what it is. Usually there's pretty clear feedback that the vehicle isn't going to go much faster, so you will tend to avoid putting yourself in situations where you need lots of speed.

Rental trucks governors aren't necessarily as obvious, but that's also more of a statement that trucks should have a lower maximum limit regardless of conditions and that the rental company doesn't trust renters to be aware of safe speeds for trucks.

I'm confused at your argument. You're talking about inclement conditions where you're supposed to be driving below the speed limit anyway.

If everyone is at or below the speed limit, there is no situation where the reasonable maximum that exceeds the speed limit.

Perhaps you could safely drive faster, but nobody actually has to drive faster. And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics.

> And when you're driving slower your stopping distance is less, your chance of death in an accident is less. It's basic physics and accident statistics.

The faster we travel, the less time we spend traveling. The posted limit is not necessarily a reasonable maximum speed; that's my point in both directions.

The math does not work that way.

If you’re going 70mph you travel 16.6% further in the same amount of time.

But your average stopping distance increases 240 to 315 feet, 31% increase.

This also stresses your reaction time.

Risk of severe injury in pedestrian accidents goes like this:

16mph: 10%

23mph: 25%

31mph: 50%

So if you slow down in a pedestrian heavy area from 31mph to 23mph, you travel 30% slower but if you hit someone you’ve cut the chance of seriously injuring them in half.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/learning-to-drive/stoppin...

https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve...

Is your position that motor vehicles should be limited to 16 mph?

I don't disagree that a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed in a pedestrian heavy area is lower than a reasonable and appropriate maximum speed on a restricted highway. But, I've seen pedestrian heavy areas with posted speed limits above a reasonable and appropriate speed, and restricted highways with posted speed limits below a reasonable and appropriate speed.

A system that annoys and distracts the driver and other occupants when the vehicle is traveling above the posted speed limit does not help safety when the posted limit is unreasonably high or unreasonably low. It could possibly help if the posted limit is reasonable and the posted limit is detected correctly. It doesn't seem reasonable to me to mandate a system like this when advisory detection systems have poor accuracy and posted limits are commonly set based on criteria other than the safety of road users.

No of course that’s not my position, that’s quite a conclusion to jump to. But I’ve definitely seen a lot of drivers going 35-40mph in 25mph pedestrian-heavy zones where they should be driving the speed limit or possibly even slower. Those drivers are barely saving seconds of time in their travels while increasing the risk to bystanders dramatically.

What I’m trying to say centers on this:

You say you’ve seen restricted highways with posted speed limits below reasonable and appropriate speeds.

My point is that if all drivers are limited to that lower speed, there is nothing unsafe about going “too slow.” Your opinion that it’s unreasonable is based on convenience, not safety.

E.g., urban freeways where the speed limit is 50 but most drivers are going 70 and some drivers are going much faster. That’s a dangerous situation. What ISN’T dangerous is if everyone was governed electronically by 50mph by that road. If everyone is limited to 50mph that dangerous speed differential has been removed and it’s safer.

Presumably the government could wait until basically all drivers have a vehicle with this technology and then flip the switch on the actual governing feature.

Maybe this is “anti-freedom” and all that, but my hypothesis would be that road deaths would decrease.

Almost 1/3 of all driving fatalities involve excessive speed: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/speed-campaign-speeding...

On a tangent, I have a theory that drivers who demand high throughput and fast speeds want to avoid the uncomfortable truth that alternatives like public transit and cycling are more efficient modes of atransportation. When we look at some urban freeways that slow to a crawl during commuting hours and the local news tells me that the average speed is 27 mph, that just tells me that more people should be commuting on alternatives like e-bikes, buses, and trains, because these personal vehicles that supposedly save so much time and convenience are no longer doing so.

It's not just convenience. AAA says

> Projecting these results to all drivers nationwide [US], 255 million drivers made a total of 227 billion driving trips, spent 93 billion hours driving, and drove 2.8 trillion miles in 2022 [1]

If you reduce speeds and increase trip time by 1%, that's 930 million more hours, which is the equivalent of about 1000 lifetimes [2]. At some point you save lives from acute injuries but take lives by wasting everyone's time on the road. There's also issues with the current fleet where a gasoline car is going to be much less fuel efficient at say 25 mph vs 50 mph, and you're killing people with emissions; although EVs and hybrids turn that around.

[1] https://aaafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/202309_...

[2] https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/your-life-in-num... reports a average lifetime of 692,040 hours, I'm running loose math.

> Projecting these results to all drivers nationwide [US], 255 million drivers made a total of 227 billion driving trips, spent 93 billion hours driving, and drove 2.8 trillion miles in 2022

I don't have a dog in this race but I want to spark conversation. I feel like assuming that saving 1% of those drivers time would lead to an increase in productivity, possibly a tiny increase in happiness but are you happy now driving 20 over the limit and on high alert all the time during your commute? Generally I am less tired going 100 km/h in a 120 than I am doing 140km/h in a 120 for the exact same trip... And usually I would just move my commute a bit, have breakfast close to work / at work and hit the gym after work at work and you significantly cut down your commute time... It also reminds me just a little of Brook's law...

I'm never going to believe a car is more fuel efficient at say 35 vs 50... Maybe 25 but where are you driving that the majority of your trip is at 25? The few minutes you spend at 25 won't even put a dent on your efficiency numbers if you have a reasonably long commute and if you don't what the hell are you complaining about.

At least where I am 25 would only be used i residential areas or places where high pedestrian activity is expected... The limit is almost exclusively 35/50/75 and you may get 60 in rural areas...

I haven't watched numbers on many of my cars, but my Jetta SportWagen TDI had peak mpg right around 60 mph, at least it did when I had steered the wheel at all since startup ;). The gear ratios are setup to deliver peak efficiency at highway speeds, although you do hit a point where the v squared in drag wins. EV is different, because motors are strictly worse the faster they spin.

Vehicle provided instant MPG data is always a little suspect, of course.

Ah so that is kind of the point I wanted to try and make.

The engine isn't any less efficient in lower gears. It's just that you are measuring MPG and not some other metric like hours per gallon.

If you are able to travel at 60 the entire time then sure, but at the same RPM your engine is consuming the same fuel in a lower gear.

I'm pretty sure that MPG value would also very aggressively change if you were constantly accelerating and deceleration to hit that 60 MPH number whereas it would in fact have been more efficient to travel at a lower constant speed.

By the sources I posted, about 1/3 of accident fatalities per year involved excessive speed.

Let's say slowing down saved a conservative 1/4 of those lives, that still beats the 1,000 lifetimes of sitting in traffic.

There are now around 40,000 fatal car crash deaths per year. Multiply 1/3 * 1/4 * 40,000 = 3,333 lives.

Plus, when you're sitting in traffic, you're not dead. If you have other people in the car it can be socializing time. If you're not the driver you could be working or playing video games, reading, or working. Or you can listen to podcasts/lectures/etc (I know how much HN loves their productive time).

But a road filled with idling cars has high pollution levels, so you have to factor in the reduction in life expectancy and increase in disability from exposure to that.

Let's move the goalposts again I guess.

https://www.wired.com/story/is-there-an-optimal-driving-spee...

Even if your car is getting 45 mpg you shouldn't drive over 70mph if they want to conserve fuel/emissions, and if your car is getting a lower mpg rating than that you should be driving slower.

There is also many places where there are extremely few posted speed signs. The A9 in Scotland from Perth to Inverness is a notoriously dangerous road (it has large sections of single carriageway [60mph] with occasional dual carriage [70mph]). It has many junctions where cars can cross lanes to leave on minor roads. So bad, it has a large system of average speed cameras to hopefully control the traffic.

Driving slowly (40-50) on this long road will cause cars, buses and trucks to try and overtake even on the single carriageway sections which is risky for everybody.

But very few actual speed signs, so you end confused and wondering exactly what is the correct value for that section and anxious about the next average speed camera. And that’s for experienced uk drivers, I hate to think how stressed the tourists are ?

If you are accelerating, particularly in an EV, and your car starts screwing with your controls while pelting you with a high decibal alarm you used to only hear in an imminent collision, your chances of losing control are going to skyrocket.

It happens all the time with inexperienced drivers and high performance vehicles, and consumer EVs are also high performance vehicles. Hyundai - one of the manufacturers mentioned in the article - makes an EV with a sub-3s 0-60 time.

I'm confused at this argument. It sounds like the driver has already lost control? Or is this just making an excuse for assholes who accelerate too fast? Or making excuses for cars that are sold as dangerous toys instead of transportation devices?

Like, yeah, maybe there should be a 0-60 limit imposed on manufacturers, too. I would think that this would be complimentary to my argument.

I think it's also potentially strange to think that a chime is going to cause people to dramatically lose control of their vehicle in this imagined scenario.

I have Toyota that does it and the first thing I do after starting the engine is to turn it off. It will turn itself on always, can't be changed. This feature is not only annoying and out of touch with reality, but also has a bug that in the very worst case could cause an accident.

It beeps whenever the speed limit changes. If at the time you are connected via Android Auto with Google maps, it will instantly disconnect without any warning nor error. 90% of time. Imagine navigating through a dense area like a city you don't know, suddenly you lose GPS, and to get it back you have to go all the way into connections menu and wait for reconnect. Worst that happened to me were missed turns or going slightly past no entry sign. Nice "safety" feature. Disabled it and never had a disconnect since. Every now and then I start to drive with it and have to stop to turn it off (not disableable while you drive). Considering calling dealership to ask if they can turn it off permanently for me - but probably all I'll hear will be "it's mandated by law, can't do".

It is a bug in Toyota software. I found out because there are more people posting about it online.

In my experience driving (in the US), I don't think I've ever seen an attentive driver going consistently 5-10% above the speed limit as a prime safety issue.

Far more often the issues I see are (1) distracted drivers (e.g. on their phone) or (2) aloof/aggressive drivers (e.g. abrupt lane changes, tailing cars, switching lanes without checking blind spots, blatant speeding, driving significantly slower than surrounding traffic, etc).

I do think a warning system for exceeding the speed limit can make sense, but it needs to have the right threshold and mitigations to avoid being ignored, a distraction, or (worse yet) putting the driver in a more dangerous situation. The right threshold is clearly not at 1km/h above the speed limit. I think a more reasonable one would be 10mph/15km/h over the posted limit.

EDIT: I'll add that I think a looser threshold would still hit the low hanging fruit of egregious speeders, but without burning public goodwill towards car safety features. Let the features demonstrate value first, then discuss whether the thresholds should be tighter.

So I've got a new Ford does this, and it can operate in one of three modes selectable by the driver:

1. An advisory mode, where it dings at you if you bust the speed limit.

2. Speed limiting mode, where it won't accelerate past the limit unless you override the limiter by flooring the accelerator.

3. Adaptive cruise control, where the cruise control will speed up and slow down to suit what it thinks the speed limit is

The system uses a combination of speed sign recognition and and its satnav database. The speed sign recognition could be best described as "ok".

What it really struggles with is construction and other temporary speed limits such as school zones, particularly on side roads.

There is a spot near me on a 100km/h arterial road where if I'm using adaptive cruise, the car will detect the 40km/h construction limit on a side road and then brake hard to slow from 100 to 40 for no proper reason. This is very dangerous, tantamount to brake checking, which is a traffic offence that I otherwise could properly be fined for.

> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature.

Not when it kills people, which speeding does.

> Freedom of choice is a fundamental part of human nature. So much so it has net effect on our mental health. There are dozens and dozens of peer reviewed studies that correlate the capacity to choose with happiness.

For many people, a car is a phenomenon of personal freedom. Like any freedom, some people abuse it. Taking freedoms away (even perceived ones) is dangerous.

My big issue with attempts like this are that they fail to encompass the whole experience of driving. An obvious one: if it’s speed that you want to control, then you need lower and upper limits. Lower limits means that some cars need to be stopped from entering certain roads at all. A tractor that can only go 15 mph should never be on an interstate… unless, of course, it’s working on the interstate. Good luck with that!

The system of driving was made with fairly simple rules for humans to abide by. It wasn’t designed for and isn’t made strictly safer by partially automating portions of driving. I have yet to see any implementation that lacks downsides.

hard caps and mandating enforcement like this makes me yearn for the meteor. speed limits make more sense as average speeds, but I suspect I may be of a different species than somone of such a literal mind who holds the opposite view where they would advocate for this sort of thing. I don't see how this is reconcilable.

I for one support this system. I drive a VW with this feature and it's fine. It recognizes signs well enough. There's a built in grace of about 5km/h. The only thing the car does is that it produces a few gentle dinging sounds that are completely different from other warning sounds like parking sensors, when someone hasn't buckled in, door is open, etc.

I have no intention of speeding and welcome the warning to consider I may have missed a sign. And if it is wrong, or I wish to ignore it, it's only like three subtle dings before it shuts up. It's fine. Perhaps the issue is not in the law, but the specific car manufacturer in the article.

I feel as if the fundamental issue with speed limits is that they often feel arbitrary and infantilizing. If the roads are designed properly then you don't really need them except perhaps as a warning (e.g. the German autobahn isn't unlimited on sections that have tight corners).

My residential street in London is a 20mph limit. But it doesn't need a limit because it has speed bumps frequently enough that if you care about your suspension at all your max speed is average 15ish anyway.

Then there's the main roads leading into town which are also 20mph limits, but are double lane roads with fairly wide lanes. Some of them even have metal dividers.

It fundamentally makes no sense for the limit to be the same on both of those roads. One of them is a proper thoroughfare with a high design limit that was 30 until very recently (probably 40 or higher "back in the day"). The other is a neighbourhood that only really the residents and visitors have any business driving on.

This comment section is scary. Hacker news advocating FOR nanny technology?!

Makes me think of the videos I saw of the 2011 Japanese tsunami and cars driving to escape it. Imagine the same scenario today but your car stops you from going over 25mph when water is coming directly behind you at 50moh.

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