Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles.

There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others where it may kill. It is not great for the environment either.

I think limiting speeds to, say, 100mph for every road legal car will be unpopular. People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful, and manufacturers love to sell them. But technically, it should be easy to implement, and may improve road safety.

I am only talking about the top speed, powerful cars will keep their high acceleration. There is also a good chance that people will modify their cars to raise the top speed, and it is fine outside of public roads, but could result in serious penalties if caught using such a modification on public roads.

View on HN

> with a possible exception for emergency vehicles

Ambulance and fire truck driver here. There's no good reason for emergency vehicles to ever go much faster than the speed limit, and we would experience life-changing amounts of personal liability if our driving got someone hurt.

While it's sometimes important to get a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible, that's less frequent than you might think, and it's always more important to get them there in one piece.

In addition our vehicles are heavy and they don't stop quickly, so physics is another good reason for us not to speed.

Police cars might be another story but my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.

> my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.

100%. The UK police will happily abandon a pursuit these days, it's been shown all too often that it causes far more damage and harm than it prevents. It's usually easy enough to track fleeing vehicles in other ways (helicopter, traffic cameras, static observations) that it's simply not proportionate.

The era of the high-speed pursuit is basically over; you have "freeway speed pursuit" and "bear in the air" mostly these days.

> There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal?

Good question. My guess is as follows:

Per the NHTSA [1] alcohol, excess speed, and not wearing restraints are the top three causes of vehicle-related deaths in the US in roughly equal measure (although alcohol edges out the other two). The German autobahn infamously doesn't have a blanket speed limit and is about as safe as other European highway systems. To me this means that a case can be made for high speeds on public roads in the interest of expediency (though, for cultural reasons, I would not personally make it for the US). I can't, on the other hand, imagine endorsing road sodas or not wearing seat belts. In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.

Anecdotally I'd be much happier if more attention was spent on enforcement against bad driving behavior like tailgating, weaving, failing to signal, driving drunk, and running traffic signals than speeding. Nearly every brush with death I've had on public roads has been due to these, not somebody doing 95 in the fast lane.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

> The German autobahn infamously doesn't have a blanket speed limit and is about as safe as other European highway systems.

It's actually even safer: https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/what-is-the-accident-...

When roads are well designed, maintained, and drivers well educated, and within the constraints of a culture which consider the impact of one's behaviour on others, speed does not appear to be a primary contributing factor in fatalities or accidents in general. However speed is a compounding factor when accidents occur. Meaning it increases the likelihood of fatalities when accidents do occur for other reasons. Still, despite all of this, the Autobahn has a significantly lower rate of fatalities than other roads within Germany.

Most people go below 130km/h on an autobahn. German drivers are pretty good and aware.

In comparison in Poland we have way more speed related accidents on our highways even though there is a speed limit. It's because we have a lot of very bad drivers who go too fast.

It's not enough to look at the speed limit. You would need to look at actual speed.

It is challenging and expensive to get a driver's license in Germany, and the repercussions for screwing up are high. Also driving isn't as necessary--the excellent public transit means there are alternate means of traveling, so not having one is less of a detriment. So while the Autobahn might be considered the Platonic ideal of high-speed driving, it isn't always feasible or likely and I don't think it should be considered as such. As much as I wish we could have that in the US!

> excellent public transit

Traveling by train ... is it some sarcasm or you've never been to Germany?

Local transit is usually decent. Regional trains are also much better than the long distance ones.

The long distance ones are a disaster in Germany, whereas in the US, they don't meaningfully exist.

Local transit?.. Sure the S and U bahns are (rather) fine, but the alternative are regular roads at regular speed - the highways in such areas are speed limited (e.g. Cologne / Dusseldorf etc.). The real Autobahn is only far outside the urban area where there is no local transit whatsoever

Ha, it's all relative I guess, because yes I have and that's why I said that

> In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.

Neither of those are blanket dangerous. Driving a car on a rural road in the middle of the night is about as dangerous whether you're doing 100mph or mildly drunk. Not being restrained is only dangerous if you crash or someone crashes into you. They can all three be performed in normal road conditions without actually resulting in a crash, injury, or death.

But everyone speeds. It's fun, everyone does it once in a while, as a treat! And driving sucks too, so the faster you go the less you have to do it. You can't punish everyone, but you can punish a drunk because, gosh, that couldn't/wouldn't ever be me. Those drunk jerks! And seatbelts? You only get punished for those if you get pulled over and don't remember to put it on.

Most driving related crimes don't go punished because the judges and the juries are probably guilty of the same damn thing, all the time, and gee whiz, I'm not a criminal, so this person isn't either.

Its why you can pulp a pedestrian in your car while speeding and dicking around with your phone and get off pretty much scot-free.

Phone usage while driving is a big one. Flat out looking down at your lap and texting, instead of looking at the road. I have seen people do this everywhere, in the city, in the highway.

I'm much more concerned about someone going 40mph in a 25 zone than someone going 110 in a 75.

They aren’t mutually exclusive. What reason is there ever for a car to go 110?

> What reason is there ever for a car to go 110? reply

What reason is there ever for a car to go above 40mph? The obvious answer to your question is: quality of life. People like getting places faster. The purpose of governance is to balance quality of life with public safety. No matter how slow the speed limits, some people will die each year, so we're not haggling over the concept itself, but rather were we draw the line.

For context, it's important to remember that the Autobahn is actually safer than U.S. highways despite the lack of speed limit (https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/is-the-autobahn-safer...). In fact, it's even safer than other German roads (https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/what-is-the-accident-...). Speed does not appear to be a primary contributing factor in accidents and fatalities insofar as the Autobahn is concerned. Meaning arguing to reduce or restrict speed provides marginal social benefit at comparatively larger cost.

This utterly ignores any context of German drivers and roads vs those in the US, context that makes comparing the Autobahn (which doesn't have that many unrestricted zones, and even fewer times of day where you can actually stretch your legs due to traffic).

This reads like "I speed all the time and how dare you say it's a bad thing" cope.

The argument is mutually exclusive though. People going 80 in a 60 will be considered the same as those going 40 in a 20 and the punishments won't diverge between the two when they should. The latter is significantly more dangerous - especially to others.

Autobahns prove that it can be safe and reasonable.

Could that not be allowed by the GPS based limiter system that Japanese sports cars have used in Japan for decades?

if carOnAutoBahn { setLimiter(155) }

in german autobahns there are segments with limits, either because the road conformation does not allow "unlimited" or because of temporary road work

The Japanese GPS based limiters were accurate enough to handle that, when Top Gear tested them around 15 years ago.

You don't seem to have ever driven on a long, empty, well lit 4 lane carriage way at 4am in he morning. If I am going 70MPH (UK Motorway speed limit) or 120MPH in such a situation makes no difference in terms safety.

In the UK we have variable speed limit roads. When they are busy/obstructions the speed limit is lowered. It is put back to 70mph when the traffic is light / no safety issues.

The safe speed on a road is dependant on the road and the conditions. I've been in situations where driving at faster than 10mph would be dangerous and I've been on the same road and doing 40mph was safe.

Except the average person isn't a highways engineer and isn't aware of the road design limits which means 120mph can be unsafe even on a visually empty road.

Even the German autobahns are only unrestricted in specific stretches where someone will have done the legwork to demonstrate safety at those speeds.

> Except the average person isn't a highways engineer and isn't aware of the road design limits which means 120mph can be unsafe even on a visually empty road.

Firstly there is no such thing as the average person.

Secondly, I don't need to be a "highways engineer" to be able to see there is few / no cars in front of me for over several miles on a long straight, multiple lane highway with no junctions for sometimes miles.

Thirdly, the decision for the motorway speed in the UK is a historical artifact.

https://readcars.co/2017/06/20/history-speed-limits-uk/

Generally most cars (even modern ones) it is unwise to sustain speeds over 90mph for a long duration if the engine is small (coolant systems are more likely to fail, it is hard on engines), it is also not fuel efficient to drive much faster than 60 mph in cars that have engines that are lower than 2.0 litres IME (I've done a lot of driving in different vehicles).

I would prefer they have variable speed limits on motorways / or special toll roads where the limit is higher.

Driving on a race track is one. The vast majority of vehicles on race tracks are/were street vehicles.

The primary reason is political: people don't like the idea of the government living inside our cars 24x7, telling us how fast we're allowed to go. Even though most of us don't speed. Other examples of this phenomenon include:

* A government mandated alcohol, cigarette, and BMI limit to prevent major health issues.

* Government surveillance of our emails, messages, phone calls, bank accounts and internet activity.

* Abolishing cash so all our transactions are electronically monitored to prevent fraud, money laundering, crime, and tax evasion.

* Limits on free speech.

There are many examples of ways in which authoritarian policies could, in theory, make society safer. Some of us are more comfortable with authoritarianism than others.

> Even though most of us don't speed.

I visited California once and was going from LAX to Kings Canyon National Park. I was driving the speed limit (I wasn't in any hurry) and got passed by literally everyone on the road. The vast majority of people drive faster than the speed limit. The question is "how much" over the speed limit you can comfortably go before you run the risk of being stopped and fined.

Repeat offenders should choose between not having a license to drive and having a mandatory speed limiter installed in their car. The issue is that it is not trivial to do on all vehicles.

I think you're probably right that most drivers are speeding but I will note that a sampling of drivers that pass you necessarily will not include any that are going your speed or slower. It doesn't take many drivers on the road to feel like you are constantly getting overtaken.

That's one thing I found weird driving in the US. Everyone consistently drove about 5 mph above the speed limit, which I ended up doing too as driving at the speed limit felt like being a nuisance, and was probably less safe too. I remember joking that American are so much into tipping that they even tip speed limits.

But why? If people, including law enforcement are comfortable with doing 70mph on 65mph roads, why not make the speed limit 70mph? Why is there an official and an unofficial speed limit? I heard even self driving cars are programmed to go at the "unofficial" speed limit.

For the context, I live in France. We have a lot of automatic speed traps that will systematically fine you for going 5 km/h above the speed limit, which isn't a wide margin. It means that either you are speeding, or you are driving at the posted speed limit, there is no "speed limit + tip".

I think the 5-10 mph above the limit that most people drive originates from the fact that police in most U.S. jurisdictions will almost never ticket someone going less than 10mph over the limit (except perhaps in school zones or construction zones). Due to that, the unofficial limit over time naturally drifts up to just under where you're likely to be ticketed.

This unofficial leeway likely developed due to things like mechanical issues with speedometers and tires causing reasonable doubt about actual speed within a few MPH. If they were to raise the official speed limit by 5-10MPH, then people would just do 5-10MPH above that. If police then started enforcing much more strictly, you're going to jam up the courts with more people contesting a 1mph over ticket as being due to speedometer calibration or whatever. Or just in general being much more resentful of the police for being so draconian.

> That's one thing I found weird driving in the US. Everyone consistently drove about 5 mph above the speed limit

This is the same in Europe as well. At least from my experience(-s) of driving in Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland and Germany.

> If people, including law enforcement are comfortable with doing 70mph on 65mph roads, why not make the speed limit 70mph

The speed limit is set based on what is considered safe upon collision in a particular area. Furthermore, if you increase the speed limit from 65 mph to 70 mph, you'll likely see drivers going at 75 mph.

There is that, but in this case it is not particularly authoritarian.

- There is already a whole lot of regulations on what makes a car street legal, including rules that can be quite unpopular among drivers and yet important on a large scale. In particular those related to the environment.

- Limiting the top speed of cars does not imply surveillance or advanced GPS-based systems. The idea is just to make it so that the car can't exceed speeds well beyond the highest speed limit in the country.

- The gouvernement is already telling you how fast you are allowed to go, and will watch you for it.

A 100mph limitation will only affect you if you are speeding, if you don't speed, nothing will change for you. There are some exceptions and special cases: race cars, imports, etc... but these are just details that can be dealt with, as it done today on other aspects.

I think you're logically correct. It's the feeling such a policy elicits which makes it untenable. I agree with your points conceptually, but the moment I would have to install a government speed limiter on my car is the moment I vote for someone else. It feels invasive, and I don't like feeling like the paternal hand of the government is all the way up my ass, controlling my gas pedal.

I'm sure the "chronic shit driver, bad enough to have a judge mandate a speed limiter" vote is a big block that politicians will be lining up to appease. Just like the "chronic drunk driver, bad enough to have a judge mandate an interlock" bloc.

It's not about being paternalistic. It's about protecting others, not you.

> Even though most of us don't speed

I'm curious where you live. In the major US city I live in, well above 50% of drivers are going above the speed limit at any particular moment on any particular highway.

One of those is not like the others. Speeding drivers kill innocent bystanders. Obesity, cigarettes or what not will just kill you. Speeding in a car is like swinging a machete in a crowd.

Is it so different? Obesity significantly increases societal costs. And given tradeoffs, those costs add up to other people's lives.

If safety were your overriding concern, you'd set the speed limit at 20 mph. Or better yet, 5.

People don't like the government telling you you can't leave the room you're in but if you break the law you go to jail. This is no different. As usual, anti-government people tend to miss the point completely and jump to extreme non-related situations. Having people who repeatedly break the speed limit have their cars adjusted so they can't do that but can still travel freely and drive anywhere they want is the topic here and you're talking about limits on free speech and government surveillance of our emails. This is not an authoritarian policy. If you break the law, you face consequences.

Extreme non-related situations? Not true at all. Cars are just computers on wheels. They can even be hacked. Remotely. They've got embedded cellular network connectivity. They've got microphones. They've got cameras. They've got goddamn privacy policies these days.

Governments setting policies on cars is just the transportation version of global mass surveillance and control. It's not your car anymore, and it's not you who's driving. The computer is controlling everything, and it's not your computer, it's theirs. If they can set speed limits, they can easily do a lot more than that, it's literally one mandatory over the air software update away.

The only question is: are you gonna sacrifice your freedom for security? The so called "anti-government people" made their choice. It seems you have made yours. The consequences will be felt either way.

How will my road legal car know when it’s on a track or a closed road? Some how putting a way to disable it defeats the purpose. If its GPS controlled, people will be spoofing GPS to remove the limit, just need a raspberry pie and some other components. You’ll have unintended consequences.

You could have steeper penalties for people who use those types of systems and then go on to get into accidents and kill people. I don't think first degree murder is beyond reason for someone who installs a defeater device and drives at 100 mph and kills someone.

> people will be spoofing GPS to remove the limit, just need a raspberry pie and some other components.

How many, and how long before they straight up deserve to just go to jail for a little society time-out?

They demonstrated the japanese system on topgear once, and it was disgustingly accurate. They drove onto a track and bing it opened up. No lag or anything.

    > it was disgustingly accurate

Real question (no trolling): Is this sarcastic? If not, I don't really understand this English.

This is a common turn of phrase in many languages in informal speech, using negative adjectives for emphasis, instead of positive ones. It carries a light humourus tone, as it kind of implies that the thing "had no right" to be as good as it was, so the speaker is "chastising" it for being so good.

I don't think it's specific to English in any way, but maybe it's also not common in every language or culture. It may also be more common in the UK and certain other English-speaking countries, that use irony a lot in regular (informal) speech.

I’m picking the poster is from somewhere like UK/Au/NZ.

You’d see this here in NZ and not blink an eye.

Is a beautiful turn of phrase!

I personally would be perfectly fine with a default software limiter that can be disabled when you get to the track (or a German autobahn). If you get in an accident on a public road with the car in track mode… they get to throw the book at you

This!!

Even modern cars have some trouble knowing the actual speed limit of the road you're currently on.

In Canada I don't think the speed limit is ever higher than 110 or 120km/h - limit to 130km/h and have an override, get full on in trouble (incl loosing all insurance) when disabled.

If track use only maybe even have some kind of device that isn't publicly sold to disable the speed limit there.

Also I doubt any north American car is randomly gonna show up at the German Autobahn - gonna get across the Atlantic first

California tried to do this, the bill got watered down in committee [1]. It's probably true that purely GPS-based speed-limiting is not good enough. Imagine being on a 75mph highway with a 25mph service road right next to it and the GPS not knowing the difference.

Still, interesting idea that could have legs when the technology got better.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5099205/california-tech...

> People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful

Too much correlation, not enough causation here.

Only "rich people" can afford pricey cars, while there are with much certainty "non rich people" that enjoy fast cars.

And there are a ton of affordable cars that can go 200kph+, or that can be riced into being able to do so.

The reason I mentioned the rich and powerful is not in a sense that you have to get rich to drive fast. In fact, with a good motorbike, you can leave supercars in the dust for the price of the cheapest cars.

The reasons I mentioned this goes the other way: the rich and powerful have more influence than the average guy, by definition. And they tend to like fast cars, it is a status symbol and they can afford it, and there is no denying that driving fast can be enjoyable. It means that they are going to do what they can (which is a lot) to keep the privilege.

Exactly. Otoh even the most patetic and slow cars can speed in urban zone with 30kph limit without problems.

Just limit it to 70 mph max, and require some sort of application to be filed to have it disabled. If that application can't be done at time of sale, most people won't bother.

Why 70? The maximum posted speed limit in the US is 85.

"The highest speed limit in the country is 85 mph (137 km/h), which is posted on a single stretch of tollway in exurban areas outside Austin, Texas."

I think we'll live without that one.

But yes, 75 would be more correct.

Why is 75 more correct? There are plenty of major highways with 80mph limits.

Furthermore, speed limits are changed regularly. There are still cars on the road that were sold when we had lower national speed limits.

Because any amount of inaccurate measurement would mean they were technically going over the limit. You'd have to put a little pad in it.

I didn't propose anything related to existing cars.

> Because any amount of inaccurate measurement would mean they were technically going over the limit. You'd have to put a little pad in it.

I don't think it is reasonable nor do people want to buy cars that won't even go the speed limit.

> I didn't propose anything related to existing cars.

I am saying that your proposal(s) will be obsolete after the car is sold. Because speed limits change and cars move to different places over time.

If it could be waived at time of sale, this would just be a part of pre-deliver paperwork that dealers have everyone sign. Dealers don't wan't headaches of people coming back ticked off that their car won't do the speed limit. You're not mandating safety, you're mandating a new piece of paperwork.

> People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful

LOL. You have no idea. Street racers are usually people who have little or no money.

What about the Gumball rallies? If that’s not a wealth flex over the unwashed masses, I don’t know what is.

Because they spent it all on performance mods for their car.

No, because rich car enthusiasts can afford track time.

Performance mods are surprisingly affordable if you do all the labor yourself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com