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Comment by ljf | Hacker News Reader

They have these on various motorways and cities in the UK - and they work brilliantly - once you are in (a well signposted) 'average speed check' area, everyone slows down and does the speed limit.

You could still be warned that you are aproaching the area though. Interestingly these use front mounted cameras (to capture the driver) so have no effect on motorbikes - though the general slower speed seems to slow them on the motorways.

As a cyclist (and driver) I think they are great for city driving, and a much better solution than speedbumps or other calming measures.

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Except they don't - they do whatever their woefully inaccurate speedometer thinks the limit is. Since I drive something with cruise control and GPS-indicated speed, I invariably find myself iterating cruise control settings to match with the traffic. As for changing lanes, forget it - everyone will be driving 3 feet of the bumper in front, because the traffic concertina'ed up when it saw the first camera. You'd better be in the correct lane for your exit before you hit the averaging zone, or you're taking the scenic route.

Depressingly, I can't think of a better solution. Driving makes people into assholes, myself included, and averaging cameras are about the only thing that works. Speed bumps and traffic calming simply cause an arms race of bigger and bigger SUVs that simply roll over anything smaller than a mini with impunity.

I suppose they could try the Edinburgh approach of simply not repairing the roads, in favour of spending the money on an overgrown toy train set for the current set of ideologically-challenged councillors.

Average speed checks are awful — I spend more time looking at the speedo than I do the road, as I try to keep close to the limit while not hitting the car in front. And they are always for odd speeds that I find difficult to maintain (just the wrong pedal position).

Perhaps they make sense when everyone has cruise control as standard to rely on, but until then a mass rollout would drive me to public transport. Or is that the point?

Except when you want to leave the motorway only to find 3 lanes cars driving in formation preventing anyone from leaving.

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