Autocar here starts by complaining that the "intelligent speed assistance" has been maligned as "speed limiters". But upon reading the article further, that's exactly what it is.<p>When a neutral party says "speed limiter" to me, I immediately think of the actual technology here.<p>When the article started out with "intelligent speed assistance", I thought this might be a cool feature that let my car go <i>faster</i> safely. At most, I thought the tech might be something that does increase safety by warning about sharp turns, but at least could give the car ability to handle faster speeds.<p>But on reading the article, it seems like there's nothing intelligent about it other than it's ability to read road signs and force you to slow down.<p>"Intelligent speed assistance" is indeed the Orwellian term. If the article wasn't written with such earnestness I would have thought it to be a parody.
I've seen "unofficial" speed limit signs put up by residents of a given location. They look exactly like official signs, and I imagine it's tricky to properly police this. I wonder if this system opens up an attack surface for bad actors to intentionally modify speed limits to either lower or higher than official ones.<p>Reminds me of the guy who managed to make Google Maps report a traffic jam by pushing a cart full of smartphones around [0], except this one affects your hardware by automatically cutting off throttle and doesn't require drivers to rely on an app.<p>Also, from the article:<p>> "How will I enjoy my recreational driving when ISA systems come into force? Same way I do right now: in slow old sheds that would only break the national speed limit if you pushed them off a cliff."<p>So it's pushing people who drive for fun to do so in older vehicles with correspondingly older safety technology. Interesting.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-traffic-jam-99-smartphones-wagon-2020-2" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-traffic-jam-99-s...</a>
They may get better responses, and compliance, if this was instead billed as a pedal detent for “current speed limit please”. The current name just sounds Orwellian.<p>Basically like cruise control, but only when the gas pedal is in a certain position.<p>Bonus points if you have a dial for “speed limit + n” in the US, because if I tried to drive the speed limit all the time in my state I’d get run over.
If the speed limits are too low in places, they should be raised.<p>But many times my life has been endangered by a speeding car. There is always a trade off between too much policing and too little policing. I think that speeding has been tolerated for far too long. I think the world will be a better place if a scalable technical solution is implemented.
Lots of crying in the comments over an EU mandate which says in its opening pages that the limiter must be able to be disabled by the driver. If you don’t like it, just turn it off.
I have a feature in my car (2020 mazda) that attempts to read signs as you pass and determine the current speed limit, and I'd say that it's accurate 60-70% of the time but nowhere near 100%. Even if the technology was there, I'm not sure this would be a good idea, but until it is - it's definitely a bad idea.
What a bunch of absolute trash. Especially when it's inevitably mandated to be permanently enabled in a few years. Amazing how the EU constantly finds new ways to run their subjects lives.
reminds me of this gem: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAvQSkK8Z8U" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAvQSkK8Z8U</a>