EU plans to fit all cars with speed limiters

[GRtak]

EU plans to fit all cars with speed limiters

Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, is said to be opposed to the plans, which could also mean existing cars are sent to garages to be fitted with the speed limiters, preventing them from going over 70mph.

The new measures have been announced by the European Commission?s Mobility and Transport Department as a measure to reduce the 30,000 people who die on the roads in Europe every year.

A Government source told the Mail on Sunday Mr McLoughlin had instructed officials to block the move because they ?violated? motorists? freedom. They said: ?This has Big Brother written all over it and is exactly the sort of thing that gets people's backs up about Brussels.

?The Commission wanted his views ahead of plans to publish the proposals this autumn. He made it very clear what those views were.?

The source claimed one of the reasons he was against the Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) scheme is that the UK has a better road safety record than other European countries ? with 1,754 people dying in road accidents last year compared to 3,657 in Germany.

The scheme would work either using satellites, which would communicate limits to cars automatically, or using cameras to read road signs. Drivers can be given a warning of the speed limit, or their speed could be controlled automatically under the new measures.

A spokesman for the European Commission said: ?There is a currently consultation focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses.

?Taking account of the results, the Commission will publish in the autumn a document by its technical experts which will no doubt refer to ISA among many other things.?

I predict that this this will be the first thing disabled on a majority of new cars within days of the law being implemented.

 

[Dr_Grip]

So let's take the torygraph anti-EU fearmongering out of this for a second, this quote is the core of the article:

"There is a currently consultation focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses. Taking account of the results, the commission will publish in the autumn a document by its technical experts which will no doubt refer to ISA among many other things."

There will be a document by the commission's experts that may or may not be the foundation for a EU commission ruling and that may or may not include ISA published in autumn. THEN we will see how this turn out.

To be honest, I don't see it happening. Too many government bodies in too many EU states need the income from speeding tickets (the Bielefelder Berg speed camera on Germany's A2 motorway catches more than six hundred speeders every day, providing employment to a dozen clerks writing tickets and a major source of income to the city of Bielefeld - we are talking several millions of Euros each year).
What I can imagine is a GPS-assisted, fully automatic speeding ticket system, "Fifth Element" style. Luckily, I can't see how they want to equip the Kadett with such a thing.

 

[pepitko]

This is unlikely to pass, especially in Germany. Merkel repeatedly said in the past that there is no reason to limit the speeds on the autobahn.

Also from http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK...-controls-are-inaccurate-beyond-the-limit-2/:

Reports of ?Brussels Big Brother Bid? to impose speed controls are inaccurate beyond the limit

September 1, 2013
Number of View: 3760
Rating: 4.1/5 (24 votes cast)

Reports in the press over the last day or two have suggested that the EU intends to bring forward ?formal proposals this autumn? to introduce automatic speed controls -known as ?Intelligent Speed Adaptation? or ISA, into cars. This is quite simply not true and the Commission had made this very clear to the journalists concerned prior to publication.

The Mail on Sunday for example (the only one of these articles online with no paywall), uses a quote from a Commission spokesman but chooses to leave out the first and most important sentence given to the paper?s reporter, which was this:

?The Commission has not tabled ? and does not have in the pipeline ? even a non-binding Recommendation, let alone anything more.?

The Daily Mail on Monday 2 September had the integrity to include this quote, but only at the end of an article confirming the incorrect slant that the Commission was proposing introducing the system. According to the Mail?s imaginative opening paragraph cars would be fitted with it ?if Brussels bureaucrats have their way?.

The Sun On Sunday failed to use the quote above, which it had been asked to use, but stated that ?motorists are set to be forced to have ?Big Brother? anti-speeding systems fitted in all new cars under EU rules?.

In addition to receiving the quote in writing, the Sun had been told repeatedly in a phone conversation that there was no proposal and none on the way. But it manipulated the conversation to imply that we had said we could not understand why there would be any difficulty with introducing ISA. In fact, we had said we were surprised if the UK government were upset that the Commission consulted it on research into improving road safety, given close cooperation in the past.

The Sun also made the odd statement that the ?proposal is being pushed by the unelected European Commission?. Needless to say, it rarely reminds its readers that actual decisions on EU law are taken by elected Ministers and MEPs, including those from the UK.
For the record, the rest of the quote supplied said to all the journalists involved said this:

?The Commission has supported past research into ISA. There is a current stakeholder consultation and study focusing on speed limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses. One aspect of that is whether ISA could in the long-term be an alternative.
And a second consultation on in-vehicle safety systems in general. Taking account of the consultation results, the Commission will publish in the autumn a document by its technical experts which will no doubt refer to ISA among many other things. That is all. (NB such ?staff working documents? are not adopted by the Commission at political level and have no legal status.) Nothing more is expected in the foreseeable future.

It is part of the EC?s job ? because it has been mandated to do so by Member States, including the UK ? to look at, promote research into and consult stakeholders about new road safety technology which might ultimately save lives. This is done in close cooperation with Member States and the UK has generally supported such efforts.?

It might indeed also seem strange to some that the UK government -if the press reports are accurate at least in that respect ? apparently objects so violently to even being consulted about a range of future ways in which lives could be saved on Europe?s roads.

To me, it looks like a made up story to ramp up the anti-EU circlejerk that Brits like to partake in.

 

[Dr_Grip]

This is unlikely to pass, especially in Germany. Merkel repeatedly said in the past that there is no reason to limit the speeds on the autobahn.

A high percentage of the Autobahn (narf to the rescue, I think it's between 70 and 80 percent) is already speed-limited. This proposal, as far as I understand, is about automatically enforcing existing limits, not about adding new ones. Thus Merkel, once again, could agree while technically not having lied to the voters.

 

[Dino]

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

 

[narf]

A high percentage of the Autobahn (narf to the rescue, I think it's between 70 and 80 percent) is already speed-limited. This proposal, as far as I understand, is about automatically enforcing existing limits, not about adding new ones. Thus Merkel, once again, could agree while technically not having lied to the voters.

It's the other way 'round, about a third is fully restricted plus a small percentage with dynamic speed limits. More than half (by distance, not by traffic of course) is still derestricted. I'm not quite sure how up-to-date these numbers are, but it's not 70-80% restricted.

On topic, what Dins said.

 

[Matt2000]

While I'm not in favour of certain laws/regulations we have from the EU I agree this appears to be normal press bullshit. This line for example set the BS detector off:

"1,754 people dying in road accidents last year compared to 3,657 in Germany."

It's a bigger country with more people, it doesn't mean our road safety is better. As a slight aside I was expecting Russia to be at the top with these figures but according to Wikipedia (with figures matching the ones above) suggests that there were only 27,991. China and India hold the crown for this, with 68,000 and 142,485 respectively. 142,485 is a frighteningly large number.

Should this be introduced though I will do whatever I can to ensure that my car is legally incompatible with this technology.

 

[prizrak]

I'm with the good Dr on this, speed limits are too big of a revenue generator for such tech to be used. Also it would be idiotic to apply the brakes, much easier to set a camera driven speed governor that simply changes max possible speed of the car. This could also be dangerous there could be good reasons to go much faster than the limit say a fumbled overtake...

 

[Aston Martin]

But as Clarkson said "why is the 20 mph limit in force outside a school at 2am?"

It wouldn't surprise me if it passes here.

 

[Dr_Grip]

It wouldn't surprise me if it passes here.

How much do British counties make from speeding tickets? They would never give up this source of revenue. As I said, if this system comes, it will not limit the speed, but automatically write tickets.

 

[TC]

How much do British counties make from speeding tickets? They would never give up this source of revenue. As I said, if this system comes, it will not limit the speed, but automatically write tickets.

That, and I doubt many lives would be saved. It's usually incompetence, inattention, driving under the influence, etc, that are the real causes of accidents. Speed can just make them a bit worse. But I doubt crashing at the speed limit of 70mph is going to have a high survival rate to begin with.

 

[prizrak]

That, and I doubt many lives would be saved. It's usually incompetence, inattention, driving under the influence, etc, that are the real causes of accidents. Speed can just make them a bit worse. But I doubt crashing at the speed limit of 70mph is going to have a high survival rate to begin with.

Well lets face it just because a measure won't save any lives doesn't mean it wouldn't pass. Speeding laws are one great example of it, most of the time they are quite a bit lower than they realistically should be (i.e. speed everyone drives).

 

[KaJuN]

How about they mandate limiters that don't let you go less than the speed limit? I'm sooooo freaking tired of being stuck behind Kias or Citroens doing 35-40mph on a 60mph road for no goddamn reason.

 

[AudiV6]

Speed limiters? Automatic breaking when speeding? Automatic GPS speedingtickets?

Never read so much rubbish in one thread. :lol:

The EU should compare the crash deaths to about 30 years ago, they had way over 30.000 deaths in one country alone, and most road deaths are caused by stupid drivers who either where not concentrating on what they where doing or drunk. The average speeding drivers don't exceed speeds 1 or 10 mph over the limit, only a few are really that retarded to do 90 in a 35 mph zone.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

While I'm not in favour of certain laws/regulations we have from the EU I agree this appears to be normal press bullshit. This line for example set the BS detector off:

"1,754 people dying in road accidents last year compared to 3,657 in Germany."

It's a bigger country with more people, it doesn't mean our road safety is better. As a slight aside I was expecting Russia to be at the top with these figures but according to Wikipedia (with figures matching the ones above) suggests that there were only 27,991. China and India hold the crown for this, with 68,000 and 142,485 respectively. 142,485 is a frighteningly large number.

Should this be introduced though I will do whatever I can to ensure that my car is legally incompatible with this technology.

142,485 deaths per year?

That works out to 16 deaths an hour. Good god I never want to drive in India.

 

[sonza68]

It is alot of people, but with over 1.2 billion Indians it isn't that bad when normalized against the population (not quite 3x the German deaths per million people). Not sure how that would look if normalized against passenger miles, but it probably gets worse.

 

[chaos386]

As a slight aside I was expecting Russia to be at the top with these figures but according to Wikipedia (with figures matching the ones above) suggests that there were only 27,991. China and India hold the crown for this, with 68,000 and 142,485 respectively. 142,485 is a frighteningly large number.

Saudi Arabia's rate is 7,100. Nearly double Germany's with a little more than 1/3rd the population. And now you understand my title.