Posted on Sunday 10 February 2008
The days when driving beyond a posted speed limit is impossible could soon be upon us with news coming out this weekend that Canada is trialling a new anti-speeding device that can automatically slow down a vehicle against a driver’s will. The new device uses a GPS locater, and a speed map and can override the car’s manual controls.
“The technology has the ability of just saying, ‘OK the posted speed limit is 50, so we’ll let you go 55, that’s it,’ ” Transport Canada researcher Paul Boase told the Edmonton Journal. Ten volunteers have already tried the device, which for testing purposes was fixed so drivers found the gas pedal difficult (though not impossible) to press if they were over the limit.
Boase would like to see chronic speeders forced to use the device, stating that it could potentially come with every new vehicle but that its first application would likely be for habitual speeders. “What you basically find is for drivers who need it the most, they like them the least,” Boase explained. “That’s why habitual offenders might be the right place to start.”
Via: Winding Road
Wow, if this is what the future is like, I don’t want to be part of it. All new cars coming with this is a nightmare. I would probably end up buying a crappy car since performance would mean nothing anymore and end up hating the drive to work or wherever else I’m going. I don’t speed that much but 5 KPH over the limit is so slow you might as well not be driving. Things like this really make me fear the future, it just sounds so joyless.
Yeah, I´m with you…
But I´m sure you´ll be able to hack the system somehow. The only thing you´ll need to do is mess up the GPS system, erase the speed limit database or something in that direction…. It will be something like erasing the speed limit on let´s say BMW M3.
It’s so sad that the first word that came into my mind was “hack”…
No problem, I’ll keep speeding with my Cessna. It’s even better.
If this ever becomes reality, I will avoid it at any cost ,any!
Raptor - you own a private jet?
I simply have no words.
Here again we have a technology - like a post in recent days about Toyota’s desire to automatically stop your car at stop signs - that takes control of the car from you, against your will, and hands it over to an automated system.
This system has nothing to do with speeding per se and everything to do with a government exerting control over the population. If it was about *chronic speeders* they would be put behind bars if they couldn’t be reformed. Instead the entire motoring population is forced to have intrusive devices in their cargo that wrestle control from them.
Next up: a device that measures how long ago you ate and if too short doesn’t let you go in the pool. Also, a device that tracks how many calories you’ve ingested in a day and if found to be too many denies you more. And finally a device that allows you to go to the bathroom ONLY at appointed times.
Haha, sounds like the kind of things you hear on the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto.
“Robots won’t be big things that look like humans, instead they’ll be tiny and implanted in our brains to tell us when we should eat and when to go to the toilet”
And I’m not kidding, that is actually part of the script for a radio station in Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories.
I would like to see this “Transport Canada researcher’s” knees broken. Afterall.. the ones who wanted it the least, need it the most.
hey hector i’m with you. if they’re chronic speeders lets just take away their license.. but then you get those whiny “freedom” fighters who say that driving is a right and not a privilege.
and if you ask me (i think its kinda obvious from my posting about the seatbelts) that some people could use a little robotic O ring around their throats that will choke them if they eat too many calories in one day. I think a society as a whole could benefit from that.
and yeah,,… 5 kmph over the speed limit is insanity. Americans couldn’t fathom a 3mph “over the limit” buffer,… u can hardly see 3mph on a gauge in the first place.
I think that a 30 or 40kmph buffer is legitimately acceptable. nay; if you’re doing 80kmph past a grade school… you’re car shouldn’t stop you there, or even cut the power… you should get your a$$ tossed in the clink.
I don’t think this will ever pass into law. Just think of the law suits that the government would open themselves up to? Say one could avoid an accident by speeding up and this gizmo wouldn’t let you do it? Nice law suit. Just as certain features never find their way onto N. American cars from europe for legal reasons this won’t find it’s way into our cars for the same reason. Forgetaboutit!
Raptor is more like talking about his Cessna 152 which can barely keep up with highway traffic unless there is a tail wind not a Cessna business jet
True CraigS, true, I indeed talk about C152. But it’s fun anyway. It can do 90 knots in level flight (around 105mph I belive) - it’s not actually speeding because speed limit for air traffic below 10000 feet is 250 knots but okay. But you can do other crazy stuff ;-D