Mandatory Factory Speed Limiters In Cars.

Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
The UK government’s plans to adopt the forthcoming EU introduction of mandatory factory speed limiters in cars. From 2022 all new cars will have speed limiters and black boxes to record everything you do. Feck me!!

This concerns me on many levels, and not because I am a speed freak. I have a thirty-five year driving history free of convictions or accidents and I passed my IAM Advanced Driving Test over twenty-five years ago. So why should a safety conscious driver be worried about this proposal?


Safe driving requires skill and judgment. The driving environment is dynamic and hazardous. Speed limits cannot change every few metres so blanket limits typically cover large areas. Within that limit area there may be places were a speed a little higher than the limit is safe and others were hazards dictate a speed much lower than the limit. Drivers should be allowed to respond to the environment and receive better training in risk assessment, hazard perception and situational awareness rather than dulling their attention by taking responsibilities away from them.


Removing layers of control from the driver encourages laziness and lack of attention. The extreme example is fully automated cars where the ‘driver’ is charged with ‘monitoring’ what the car is doing. Scientifically, we are very bad at that and speed limiters in cars will encourage drivers to simply trust the limiter to decide the safe speed of travel.


We don’t even know if it will work. We already have speed limited vehicles on the roads in the form of heavy goods vehicles and the bunching of them on motorways and blockages due to ‘elephant races’ is well known. We do not know what effect it would have on traffic patterns if all vehicles had limiters. Drivers would not have the flexibility to use higher speeds to move clear of bad traffic into more open road spaces. Yes, I know they have said that short bursts of speed will be permitted but they are only talking about a few seconds, it will be accompanied by a distracting audible warning and the power will be removed by the system at a time which may prove inappropriate or even dangerous. I also believe they will eventually remove this feature, only including it to aid acceptance.


Part of this legislation is the inclusion of a ‘black box’ which tracks all of the car’s movements. Is this even legal?? When a young driver agrees to the fitting of a black box in order to lower his or her insurance premiums they do so voluntarily. How can it be legal to force everyone to carry a tracking device which allows the government to know your every move? Don’t we have laws which protect our privacy and rights to freedom? I believe it is indicative of the EU’s controlling mind-set that they sneak in this technically unnecessary feature which has worrying future implications.


The introduction may change car buying habits and harm the car industry. Personally, I have no intention of buying a car with a speed limiter. It seems likely I will not be alone. It is possible that the current desire to have the newest car you can afford on your drive will change and running older cars will be the norm. In an extreme case, post-introduction car sales may fall off a cliff but it certainly seems inevitable that sales will suffer significantly.


The bureaucratic obsession with speed is frankly depressing. While clearly a relevant factor in road safety, it is only one of them. The reason it is habitually targeted is that it is easy to measure. It can be measured by roadside machines or satellites and used for raising money. Accidents are not caused by speed, they are caused by bad decisions. I’ll give you a recent example.


A few weeks ago I reported a dangerous driver to the police, who were in a position to take action because of my dash-cam footage. The driver was weaving dangerously through congested traffic on the M8 motorway like a video game as he impatiently tried to push ahead. He narrowly avoided causing a serious accident, but he was not exceeding the speed limit.


We all know someone who has been convicted of speeding even if we have not. When was the last time you saw someone convicted of any other form of poor driving without it resulting in an accident? Further targeting of speed will do nothing to make drivers more attentive and responsible, it may well have the opposite effect, and why should the majority of safe drivers like me have to suffer draconian restriction because of the behaviour of a minority of idiots? If you want speed limiters, why not just fit them to their cars? You get a speeding ticket, you get a limiter? Why is that not a fairer idea and why would that not encourage more widespread compliance with speed limits without punishing everyone?

I'll make a prediction right now. I think that in the first three years after introduction, accident rates will go up, not down.

Bottom line is that unless there is a large showing of public outrage this is going to happen. Most people are too dull to understand the full implications and think it's a good thing. By the time we realise otherwise it will be too late. Please look into this and make as much noise about as you can. I hope it can be stopped.
 

Seastormer

Cupra Leon VZ2 300/CBF1000
Apr 25, 2014
5,007
692
68
Edinburgh (Scotland)
The UK government’s plans to adopt the forthcoming EU introduction of mandatory factory speed limiters in cars. From 2022 all new cars will have speed limiters and black boxes to record everything you do. Feck me!!

This concerns me on many levels, and not because I am a speed freak. I have a thirty-five year driving history free of convictions or accidents and I passed my IAM Advanced Driving Test over twenty-five years ago. So why should a safety conscious driver be worried about this proposal?


Safe driving requires skill and judgment. The driving environment is dynamic and hazardous. Speed limits cannot change every few metres so blanket limits typically cover large areas. Within that limit area there may be places were a speed a little higher than the limit is safe and others were hazards dictate a speed much lower than the limit. Drivers should be allowed to respond to the environment and receive better training in risk assessment, hazard perception and situational awareness rather than dulling their attention by taking responsibilities away from them.


Removing layers of control from the driver encourages laziness and lack of attention. The extreme example is fully automated cars where the ‘driver’ is charged with ‘monitoring’ what the car is doing. Scientifically, we are very bad at that and speed limiters in cars will encourage drivers to simply trust the limiter to decide the safe speed of travel.


We don’t even know if it will work. We already have speed limited vehicles on the roads in the form of heavy goods vehicles and the bunching of them on motorways and blockages due to ‘elephant races’ is well known. We do not know what effect it would have on traffic patterns if all vehicles had limiters. Drivers would not have the flexibility to use higher speeds to move clear of bad traffic into more open road spaces. Yes, I know they have said that short bursts of speed will be permitted but they are only talking about a few seconds, it will be accompanied by a distracting audible warning and the power will be removed by the system at a time which may prove inappropriate or even dangerous. I also believe they will eventually remove this feature, only including it to aid acceptance.


Part of this legislation is the inclusion of a ‘black box’ which tracks all of the car’s movements. Is this even legal?? When a young driver agrees to the fitting of a black box in order to lower his or her insurance premiums they do so voluntarily. How can it be legal to force everyone to carry a tracking device which allows the government to know your every move? Don’t we have laws which protect our privacy and rights to freedom? I believe it is indicative of the EU’s controlling mind-set that they sneak in this technically unnecessary feature which has worrying future implications.


The introduction may change car buying habits and harm the car industry. Personally, I have no intention of buying a car with a speed limiter. It seems likely I will not be alone. It is possible that the current desire to have the newest car you can afford on your drive will change and running older cars will be the norm. In an extreme case, post-introduction car sales may fall off a cliff but it certainly seems inevitable that sales will suffer significantly.


The bureaucratic obsession with speed is frankly depressing. While clearly a relevant factor in road safety, it is only one of them. The reason it is habitually targeted is that it is easy to measure. It can be measured by roadside machines or satellites and used for raising money. Accidents are not caused by speed, they are caused by bad decisions. I’ll give you a recent example.


A few weeks ago I reported a dangerous driver to the police, who were in a position to take action because of my dash-cam footage. The driver was weaving dangerously through congested traffic on the M8 motorway like a video game as he impatiently tried to push ahead. He narrowly avoided causing a serious accident, but he was not exceeding the speed limit.


We all know someone who has been convicted of speeding even if we have not. When was the last time you saw someone convicted of any other form of poor driving without it resulting in an accident? Further targeting of speed will do nothing to make drivers more attentive and responsible, it may well have the opposite effect, and why should the majority of safe drivers like me have to suffer draconian restriction because of the behaviour of a minority of idiots? If you want speed limiters, why not just fit them to their cars? You get a speeding ticket, you get a limiter? Why is that not a fairer idea and why would that not encourage more widespread compliance with speed limits without punishing everyone?

I'll make a prediction right now. I think that in the first three years after introduction, accident rates will go up, not down.

Bottom line is that unless there is a large showing of public outrage this is going to happen. Most people are too dull to understand the full implications and think it's a good thing. By the time we realise otherwise it will be too late. Please look into this and make as much noise about as you can. I hope it can be stopped.
Totally agree with all you have said
 
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martin j.

Active Member
Feb 11, 2007
1,996
889
Fife
From what I seen/heard the limiter will not prevent a vehicle actually exceeding the limit, the driver can still accelerate through it- in the need of safety of course- but the event will/may be recorded on the control box, I don’t then expect the box to message old bill to tell them of your misdemeanour, time of course will tell.
 

Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
From what I seen/heard the limiter will not prevent a vehicle actually exceeding the limit, the driver can still accelerate through it..

My understanding is that you will be able to exceed the limit by flooring the pedal, but only for a few seconds. A warning will sound and then the power will be cut.

So what happens when you're overtaking a truck on a b-road and your power drops suddenly? Does the computer know that you're not safely back on the left side of the road?
 

xyz

Full Member
Feb 28, 2004
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oxford
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Just read an article in the latest Evo. Trials showed that drivers using the limiters were tailgating, cutting in too soon after overtaking and just plain running out of road when trying to overtake. On top of that, they were just tuning out and just driving on the limiter so not concentrating - but of course the chauffeur driven or public transport using w#nk puffins in Brussels who are trying to pass this legislation don’t care about all this because they don’t live in the real world.


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Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
That's what I would expect. It's a huge experiment initiated by dreamers in ivory towers.

It also gives you some insight into the total control these people want to have over your life. They say the black box will only be used to gather data before and after a crash but..they would say that. Fact remains that this tech could be used to monitor your every move at the flick of a switch.
 
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xyz

Full Member
Feb 28, 2004
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oxford
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That's what I would expect. It's a huge experiment initiated by dreamers in ivory towers.

It also gives you some insight into the total control these people want to have over your life. They say the black box will only be used to gather data before and after a crash but..they would say that. Fact remains that this tech could be used to monitor your every move at the flick of a switch.

Pig - I’ve driven trucks for years and can confirm that limiters are a pain but at least they’re set to 56 mph and don’t rely on gps speed limits. I predict a rise in accidents amongst the more stupid car drivers.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Legojon

I only wanted a remap
Staff member
Moderator
Jul 7, 2015
5,284
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I know quite a few new drivers who've taken the black box to reduce premiums. But ended up getting thrashed on renewal as the black box noted down a couple of occasions of excessive braking. The insurance used this as an excuse to double their premiums. Guess I need to keep my Cupra on the road till it won't go any more. If everyone feels that way, they'll be an upturn of used vs new cars.
 

Wings988

Active Member
Oct 27, 2011
509
59
Derbyshire
Agree with the sentiments on driver skills. I'm surprised the car industry has let it happen as power and speed sells at a huge premium. When an Audi RS, BMW M, Mercedes AMG, Lambo, Porsche, Ferrari and all the rest including Cupra is limited then what's the point of it in Europe? Their home market is pointless and destroyed. As for the like of Caterham, Arial, Morgan and those smaller sportscar guys I wonder if they'll be exempt or not?
I think I'll have to keep my 2018 Cupra SC for ever, the last of the 3 door breed.
 
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Deleted member 103408

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What is happening in china (which drives dev in europe) is tech in cars is no 1. then clean energy (so called) is no 2. further people accept they will have more than one vehicle to meet different needs. Law makers are taking the easy route because they dont understand and trying to keep the popular vote happy.
 

Deleted member 103408

Guest
Some manufacturers are going to fail and others will florish. i suspect the caterham type cars will end up as track only and the next step will be to get older non controlled cars off the road. Time to buy a car trailer buiness.
 

Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
Agree with the sentiments on driver skills. I'm surprised the car industry has let it happen...

The car industry has no choice.

To fully understand this one has to step back and look at the fuller picture. Sure, in their misguided heads this actually makes sense and will save lives but fundamentally, what is going on? The bottom line is that you are living in the largest socialist experiment that Europe has ever seen. Hitler in his wildest dreams couldn't have wished for this! Well, ok, I'm sure he did but the fact is our freedom is being systematically removed and we are quietly letting it happen. Heck, we're welcoming it! Rapidly collecting technology which would let a malevolent dictatorship track our every word and movement. If you don't understand how much **** we are in you really need to read a few history books. This is not a new game, it's just never been so well played.

I don't believe you can stop it. I do hope we can slow it down but I'm not confident about that either. Basically, I think we're screwed.
 

Legojon

I only wanted a remap
Staff member
Moderator
Jul 7, 2015
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I'm thinking it'll start out like dpfs n gpfs. Initially we'll have to put up with it. Then companies will pop up removing or overriding these boxes. Then they'll be a tech war as they try to make them more and more secure. But think of eg all the times Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo have tried to protect their software / hardware and someone has always come along, reverse engineered it and circumvented it. As soon as the first car leaves the factory teams will be working to crack it.
 

Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
Removing the boxes will be too risky as it will invalidate your insurance. Yes, people do mod their cars and not tell the insurance companies but I wouldn't do it. The possible cost could be frightening.
 

perelaar

Active Member
Jan 18, 2019
86
40
Sugartown Belgium
As usual, when talking about EU decisions, a lot of disinformation. European Parliament has indeed agreed on this, but now the committee and council circus starts with hearings on the implementation etc - and then national governments need to adopt it as new legislation. All info here.

In short:
- obligatory in May 2022 for new models (cars which haven't been designed yet) and from May 2024 for existing models (cars already on the market). No retroactive updates to cars already driving around!
- the speed limiter is part of a package, including automated emergency breaking, advanced driver distraction warning, emergency lane keeping, reversing detection system, alcohol interlock installation facilitation and emergency stop signal. Most of these are already available in new cars, although I don't like using them. Apart from the brake assist, that is very useful as most people don't press down the brake enough in an emergency.
- your driving behaviour will not be recorded permanently (impossible for privacy reasons - although you people in the UK almost have no privacy left...), the recorder runs in a loop of a few seconds (Event Data Recorders, recording crash-related data a few seconds before a crash)
- when breaking the speed limit (assuming the car knows what the speed limit is in a specific place) a warning is displayed, but if you press the accelerator you will be able to go past the speed limit

EDIT: forgot to mention, you can turn it off completely. Whatever your insurer wants you to do, is something else...
 
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Wings988

Active Member
Oct 27, 2011
509
59
Derbyshire
As usual, when talking about EU decisions, a lot of disinformation. European Parliament has indeed agreed on this, but now the committee and council circus starts with hearings on the implementation etc - and then national governments need to adopt it as new legislation. All info here.

In short:
- obligatory in May 2022 for new models (cars which haven't been designed yet) and from May 2024 for existing models (cars already on the market). No retroactive updates to cars already driving around!
- the speed limiter is part of a package, including automated emergency breaking, advanced driver distraction warning, emergency lane keeping, reversing detection system, alcohol interlock installation facilitation and emergency stop signal. Most of these are already available in new cars, although I don't like using them. Apart from the brake assist, that is very useful as most people don't press down the brake enough in an emergency.
- your driving behaviour will not be recorded permanently (impossible for privacy reasons - although you people in the UK almost have no privacy left...), the recorder runs in a loop of a few seconds (Event Data Recorders, recording crash-related data a few seconds before a crash)
- when breaking the speed limit (assuming the car knows what the speed limit is in a specific place) a warning is displayed, but if you press the accelerator you will be able to go past the speed limit

EDIT: forgot to mention, you can turn it off completely. Whatever your insurer wants you to do, is something else...
It's the thin end of the wedge to ultimately suppress everyone into thinking automated vehicles are the future. For most people who regard cars as white goods it will succeed and the minority of us who actually like driving for pleasure will be left with little choice. I'll most likely buy a new car in 2021 before speed limiters are fitted and run it until it dies, I certainly won't be swapping into new cars every 2 or 3 years like I have been for the past decade or so. I've still got my motorcycles too for full rider interaction.
All this EU stuff just makes the film V seem like reality soon.
 

Mr Pig

Active Member
Jun 17, 2015
2,614
906
It's the thin end of the wedge to ultimately suppress everyone into thinking automated vehicles are the future....All this EU stuff just makes the film V seem like reality soon.

Exactly. It's terrifying, or at least it should be. The sad fact is that most people are too absorbed in their sad little lives to notice or care and they'll stay like that until it's too late.
 
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ChrisM75

Active Member
May 10, 2019
423
182
So much misinformation about this its unreal.

A lot of cars already have this technology, but its sold now as a feature. Its actually quite handy if you have a heavy right foot and want to try to stick to the limit. Making it compulsory doesn't really change anything. You can turn it off or override it and will be able to in the future, if for no other reason than its an imperfect technology, GPS data isnt always right, and cars that read trafficsigns sometime misread, or read the wrong signs.

The 'black box' is also quite common already, Seats already have one. The data is anonymised, insurers will not have access to it, and so far this data has never been used in court because its basically useless to the police.

Insurers will not be able to refuse payouts if you turn off the feature. The car will not report you for speeding. The police will not use the black box data.
 
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