Posted on 03/24/2015 12:52:24 PM PDT by C19fan
Much as we'd like to emulate our NASCAR heroes, breaking the speed limit often comes at a price. Ford is hoping to prevent accidents and speeding tickets by introducing cars that can see what the speed limit is and preventing heavy-footed motorists from driving any faster. Ford's Intelligent Speed Limiter tech will first appear on the new Ford S-Max that's launching in Europe that could just change the way that we drive.
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
I predict plummeting Ford sales. :-)
I can’t drive 55.
Another blind FReeper.
Ford took $5.9 billion in taxpayer loans under the guise of 'fuel efficiency' research.
But it was taxpayer secured loans, just like Chrysler.
I’ll never buy it. Too dangerous. There are times when speeding is a necessity: the passing opportunity on a two lane road; getting an injured person or someone about to give birth to the hospital, getting to a fire or emergency situation if one is a volunteer, etc.
Yes! I think FR is going downhill with regard to intelligence.
Reminds me of a story. I’m an RN. Calm night on Tele unit.
Phone rings. Excited doctor, “How’s my patient! Have you started CPR yet!?”
“Nothing’s going on here, doctor.”
“I don’t have time for that. Here, tell this officer it’s an emergency!”
(Me, to officer) “This guy’s going to die if we don’t get our doctor here, right now!”
(Officer) “Right away!”
A few minutes later, doc shows up. After a police escort to the hospital, he was honor bound to come.
He tried the same thing at a different hospital. (Nurse to officer): “I have no idea what he’s talking about, everybody’s fine here.”
The officer replied, “I don't care if you are Michael DeBakey, I want to see your license.”
(Dr. Debakey was truly a pioneering professor of open heart surgery at Texas Heart in his day.)
What could possibly go wrong?
“Slowing down by reducing gas flow is the equivalent of stepping off the gas.
If that causes a rear-ender, the fault is not with the car is in front.”
The car in the rear is always at fault, so I agree with you.
But accidents happen when people act unpredictably, and/or if there is a significant speed differential.
If nobody ever slows to the posted speed limit at a given speed reduction area, a car automatically doing so would be an unpredictable act, a significant speed differential would exist, and accidents will occur.
By way of example, on the drive home this evening, there is an area on the parkway in which the posted limit slows from 40 MPH to 25 MPH at a sweeping S-curve. Traffic was light, and most of the drivers on the road were commouters who drive it every day, know every bump, and safely drive well above the limit.
Today, traffic was flowing at about 65 in a 40 MPH zone. At the S-curve, one car in the left lane slowed to 50 MPH (still twice twice the new posted limit), but he was STILL going slower than the rest of the traffic.
Suddenly, a half-dozen drivers are hitting their brakes and scrambling to pass him on the right on this S-curve. Since traffic was light, the road was dry and the sun was out, nothing untoward happened.
However, IF his car had automatically slowed to 25, there could have been a major pile-up.
That’s called “chrome” down in Mexico.
This isn’t a huge deal. It’s common for European-spec cars to have speed limiters instead of or in addition to traditional cruise control. The driver sets the limit and can cancel it at the push of a button - as mentioned in the article.
The advance here is to have the car automatically set the limit based on the traffic signs, but regardless of how it’s set the driver has complete control and can opt to not use the system at all. It’s really geared for lazy drivers who don’t want to pay attention to the signs but don’t want to get tickets either.
The people fleeing the eruption of Mount St. Helens had to floor it to survive. With this car they would have died.
From the hackers hired to make the black box say what they want it to say.
Cynic. ..
LOL
“I see a field day for attorneys on so many fronts its staggering....”
Yep. WAY too many scenarios were extra speed is necessary to keep from being killed. Too numerous to bother trying to list.
Oh good grief. Why would anyone want to drive a death trap like that?
Yep. And I already have a ‘speed limiter’. It’s called cruise control.
So do I but mine is called driving in a safe and prudent manner and I can use it without any government mandates
Yeah Utah! Drive it like you stole it.
Absolutely. Urban interstate speed limit 70, rural 80. Yee haw!
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