Comments on: NSW trialling electronic speed limiter in cars

By: Kieran

Kieran — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:27:17 +0000

When will the various authorities realise, that there are in fact very few “accidents” on the road. Almost every “accident” is preventable in some way or another, and very few accidents can actually be blamed on speed alone – after all, the driver is in control of the car’s speed. And if the Australian Design Rules had been updated to be in line with current technology as it’s evolved over the years, I’d be willing to bet that by now the road toll would have at least halved. Furthermore, in Germany, where there are no speed limits on the national Autobahns, they have half as many fatal “accidents” BY NUMBER (not percentage) than we do here in Australia – and they have FOUR TIMES our population. Clearly, speed isn’t the issue here. If the government(s) spent more money on proper driver education training, and less on scaremongering advertisements, we would have a country of much safer, and much more skilled drivers.

By: Brett

Brett — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:37:23 +0000

Yet another reason to vote out the moronic NSW Government.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:31:43 +0000

News just in. electronic speed limiter is in, NSW REGO gone up 1000% to cover for the speeding fine financial blackhole

By: Kovalainen

Kovalainen — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:17:18 +0000

Maybe the government should start teaching people how to drive properly, first. Nearly every single car crash is caused by human error.

By: Spitfire

Spitfire — Sat, 23 May 2009 06:20:32 +0000

While we are on the subject of stupid politicians and their dim witted beauracrats, this is worth a listen.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scien.....578568.htm

By: realcars

realcars — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:52:01 +0000

Yeah and what about speed limiting on trucks?

Is this enforced?

This should be a priority to stop companies from forcing Truck drivers to break the law to achieve unrealistic time tables and placing the rest of us in danger in doing so.

By: swampdawg

swampdawg — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:10:16 +0000

Speed limiting has NOT pulled too many trucks/ B-Doubles into line. I guess while motorists are electronically speed limited they can be pushed into a better pace by the tailing truck. The RTA circus tent is on fire again.

By: SpeedFlux

SpeedFlux — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:33:45 +0000

The good thing, it will be real efficient for brake, but I would refuse to purchase a car with it installed.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:01:13 +0000

Here we go again. The government misses the point and just starts throwing out random ideas. The problem is that most people don’t think this sort of thing through: they see the story about how young drivers are mass murderers waiting to happen on ACA and then they hear about this. Suddenly the world is saved, let’s just ignore situations where you have to accelerate out of danger and overtaking.

This really isn’t that hard to work out. You take all the money that gets pumped into ridiculous ideas like this and the speed kills campaigns and put it into subsidising driver training. And I don’t mean the ones where they teach you how to reverse park or when to use your blinkers, I mean proper training. Put people on a skidpan and teach them how to handle the car properly.

And to support that how about taking some time out of the oh-so relevant junk being taught in schools and put it into something like this. I personally would like to see things like the weight transfer of the car taught (as in the theoretical side of driving, I mean it’s certainly more relevant than, say, Shakespeare), but even just showing those shock videos (the ones where they show you a real accident) would be better than nothing.

By: The Stag

The Stag — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:40:20 +0000

Yes, yes, too controlling of us drivers etc etc. But… I’m afraid this system will come in time like it or not. The positive side is that all the people who take off slowly from the lights and do stupid things will have to move uniformly. Picture this: everybody’s speed limiter/accelerator kicks in at a green light or higher speed limit area and a body of cars increases speed together, instead of the chaos of some people dribbling along half awake not realizing they are holding people up (or too bloody selfish). And, it may stop the stupidity of running a red light because “I didn’t see it” and almost killing someone, which was the case with me last year.

By: The Stig

The Stig — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:32:18 +0000

I hope this device is only connected to my 1st gear!!

By: Andrew M

Andrew M — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:12:26 +0000

The beter idea would be to make the speed alert in the cars communicate with the sattelites and constantly adjust the warning speed.

Everyone always sets them at like 120kmh or turns them off all together, but if they automaticly varied depending on the zones and let off an annoying beep, people would be aware and still be able to overtake safely

By: Andrew M

Andrew M — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:09:08 +0000

Bret is certainly on the money.

Dont worry, we will all be on the user pays system before we know it, and that goes for those posing with their arms crossed.

They will either scare us onto it, or tax us onto it.

And as someone said earlier, the mercs use a similar system to this, I remember reading about it a while ago.

By: Bor'ka

Bor'ka — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:00:37 +0000

Who ever wrote the article, apart from forgetting to sign their name (maybe their just embarrassed by such journalism), also forgot to mention that there are in fact five prototypes of this concept being trialled. Some of them increase resistance to the pedal which can be overcome by the driver, for example in an emergency, yet it still offers a reminder to the driver that they are about to break the speed limit. I think one version beeps as mentioned in a post above and one is not able to be switched off at all.

By: zero

zero — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:51:13 +0000

gosh,why bother buying cars like ferrari?let all switch to a barina
this is too much and over the top until it makes them sound like an absolute douche.

By: Gibbo

Gibbo — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:01:57 +0000

They really have to up the IQ qualification for government ministers. Something above 50 would be a start…

By: Westy

Westy — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:37:05 +0000

I will join the chorus above and mention this is a stupid, moronic, idiotic, pointless, over the top, dumb example of over governance in this country. When will it all end. I can’t believe they came out in the news and said they were going to trial it. As stated above, these clowns…oh errr politicians, are supposed to be our representatives not our gestapo communist tell us what to doers. So much for a free county….seems we are losing that. Bloody hell when are we as the voting people going to get our voices again and when are these idiots going to listen to US!

By: swineflu

swineflu — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:51:39 +0000

it’ll be good that a device like that tells you when your over the limit rather than cut the supply to your engine.

These days with all the different variable speed limits along one road is a joke (well in some cases could be nessacary)… would save you looking down at your speedometer all the time.

The only thing available these days is you set a speed on a device and it tells you if your over that speed. Well lets just say if they can incorporate the speed limits posted along the side of the roads to the device then you can get either an audible or visual warning, (but at what expense I hear you say, your right!). Anyway another thing would be for the police to be able to remotely cut power to your engine – enough for you to park your car without causing any danger to yourself and others and be stopped without a police chase, but then if something like that gets in the wrong hands it could spell disaster…

By: Shak

Shak — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:36:57 +0000

This is the second worst idea that the NSW governmnet has had. (the first was electing Nathan Rees). Im 16 and my parents are sending me to an advanced driver course because the governmnet doesnt offer any form of driving education and driving instructors only say ” go very slow and brake from 400m away” God, why not just offer education for young and old alike. itll probably be cheaper than all these things.

By: oneill3

oneill3 — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:36:46 +0000

it’ll be a cold day in hell before they stick something like this on my car.

I would refuse to purchase a car with it installed.