RE: Rein of Terror
Tuesday 25th February 2003
Let's Pay More
I know I should have more faith in the integrity of good research, but it's hard not to be cynical when you've read that a survey conducted as an earlier part of this study found that, on average, drivers are willing to pay £145 per annum each to have "speed cameras everywhere", and £148 per annum each to have speed limiters fitted to everything. Conduct a quick poll at your workplace tomorrow and see if you can achieve similar results. If you can, you work for Brake.
But I guess we just have to trust that the 20 lab rats have been properly vetted for impostors. If they have, then there should be nothing stopping them from going on to faithfully exhibit the wonderful side-effects of the speed limiter: increased frustration, less consideration given to safe braking distances, an inclination to keep it nailed against the limiter where it might be prudent to ease off a little.
Pause for Thought
And that's before you start thinking through the many "what if" scenarios... You're in the outside lane, having passed 16 of the 22 wheels of an articulated lorry, when it unexpectedly indicates right and makes a move towards your passenger door. Where you would once have instinctively accelerated to safety, you now find yourself with no choice but to brake violently in an attempt to drop back the entire length of the lorry, all the while praying for quick reactions from the following drivers tailgating at the exact same 70mph, as enforced by their own concentration suffocating limiters.
Sure, some kind of emergency override is a possibility, but what's to stop the driver overriding it all the time, taking us right back to square one? Even restricting the number of overrides per time or distance unit is an accident waiting to happen in the hands of the careless or the reckless who find their quota used up at the very moment when they really need it. Just watch those "no win – no fee" ads make the leap from daytime TV into primetime slots.
In Safe Hands
But even if the nightmare does become a reality, it's not all bad news. The technology – a GPS receiver and an electronic map working in perverse harmony – is not rocket science. Not that it would matter if it were, because everyone knows that when it comes to unravelling a microchip puzzle the best brains don't work for NASA, usually because they haven't even finished high school yet.
"Unlimited speed" would soon become the second most popular search on Google as every other website hosted outside the participating nations offered cracked speed data downloadable at the click of a mouse button. After all, what would be the chances of you being caught? About as likely as you are to be caught speeding today. Probably less, in fact, as fixed cameras and mobile traps on those old urban favourites would soon be rendered ineffective by the do-gooder heading up every pack of cars, bang on the limit.
Every Cloud...
Even if the seemingly impossible is achieved, and a means of making speed limiters compulsory is found that doesn't contain more holes than a slice of gruyère, there will still be a silver lining: with speed tamed, when those annual accident statistics are totted up and found to have not shifted one iota there might – finally – be some time and money spent tackling all the other far more significant causes of accidents that have remained completely overlooked for so long. Only then, ironically, would speed limiters have helped to save lives.
www.SelfMadeJournalist.com
Rein of Terror
Ian Eveleigh ponders on the dangers of the current enthusiasm for speed limiters
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It seems that no matter how often we are told, we just don't learn. Speed Kills, OK? Yet for some reason we take our many years of prang-free motoring – including those frequent excursions into the forbidden world of speeds beyond the legal limits – as proof enough that, in the right circumstances, there is no added danger to be had in making a little better progress than the rules say we should. Fools! We just don't know what's good for us! Fortunately, the ever-caring Department for Transport does.
As you may have read on the news pages at PistonHeads, later this year a small group of motorists are set to get a taste of a possible future where private cars vehemently obey the speed limit of whichever stretch of road they happen to be on. The External Vehicle Speed Control trial will involve twenty volunteers, each of whom will be given the keys to their own Skoda Fabia fitted with just such a limiter.
The alarm bells are ringing already, right? No, not the Skoda bit, but that word "volunteers". Who in their right mind would volunteer to drive around in a speed limited vehicle, putting themselves at the mercy of other traffic travelling at speeds, by and large, appropriate for the conditions? People lacking comfortable/reliable/modern/any transport of their own, perhaps? Or, just maybe, individuals wishing to ensure that this trial has a certain outcome.
I know I should have more faith in the integrity of good research, but it's hard not to be cynical when you've read that a survey conducted as an earlier part of this study found that, on average, drivers are willing to pay £145 per annum each to have "speed cameras everywhere", and £148 per annum each to have speed limiters fitted to everything. Conduct a quick poll at your workplace tomorrow and see if you can achieve similar results. If you can, you work for Brake.
But I guess we just have to trust that the 20 lab rats have been properly vetted for impostors. If they have, then there should be nothing stopping them from going on to faithfully exhibit the wonderful side-effects of the speed limiter: increased frustration, less consideration given to safe braking distances, an inclination to keep it nailed against the limiter where it might be prudent to ease off a little.
And that's before you start thinking through the many "what if" scenarios... You're in the outside lane, having passed 16 of the 22 wheels of an articulated lorry, when it unexpectedly indicates right and makes a move towards your passenger door. Where you would once have instinctively accelerated to safety, you now find yourself with no choice but to brake violently in an attempt to drop back the entire length of the lorry, all the while praying for quick reactions from the following drivers tailgating at the exact same 70mph, as enforced by their own concentration suffocating limiters.
Sure, some kind of emergency override is a possibility, but what's to stop the driver overriding it all the time, taking us right back to square one? Even restricting the number of overrides per time or distance unit is an accident waiting to happen in the hands of the careless or the reckless who find their quota used up at the very moment when they really need it. Just watch those "no win – no fee" ads make the leap from daytime TV into primetime slots.
But even if the nightmare does become a reality, it's not all bad news. The technology – a GPS receiver and an electronic map working in perverse harmony – is not rocket science. Not that it would matter if it were, because everyone knows that when it comes to unravelling a microchip puzzle the best brains don't work for NASA, usually because they haven't even finished high school yet.
"Unlimited speed" would soon become the second most popular search on Google as every other website hosted outside the participating nations offered cracked speed data downloadable at the click of a mouse button. After all, what would be the chances of you being caught? About as likely as you are to be caught speeding today. Probably less, in fact, as fixed cameras and mobile traps on those old urban favourites would soon be rendered ineffective by the do-gooder heading up every pack of cars, bang on the limit.
Even if the seemingly impossible is achieved, and a means of making speed limiters compulsory is found that doesn't contain more holes than a slice of gruyère, there will still be a silver lining: with speed tamed, when those annual accident statistics are totted up and found to have not shifted one iota there might – finally – be some time and money spent tackling all the other far more significant causes of accidents that have remained completely overlooked for so long. Only then, ironically, would speed limiters have helped to save lives.
Discussion
Another move towards removing all real responsibility from the driver.
No doubt championed by the same people who want to send scroats on holidays to stop them committing crime.
Commit crime = go on holiday Hmmmmmmm I can see the logic
Why is it that over the last few!? years there have been many drives in many sectors to remove responsibility from the individual.
Parents are no longer responsible for kids.
We're no longer responsible for getting a good education. If you don't sue your educ. authority.
Cyclists are not responsible for anything.
What is going on?
One thing I know for sure is that its not my fault, I'm not responsible
No doubt championed by the same people who want to send scroats on holidays to stop them committing crime.
Commit crime = go on holiday Hmmmmmmm I can see the logic
Why is it that over the last few!? years there have been many drives in many sectors to remove responsibility from the individual.
Parents are no longer responsible for kids.
We're no longer responsible for getting a good education. If you don't sue your educ. authority.
Cyclists are not responsible for anything.
What is going on?
One thing I know for sure is that its not my fault, I'm not responsible
No longer responsible. Know why? It's called governmental dumbing down. It's not that we're not responsible, it's just that the government find a 'dumb' population easier to legislate over and feed propaganda into. Here's something I realised quite a while back about European anti-car (specifically classic car) legislation:
They want us to scrap our 'old' cars on 'environmental' grounds and buy 'clean' new ones. It uses more natural resources both building and disposing of a car than the car will ever consume in it's natural lifetime. Also, many white-goods numpty cars are effectively equipped with 'built-in obsolescence', making their transition from factory to scrapyard even quicker, making them even more unclean. The more hi-tech they are, the more machining is required and the more servicing needed when their computers break down (which they do) placing them even lower on the ozone layer's Christmas card list. And yet they fit them with speed limiters and drain all responsibility from driving, along with all the other numpty aids, then trumpet it as a 'great idea'. Want to know why?
I'll tell you - we 'think' that by following all this advice we are doing some good, when in fact these hypocritical laws are in place to make cars, and therefore citizens, easier to legislate over, and we are digging our own graves. It is our duty as petrolheads and guardians of free will to encourage potential motorists in the ways of alternative motoring - kitcars and handbuilts - free from numpty aids, numpties and too much legislation.
P.S. - a little fact here. Being handbuilt, an old Aston Martin V8 used up less resources than a modern automated-factory-produced Ford Mondeo in it's production, and will last longer than it, take well to an LPG conversion, and will, therefore, be 'greener'. Looks good in BRG too.
They want us to scrap our 'old' cars on 'environmental' grounds and buy 'clean' new ones. It uses more natural resources both building and disposing of a car than the car will ever consume in it's natural lifetime. Also, many white-goods numpty cars are effectively equipped with 'built-in obsolescence', making their transition from factory to scrapyard even quicker, making them even more unclean. The more hi-tech they are, the more machining is required and the more servicing needed when their computers break down (which they do) placing them even lower on the ozone layer's Christmas card list. And yet they fit them with speed limiters and drain all responsibility from driving, along with all the other numpty aids, then trumpet it as a 'great idea'. Want to know why?
I'll tell you - we 'think' that by following all this advice we are doing some good, when in fact these hypocritical laws are in place to make cars, and therefore citizens, easier to legislate over, and we are digging our own graves. It is our duty as petrolheads and guardians of free will to encourage potential motorists in the ways of alternative motoring - kitcars and handbuilts - free from numpty aids, numpties and too much legislation.
P.S. - a little fact here. Being handbuilt, an old Aston Martin V8 used up less resources than a modern automated-factory-produced Ford Mondeo in it's production, and will last longer than it, take well to an LPG conversion, and will, therefore, be 'greener'. Looks good in BRG too.
v8thunder said:
P.S. - a little fact here. Being handbuilt, an old Aston Martin V8 used up less resources than a modern automated-factory-produced Ford Mondeo in it's production, and will last longer than it, take well to an LPG conversion, and will, therefore, be 'greener'. Looks good in BRG too.
I've always suspected that being handbuilt and covered with glassfibre that TVR's use much less energy than an all metal mass produced mumptymobile during construction.
Thus they are very environmentally friendly
Consider the amount of leccy you require to produce aluminium cars (and steel to a lesser extent) would make them very polluting during construction.
also TVR's generally last longer therefore don't go to the scrappy quite as quickly as a numptymobile.
I think TVR should get some "green" taxbreaks. Don't you?
Andy
>> Edited by andytk on Tuesday 25th February 20:56
AAARRRRRRGHGHH!HH!!!!!
Excuse me while I go outside and mow down a crowd of people!!
profanities just don't cut it!
get all these people together and run them over with a tank travelling at precisely 30mph.
and then reverse over them with said tank at 30mph as well!!
pant pant.
must breathe.
and control blood pressure
Excuse me while I go outside and mow down a crowd of people!!
profanities just don't cut it!
get all these people together and run them over with a tank travelling at precisely 30mph.
and then reverse over them with said tank at 30mph as well!!
pant pant.
must breathe.
and control blood pressure
Great idea if you also raise the speed limit on all the roads except where there are schools and other built up areas, where a low speed limit is appropriate.
The people who come up with these ideas, along with most of those who design traffic systems clearly either don't drive or hate motorists!
The people who come up with these ideas, along with most of those who design traffic systems clearly either don't drive or hate motorists!
andytk said:
I've always suspected that being handbuilt and covered with glassfibre that TVR's use much less energy than an all metal mass produced mumptymobile during construction.
Thus they are very environmentally friendly
First you have to consider how much energy the glass fibres and the polyester resins took to make. Both use energy and natural resources.
Glassfibre is extrememly environmentaly unfriendly as it cannot be recycled and it does not break down if dumped (like steel does).
Martyn911 said: Totally aqgree with these comments.It will make difference to the idiots who pull out in front of you or OAP whose reaction time is measured in light years. When will they learn that its the inapropriate use of speed which is dangerous not speed itself.
cheers
Martyn
So long as people are paying their speeding tickets - never.
gentlemen, I think a lot of us are living proof that speed DOES NOT KILL. I have sped for 90% of the 60,000 miles I have completed on 2 wheels. Yeah yeah, let's be honest, I used to speed in built up areas as well - but on a bike it's *different* to a car. In a car you hurt other people if you hit them, and you are ok. On a bike, you get killed if you hit a pedestrian. So in my mind it sort of evens itself out. If you don't like that, tough, 'cos that's how I see it, and you won't sway me.
Anyway I digress - I'm stil here, despite often doing double the speed limit. So WTF are they LYING to us for????? alright I haven't helped the cause by admitting I *used* speed all the time, but this is crazy - I'm alive, tell the statisticians to stick that up their a**e !!!
rgds
Anyway I digress - I'm stil here, despite often doing double the speed limit. So WTF are they LYING to us for????? alright I haven't helped the cause by admitting I *used* speed all the time, but this is crazy - I'm alive, tell the statisticians to stick that up their a**e !!!
rgds
Another thing they don't seem to mention is - how are temporary and just changed speed limits going to be dealt with? We have heard numerous cases on here of councils not even getting the signage right. Do they really expect councils and roadwork contractors to inform the speedlimiter network promptly of changes in speed limit? This will then still lead people to be speeding in the most dangerous of cases.
It's all just another con to screw more money out of us. I bet if they ever did introduce then you would have to pay for it to be fitted and pay an annual charge to be allowed to use the system (which would be able to diable your car if you didn't keep paying). I'm not normally into illegally cracked systems but I think I would be the first in the que for a cracked speed limiter box.
It's all just another con to screw more money out of us. I bet if they ever did introduce then you would have to pay for it to be fitted and pay an annual charge to be allowed to use the system (which would be able to diable your car if you didn't keep paying). I'm not normally into illegally cracked systems but I think I would be the first in the que for a cracked speed limiter box.
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