The Fast Company article says “Republicans in Virginia just passed a law to make it a punishment for repeated traffic violations.” But the Virginia legislature is currently controlled by the Democrats. And the delegate quoted in this local news story is a Democrat:
That story is probably more useful than the Fast Company one. It clarifies that the new law gives judges the option to require an ISA device to be installed at the defendant’s expense.
> Before the legislation, judges only had the power to suspend a driver’s license, issue fines, or sentence to jail.
It does not require manufacturers to pre-install them, and it does not use the electronics built into the car. It sounds analogous to the breathalyzer devices that are an option for judges in some jurisdictions.
Just reading phrases like "sky-high rate of crash deaths", "Blazing-fast vehicles" (and similar ones throughout the article) makes it very clear that this is not an attempt to report news, but push an agenda.
Reminds me of the "German news is different" video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jphacgBLrc0) that explains the difference between US "news" and Tagesschau (famous for being considered a neutral, trusted source across most of the political spectrum).
Edit to add: Since these are add-on systems, the requirement to install one also imposes a (usually very high) financial cost on the person, and I suspect this may be part of why it's being pushed - it's a convenient way to drastically raise fines without overtly appearing to do so.
While I agree with your interpretation that modern American "news" is trapped into clickbait and outrage headlines, immediately rejecting anything that is perceived as "biased" does not necessarily mean the article is wrong.
The blurb at the top says "Republicans in Virginia", but the article body only mentions it was signed by a Republican governor. I think those blurbs are often added by someone other than the author, and that someone probably over extrapolated from the governor of Virginia being a Republican.
This would be a "man bites dog is news" thing; The pretense is that of course Democrats were in favor, but this time even a few Republicans relented and joined the vote.
> It does not require manufacturers to pre-install them, and it does not use the electronics built into the car. It sounds analogous to the breathalyzer devices that are an option for judges in some jurisdictions.
This refers to the federal infrastructure bill, which directed NHTSA to issue a regulation requiring technical systems to detect and prevent impaired driving. Here’s a status report from NHTSA to Congress from December:
Wait -- I have to pay for a breathalizer in my new vehicle because other people can't follow the law? That's BS. I don't drink alcohol and I hate everything about this.
lol I had shared the original article to a group with the comment "rare republican policy win" and then had to immediately retract that after reading your comment
Repeat offenders should not be allowed to drive. In the UK we have 12 points, and lose them for various offences.
You get a fine, usually with the alternative of a course the first time.
Speed again within 12 months and you get a fine and a minimum of three points (more if you are well above the limit).
Speed again within four years and you will lose more points, and AFAIK pretty much guaranteed to be more than the minimum.
Get caught speeding more than once an year and you are guaranteed to lose your license.
I think this is necessary. I say this as someone who complains about some of the speed limits in my area as they are too low (20mph zones seem a bit random) - I still follow them!
> Get caught speeding more than once an year and you are guaranteed to lose your license.
I'm not overly familiar with British transportation outside of its major city centers, but in the US, we also yank licenses, but people drive without them anyways, mainly because there's no real alternative.
Even those convicted of DUI in my area can make a plea to the judge for a "hardship" license that effectively allows them to operate a motor vehicle only for emergencies and going to-and-from work. It's so hard to live without a car in the area that you could possibly make an Eighth Amendment case against pulling the license of a drunk.
Around me so many areas were built to even be hostile towards anything other than a car. The business park I work in has no pedestrian/bike access without going through a few "take your life in your hands" intersections.
I'm always amazed that people are allowed to drive again. I had a friend who was killed by an impaired driver. The driver got a 3 year sentence, no jail time.
I followed the case closely, all the public records on the hearings, etc.
A few months after the incident, while still on probabation, she got her driving privileges back. The judge agreed it would have been an undue hardship on her not to drive.
The problem with this model is that in a lot of places (especially in the US) public transit isn't a viable alternative to owning a car. So if your ability to drive gets taken away a lot of people just end up driving illegally. It's either that or lose your job, income and possibly home etc etc.
IMO a forced maximum vehicle speed is a useful middle ground option.
More people (and not just the poorer) needing to use the public transport will definitely have a positive impact on how much money it gets. And if it is being more strict with people who break driving laws, I don't see why that shouldn't happen.
Totally agree. Vehicles are incredibly dangerous, and operating hundreds of them in concert with each other requires responsible participants. Allowing them to be used like toys for simpletons to play out some racing fantasy with is a serious danger to people just going about their lives.
At a certain point, aggressive driving and speeding should be treated like negligently swinging about a weapon. It should be treated seriously.
This is a rare case I support civil asset forfeiture: sue the car (in addition to criminal proceedings). Impound the car until fines are paid - which go into uninsured motorist funds - or else sell the car at auction and do the same. Will other parties' vehicles get impounded? Yes and that sucks. But either don't lend them your car, or else let the people closest to the offender pay the consequences more often than the current situation where random people in traffic pay financially or with life and limb for reckless drivers.
But, the sort of person who gets 12 points isn’t exactly the sort of person who you would expect to actually stop driving once they’ve got there. They’ve already been in court for speeding (or worse) at least twice, possibly 4 times. Maybe more if they were offered a speed awareness course the first time. If the goal is to stop them speeding then these devices might actually do it…
In NY, the limit is 11 points and being caught at 40mph above the speed limit will give you 11 points in 1 offense. The term super speeder tends to be used for these.
I really think there has to be more context to "speeding". I'm all against speeding, but being X over on a road (only motor vehicles) VS speeding in an are which is accessible by walking or biking should be treated differently imho
I will say this as a car guy, Virgina has an exceedingly bad reputation among gear heads. If you look at virtually any east coast rally, they will all route around Virginia to avoid driving through it.
- VA is the only state to ban radar detectors
- It has the lowest interstate speed limit in the country
- It has some of the stiffest super speeder and reckless driving laws in the country. In most places if you go like 30 over that's just a bad ticket but in VA that's criminal reckless driving.
- And many other anti-car related laws.
I will be the first to say, don't speed, don't street race and if you have that itch to go a track but also, VA is a horrible place to be if you're a car person. It's not in the least bit surprising that they are the first to pursue such legislation.
I looked it up, in Virginia the highest interstate speed limits are 70MPH. They're 65 in New York, (and in other states), so it's patently untrue that they have the lowest interstate speed limits. Source: https://www.iihs.org/topics/speed/speed-limit-laws
Sounds good to me. People shouldn't be driving 30 over. Reckless driving should be taken seriously. These don't sound anti-car. They're pro-life and safety.
Yes, they already have this type of point system in VA. What is the point of allowing this device when they will suspend or revoke your license after a few infractions. Additionally, you'd need to have generational wealth to afford the insurance at that point. On top of that, they have an extensive bus system in the northern VA area and biking routes so it would be pretty hard for someone to say they have some hardhip where you need to keep driving.
I think this will just be another thing leading us to full surveillance state.
Many places in the United States use speed traps as revenue streams, and in many of the same places in the US it's nigh impossible to get around without a vehicle.
Taking someone's license away for getting caught doing 5 over a few too many times on the freeway where literally everyone is always doing 5 over and you are more of a danger by not going the speed of traffic doesn't in any way serve the public interest as far as I can tell. It's a death sentence for a victimless crime.
Aggressive driving, reckless driving, major speed infractions (15 mph+ over), etc are far more dangerous and worthy of major penalties.
> Taking someone's license away for getting caught doing 5 over a few too many times on the freeway where literally everyone is always doing 5 over and you are more of a danger by not going the speed of traffic doesn't in any way serve the public interest as far as I can tell. It's a death sentence for a victimless crime.
What percentage of people who would be effected by this do you think match this description?
The highest speed limit for Virginia is 70mph. Their bill gives judges the option of offering this for people who drive >100mph, as an alternative to license recovation.
The DC bill gives people whose license the judges are already suspending or revoking for speed-related offenses an alternative - drive with this limiter enabled for one year.
There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles.
There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others where it may kill. It is not great for the environment either.
I think limiting speeds to, say, 100mph for every road legal car will be unpopular. People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful, and manufacturers love to sell them. But technically, it should be easy to implement, and may improve road safety.
I am only talking about the top speed, powerful cars will keep their high acceleration. There is also a good chance that people will modify their cars to raise the top speed, and it is fine outside of public roads, but could result in serious penalties if caught using such a modification on public roads.
> with a possible exception for emergency vehicles
Ambulance and fire truck driver here. There's no good reason for emergency vehicles to ever go much faster than the speed limit, and we would experience life-changing amounts of personal liability if our driving got someone hurt.
While it's sometimes important to get a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible, that's less frequent than you might think, and it's always more important to get them there in one piece.
In addition our vehicles are heavy and they don't stop quickly, so physics is another good reason for us not to speed.
Police cars might be another story but my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.
> my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.
100%. The UK police will happily abandon a pursuit these days, it's been shown all too often that it causes far more damage and harm than it prevents. It's usually easy enough to track fleeing vehicles in other ways (helicopter, traffic cameras, static observations) that it's simply not proportionate.
> There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal?
Good question. My guess is as follows:
Per the NHTSA [1] alcohol, excess speed, and not wearing restraints are the top three causes of vehicle-related deaths in the US in roughly equal measure (although alcohol edges out the other two). The German autobahn infamously doesn't have a blanket speed limit and is about as safe as other European highway systems. To me this means that a case can be made for high speeds on public roads in the interest of expediency (though, for cultural reasons, I would not personally make it for the US). I can't, on the other hand, imagine endorsing road sodas or not wearing seat belts. In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.
Anecdotally I'd be much happier if more attention was spent on enforcement against bad driving behavior like tailgating, weaving, failing to signal, driving drunk, and running traffic signals than speeding. Nearly every brush with death I've had on public roads has been due to these, not somebody doing 95 in the fast lane.
When roads are well designed, maintained, and drivers well educated, and within the constraints of a culture which consider the impact of one's behaviour on others, speed does not appear to be a primary contributing factor in fatalities or accidents in general. However speed is a compounding factor when accidents occur. Meaning it increases the likelihood of fatalities when accidents do occur for other reasons. Still, despite all of this, the Autobahn has a significantly lower rate of fatalities than other roads within Germany.
It is challenging and expensive to get a driver's license in Germany, and the repercussions for screwing up are high. Also driving isn't as necessary--the excellent public transit means there are alternate means of traveling, so not having one is less of a detriment. So while the Autobahn might be considered the Platonic ideal of high-speed driving, it isn't always feasible or likely and I don't think it should be considered as such. As much as I wish we could have that in the US!
> In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.
Neither of those are blanket dangerous. Driving a car on a rural road in the middle of the night is about as dangerous whether you're doing 100mph or mildly drunk. Not being restrained is only dangerous if you crash or someone crashes into you. They can all three be performed in normal road conditions without actually resulting in a crash, injury, or death.
But everyone speeds. It's fun, everyone does it once in a while, as a treat! And driving sucks too, so the faster you go the less you have to do it. You can't punish everyone, but you can punish a drunk because, gosh, that couldn't/wouldn't ever be me. Those drunk jerks! And seatbelts? You only get punished for those if you get pulled over and don't remember to put it on.
Most driving related crimes don't go punished because the judges and the juries are probably guilty of the same damn thing, all the time, and gee whiz, I'm not a criminal, so this person isn't either.
Its why you can pulp a pedestrian in your car while speeding and dicking around with your phone and get off pretty much scot-free.
Phone usage while driving is a big one. Flat out looking down at your lap and texting, instead of looking at the road. I have seen people do this everywhere, in the city, in the highway.
The primary reason is political: people don't like the idea of the government living inside our cars 24x7, telling us how fast we're allowed to go. Even though most of us don't speed. Other examples of this phenomenon include:
* A government mandated alcohol, cigarette, and BMI limit to prevent major health issues.
* Government surveillance of our emails, messages, phone calls, bank accounts and internet activity.
* Abolishing cash so all our transactions are electronically monitored to prevent fraud, money laundering, crime, and tax evasion.
* Limits on free speech.
There are many examples of ways in which authoritarian policies could, in theory, make society safer. Some of us are more comfortable with authoritarianism than others.
I visited California once and was going from LAX to Kings Canyon National Park. I was driving the speed limit (I wasn't in any hurry) and got passed by literally everyone on the road. The vast majority of people drive faster than the speed limit. The question is "how much" over the speed limit you can comfortably go before you run the risk of being stopped and fined.
Repeat offenders should choose between not having a license to drive and having a mandatory speed limiter installed in their car. The issue is that it is not trivial to do on all vehicles.
There is that, but in this case it is not particularly authoritarian.
- There is already a whole lot of regulations on what makes a car street legal, including rules that can be quite unpopular among drivers and yet important on a large scale. In particular those related to the environment.
- Limiting the top speed of cars does not imply surveillance or advanced GPS-based systems. The idea is just to make it so that the car can't exceed speeds well beyond the highest speed limit in the country.
- The gouvernement is already telling you how fast you are allowed to go, and will watch you for it.
A 100mph limitation will only affect you if you are speeding, if you don't speed, nothing will change for you. There are some exceptions and special cases: race cars, imports, etc... but these are just details that can be dealt with, as it done today on other aspects.
I'm curious where you live. In the major US city I live in, well above 50% of drivers are going above the speed limit at any particular moment on any particular highway.
One of those is not like the others.
Speeding drivers kill innocent bystanders. Obesity, cigarettes or what not will just kill you.
Speeding in a car is like swinging a machete in a crowd.
People don't like the government telling you you can't leave the room you're in but if you break the law you go to jail. This is no different. As usual, anti-government people tend to miss the point completely and jump to extreme non-related situations. Having people who repeatedly break the speed limit have their cars adjusted so they can't do that but can still travel freely and drive anywhere they want is the topic here and you're talking about limits on free speech and government surveillance of our emails. This is not an authoritarian policy. If you break the law, you face consequences.
How will my road legal car know when it’s on a track or a closed road? Some how putting a way to disable it defeats the purpose. If its GPS controlled, people will be spoofing GPS to remove the limit, just need a raspberry pie and some other components. You’ll have unintended consequences.
You could have steeper penalties for people who use those types of systems and then go on to get into accidents and kill people. I don't think first degree murder is beyond reason for someone who installs a defeater device and drives at 100 mph and kills someone.
They demonstrated the japanese system on topgear once, and it was disgustingly accurate. They drove onto a track and bing it opened up. No lag or anything.
I personally would be perfectly fine with a default software limiter that can be disabled when you get to the track (or a German autobahn). If you get in an accident on a public road with the car in track mode… they get to throw the book at you
Even modern cars have some trouble knowing the actual speed limit of the road you're currently on.
In Canada I don't think the speed limit is ever higher than 110 or 120km/h - limit to 130km/h and have an override, get full on in trouble (incl loosing all insurance) when disabled.
If track use only maybe even have some kind of device that isn't publicly sold to disable the speed limit there.
Also I doubt any north American car is randomly gonna show up at the German Autobahn - gonna get across the Atlantic first
California tried to do this, the bill got watered down in committee [1]. It's probably true that purely GPS-based speed-limiting is not good enough. Imagine being on a 75mph highway with a 25mph service road right next to it and the GPS not knowing the difference.
Still, interesting idea that could have legs when the technology got better.
The reason I mentioned the rich and powerful is not in a sense that you have to get rich to drive fast. In fact, with a good motorbike, you can leave supercars in the dust for the price of the cheapest cars.
The reasons I mentioned this goes the other way: the rich and powerful have more influence than the average guy, by definition. And they tend to like fast cars, it is a status symbol and they can afford it, and there is no denying that driving fast can be enjoyable. It means that they are going to do what they can (which is a lot) to keep the privilege.
Just limit it to 70 mph max, and require some sort of application to be filed to have it disabled. If that application can't be done at time of sale, most people won't bother.
The tricky part is definitely enforcement - as you said, if people can mod around it, it risks becoming another "only the responsible people obey" situation
The technical aspects of this seem concerning. I'm wondering exactly who has the authority to set a car to this mode and how the mechanism of doing so works. What happens if you sell the car or let somebody else borrow it? Or when you get another car, or rent one? What are the failure modes of it, like if the GPS glitches a little and decides you're on a feeder or surface road when you're actually on a freeway? I think we've all seen GPS guidance devices do that.
If this is actually being implemented as widely as the article suggests, I guess we'll all find out the answers to these questions pretty soon, the hard way!
> What happens if you sell the car or let somebody else borrow it?
This will put an onerous burden on people who borrow cars.
If they intend to go more than 10 mph over the posted speed limit in the borrowed car they will need to make sure to only borrow cars from people who have not been convicted of speeding over 100 mph and forced to have an ISA installed.
How is being prevented from going 10 mph above the posted speed limit in the car of someone convicted of speeding over 100 mph an onerous burden? The car is the property of the person convicted of speeding and sanctioned with an ISA. If someone behaves reckless with their gun in a way that obviously endangers others, is taking their gun away an onerous burden to a neighbor who may borrow it?
I recall hearing about Japan putting speed limiters in all cars and using GPS to determine the road and therefore speed limit to set the limiter dynamically in vehicles. (Perhaps some details are wrong or confabulated; regardless, it’s a neat idea.) I’m in favor of such a system in theory; I’d be concerned about privacy issues but there’s no reason for such a system to require driver identification anyway.
My family rented a car in England last summer, and this was an optional feature of the car. I didn't want to try it out on my first time driving on the left, so I didn't turn it on. Moreover, the speed limits on the motorways were changing in real time. I observed very little speeding -- almost none.
...like if the GPS glitches a little and decides you're on a feeder or surface road when you're actually on a freeway
I recall someone analyzing records from LexisNexis or similar (maybe in a news article or lawsuit?) and uncovering all kinds of instances where they were incorrectly labeled as speeding due to crossing a lower-limit road. Unfortunately I can't find the link.
It 100% happens repeatedly to me (my car has the little "tell you the speed limit" feature). It'll suddenly say the limit is 30 because the GPS thinks I'm on the feeder road nearby.
That's what happens if you sell the car. What happens if the thing thinks the speed limit on a 65 MPH highway is 30 MPH? Or you have some emergency situation where a higher travel speed is a matter of life and death?
Machines should never enforce laws because they don't have the ability to know when doing so would be unreasonable.
Same as with breathalyzers. They'll start off with ones registered to the offender because otherwise the law wouldn't pass. Then, 5yr later, at the behest of the interests running the breathalyzer/speed limiter company, they change the law to be "all cars at this address".
The idea of limiting reckless driving makes sense in theory, but once you start handing over control to software (and whoever manages it), the edge cases get really messy. GPS errors, ownership changes, rentals
Speed limiters built into cars. Anti-infringement technology built into general-purpose computers. And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American)
I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another thing we’re going to lose in our brave new world.
The problem is people who as matter of course travel above the speed limit regardless of if any other motorists are around them, as they are “playing by different rules”, making them more unpredictable and stressful for those around them.
Just two days ago I did a long distance trip and in general I could engage cruise control at the speed limit allowing me to focus more on other potential hazards around me.
Occasionally I would need to move out the left lane (I live in country where we drive on the left side of the road) to overtake someone travelling slower than me, and somewhat often while in the process of overtaking, someone who was going 20+km/h over the speed limit would drive at a completely unsafe following distance behind me until 30s later or so when it would be possible for me to move back into the left lane.
I don’t care much if other people want to speed past me, but I’m not going to slow down or unlawfully speed for them to do so, so this makes these situations way more and needlessly stressful.
No doubt at least some of these other drivers regard me as the unsafe driver in these situations.
If people would rather just generally use cruise control themselves at the speed limit, the roads would be more predictable, it would be safer and stress free. They’re at most saving 10s of minutes on 7hour trip, it’s not worth the cost.
Speed limiter seems justified for people who are repeatedly endangering others.
This whole thread confirms it. Speed limits are always a burden for reckless drivers, but never an issue for people like me who drive under the limit. They should reflect on themselves about that but I doubt they are capable of it.
This is generally true for actions at every level of risk. Designing around how humans will actually behave is better than trying to artificially restrict everyone's behavior preemptively.
That seems like the result of a normal skill level distribution that allows some people to take more advanced actions at the same risk level. Interesting how there is never a push to punish people who actually cause wrecks with this technology.
Love this, thanks! Sadly haven’t found time to go shooting in years. And am always careful not to point either of these things (cars, guns) at other drivers.
Fyi, this is being written from public transit. You didn’t think I would actually drive to work, did you? ;-)
Firearms are a constitutionally enshrined right - driving is not. For the vast majority of Americans, cars represent a significantly higher threat than assault by gun [1]. We also let drivers flagrantly and repeatedly break the law and negligently kill people with essentially near-impunity. The same cannot be said for firearms.
I agree with you that guns are a an insane problem. However, that shouldn't discourage us from solving other unrelated problems when the solutions present themselves.
<< And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American)
Have you actually tried to purchase guns or ammo lately? There are genuinely few states, where freely available and unrestricted can be used without an asterisk attached.
Depending on the state, you can't own a gun with a barrel of a certain length, or a certain magazine capacity, or you can't own a gun if you're a felon, or you can't sell a gun without doing a background check on the purchaser, or you need to hide your gun when you leave your home, etc.
You might think guns should be regulated more strictly and cars should be regulated less, but it's dishonest to represent the situation as you have. America has decided as a society that both guns and cars are valuable enough to let people use, yet dangerous enough to control the use of.
Ehh the roads are public property. I don't think its unreasonable that if you want your car to be registered to drive on a public road it needs some sort of speed limiter. Its about the same level of infringement on your personal rights as requiring a car have seatbelts. Feel free to buy a car with no limiter or no seatbelts and drive it on your own private roads as fast as your heart desires.
Some kind of exoskeletons to control people just walking around in public, too. Stop them doing bad things.
Wait, no, that's an excessively extreme level of control, while seatbelt laws are an acceptable level of control because, actually I don't know why, but anyway speed limiters are somewhere between these two levels of control, and therefore acceptable. Or not. One of those.
I'm all for stronger enforcement of speed limits to save lives (e.g. ticket everyone over the speed limit with cameras automatically, no cops needed), but requiring shit to be installed into someone's car doesn't seem effective. They could just disconnect it.
This device doesn't make it easier to catch speeders, what it does is give a way for habitual speeders to stop speeding. The primary goal is no doubt that these people will simply stop breaking the law now that there's a device there helping them do that without the need for further law enforcement. To the extent that fails though, it's a measure which makes it reasonable to increase penalties and thus increase the level of deterrence.
Increasing penalties for speeding without this device has issues. It's basically impossible to prove that you intended to break the law, and that you didn't just misjudge your speed. Worse there's become a culture of mildly breaking the law, and it's even harder to prove you intentionally went beyond what's acceptable in that culture. There's a reasonable doubt that it was a honest mistake. This makes it politically, legally, and morally problematic to have significant penalties attached to speeding.
But if you're caught speeding because you disabled the device that a court ordered installed to prevent you from speeding, all worries about intent go out the window. It is, beyond a reasonable doubt, a deliberate violation of the law. Not the actions of a well intentioned person who was in a hurry and bad at judging their speed. This means that, relative to speeding, penalties can be significant increased resulting in better deterrence.
Specifically it looks like Virginia's new law makes it a "class 1 misdemeanor", which is the harshest class of misdemeanor in Virginia law, and the same as a DWI or simple assault. Sentencing maximums are a bit deceptive because they typically aren't what are assigned, but theoretically punishable by up to a year of confinement.
Most modern cars phone home on lte/4g/5g. Police could auto-ticker speeders if they wanted to today. Probably don't want people to know how ubiquitous the tracking already is though.
As an Hardware designer I don't think that is the problem nowadays. Make it physically hard to remove and add a gps tracker to the unit and if it doesn't move for a few days, have them proove to you it wasn't tampered with. Then the only way to do it is to break the thing open and simulate trips that match yours all the time, which requires you to MITM the connection between the GPS and the microcontroller.
Aside from that cars phone bome anyways as ot is, so another way to crossreference data.
This can be as nontrivial as you want it. The problem is rather that a state shouldn't treat its citizens like that. That is probably why they start with repeat offenders.
Thank God. People on the roads are extremely reckless and we don't do anything about it. Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. If you kill someone sober though, it's totally fine under our current system.
In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, and only allowed to operate light 2 wheel vehicles like scooters where you will only kill yourself and no one else.
> In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles,
This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location.
Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.
>Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather.
People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.
Tickets can be disputed and many people make a livelihood without a vehicle.
I think current penalties for reckless driving are far too lenient. Driving is not a right, but a privilege. If someone chooses to use that privilege irresponsibly, they should lose that privilege.
Personally, I would advocate for a license revocal process that happens much quicker than what we do now and provides a mechanism for regaining access to that privilege through a rigorous process of eduction and community service.
As a parent, these comments are always so weird to read. Kids play outside, including unsupervised still. Kids getting hit by drivers is statistically very rare (though no less tragic)
Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.
>Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up.
You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.
> Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.
Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.
This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us.
Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.
We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.
Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).
I think allowing 2 wheel is not a good idea in those cases. In fact you should be even better to be allowed for 2 by I digress. You can still kill pedestrians and passers by.
The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted.
States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.
Thats really only true for people with money. The problem isn't that current laws are insufficient, it is that the US justice system is largely based on profit motives, and people with money can make prosecutions against them unprofitable to push. You can bet your butt that if you went in to those same cases without the money to draw everything out for years that they would hammer you with fines and fees and programs and jail time.
Cities can replace smooth asphalt with rough brick and cobblestone, and replace traffic lights with traffic circles / roundabouts. If they really want to force cars to slow down, they could, in a way that doesn't take anyone's rights away and doesn't require any vehicle manufacturer to play ball.
Freedom isn't free. It's always cheaper to take away people's freedom instead of doing the hard work of building infrastructure to naturally promote traffic calming. Too bad America (left and right) doesn't believe in freedom anymore.
Yes, lets just reorganize and rebuilt the entire city infrastructure to fix bad behavior by a few people. I don't want to actually oppose your suggestions because I think they are all good, but I also think that if a person repeatedly breaks a law then that is precisely the circumstances under which their freedom can be decreased as long as due process is respected.
American's still believe in freedom, in my opinion, its just that the entrenched powers make it increasingly impossible to imagine a world that actually nourishes human freedom and, lacking that, we just sort of flail around in frustration. The single insight which Americans must digest in order to move forward is that both governments and corporations and, indeed, any powerful entity whatsoever, can and often do interfere with human freedom and flourishing and all of them need to be continuously attended to and restrained by law and by the vigilance of the people. The second most important thing is the understanding that negative freedoms mean nothing without the resources to transform them into positive freedoms and if we fail to provide those resources then enormous amounts of human potential will be wasted. The second is a harder pill to swallow given the U.S. mythology, but I would be satisfied with the former for now.
You should look into why cities use smooth asphalt over concert which would be significantly less maintenance.
Cars driving around create a lot of noise. Driving on a rough surface like concert, let alone a bumpy surface like brick or cobblestone, creates a ton of additional noise. Another hint is that gravel driveways are cheap, but they also make it very very easy to hear when someone is pulling up to your house.
Anyone living next to these roads _might_ have some cars go a bit slower, but at the cost of not being able to sleep at night.
Then there is the fact that America loves big cars with big off roading wheels. I think the assumption here is that most speeders would be discouraged by the uncomfortable ride, however I think reality is that the people in that hummer going 90mph on a city street just won't care about a rougher ride.
"Cities can replace smooth asphalt with rough brick and cobblestone"
There are some cobblestone streets in Prague and cars driving through them, even slowly, generate a lot of unnecessary noise.
Count me out, I don't want to suffer from extra noise just because it would slow some people down. I lived in one such street for years and even with sporadic traffic, I had to open my windows at night. I hated that.
That's a possible solution to the problem of cars in general going too fast for a given area.
That is not the problem Virginia is trying to deal with with this legislation. They are trying to deal with the problem of a very small number of drivers who are driving much faster than the speed limit and much faster than even most speeders go.
These are drivers that have been convicted of speeding at more than 100 mph. That is a criminal offense of the same level as drunk driving rather than a mere traffic infraction.
It is just those drivers that they are trying to slow down.
Bricks and cobblestones don’t handle high traffic well, require too much maintenance i.e. too expensive. Cobblestones are only good for areas with heavily restricted or banned vehicle traffic. For roads and higher traffic streets, asphalt is more practical.
Agree with the rest of your comment. I also think the main reason for high traffic deaths in America is road design.
The Maintain Top Safe Speed thing was envisioned for transiting across fallout-contaminated areas in the weeks and months afterwards. It prescribes there would be cops stationed at the ends of such routes, limiting the flow of cars entering so that those within the stretch would not be congested and could go fast.
Readit News
https://wjla.com/news/local/anti-speeding-device-car-reckles...
That story is probably more useful than the Fast Company one. It clarifies that the new law gives judges the option to require an ISA device to be installed at the defendant’s expense.
> Before the legislation, judges only had the power to suspend a driver’s license, issue fines, or sentence to jail.
It does not require manufacturers to pre-install them, and it does not use the electronics built into the car. It sounds analogous to the breathalyzer devices that are an option for judges in some jurisdictions.
Reminds me of the "German news is different" video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jphacgBLrc0) that explains the difference between US "news" and Tagesschau (famous for being considered a neutral, trusted source across most of the political spectrum).
Edit to add: Since these are add-on systems, the requirement to install one also imposes a (usually very high) financial cost on the person, and I suspect this may be part of why it's being pushed - it's a convenient way to drastically raise fines without overtly appearing to do so.
While I agree with your interpretation that modern American "news" is trapped into clickbait and outrage headlines, immediately rejecting anything that is perceived as "biased" does not necessarily mean the article is wrong.
Maybe in a parallel universe. /s
ETA: click the "Votes" tab.
Official state legislature bill page for future reference: https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/HB2096
Patrick Hope (D)*, Betsy Carr (D), Holly Seibold (D)
So, really not sure how the author got to "Republicans in Virginia"
There's already a law on the books requiring breathalyzers in all new cars by next year: https://live959.com/law-mandates-mass-cars-to-have-breathaly...
Presumably, anti-speeding tech will be made mandatory by the same incremental approach in time.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2024-12/report-t...
You get a fine, usually with the alternative of a course the first time.
Speed again within 12 months and you get a fine and a minimum of three points (more if you are well above the limit).
Speed again within four years and you will lose more points, and AFAIK pretty much guaranteed to be more than the minimum.
Get caught speeding more than once an year and you are guaranteed to lose your license.
I think this is necessary. I say this as someone who complains about some of the speed limits in my area as they are too low (20mph zones seem a bit random) - I still follow them!
I'm not overly familiar with British transportation outside of its major city centers, but in the US, we also yank licenses, but people drive without them anyways, mainly because there's no real alternative.
Even those convicted of DUI in my area can make a plea to the judge for a "hardship" license that effectively allows them to operate a motor vehicle only for emergencies and going to-and-from work. It's so hard to live without a car in the area that you could possibly make an Eighth Amendment case against pulling the license of a drunk.
I followed the case closely, all the public records on the hearings, etc.
A few months after the incident, while still on probabation, she got her driving privileges back. The judge agreed it would have been an undue hardship on her not to drive.
IMO a forced maximum vehicle speed is a useful middle ground option.
At a certain point, aggressive driving and speeding should be treated like negligently swinging about a weapon. It should be treated seriously.
It's like you're laying one brick on the road to hell. Multiply by everyone else and their pet issues and the whole damn thing gets paved.
What even is the point of principals if you don't stand by them?
But, the sort of person who gets 12 points isn’t exactly the sort of person who you would expect to actually stop driving once they’ve got there. They’ve already been in court for speeding (or worse) at least twice, possibly 4 times. Maybe more if they were offered a speed awareness course the first time. If the goal is to stop them speeding then these devices might actually do it…
Yes, the devices might help, but I also think cars can be seized etc.
I believe the UK and the EU already require speed limiters be installed on all new cars. https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-advice/speed-limiters-what-the...
> You get a fine, usually with the alternative of a course the first time.
Note that the course isn’t currently an option in Scotland: https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/speed-awareness-courses/
- VA is the only state to ban radar detectors
- It has the lowest interstate speed limit in the country
- It has some of the stiffest super speeder and reckless driving laws in the country. In most places if you go like 30 over that's just a bad ticket but in VA that's criminal reckless driving.
- And many other anti-car related laws.
I will be the first to say, don't speed, don't street race and if you have that itch to go a track but also, VA is a horrible place to be if you're a car person. It's not in the least bit surprising that they are the first to pursue such legislation.
I think this will just be another thing leading us to full surveillance state.
Taking someone's license away for getting caught doing 5 over a few too many times on the freeway where literally everyone is always doing 5 over and you are more of a danger by not going the speed of traffic doesn't in any way serve the public interest as far as I can tell. It's a death sentence for a victimless crime.
Aggressive driving, reckless driving, major speed infractions (15 mph+ over), etc are far more dangerous and worthy of major penalties.
What percentage of people who would be effected by this do you think match this description?
The highest speed limit for Virginia is 70mph. Their bill gives judges the option of offering this for people who drive >100mph, as an alternative to license recovation.
The DC bill gives people whose license the judges are already suspending or revoking for speed-related offenses an alternative - drive with this limiter enabled for one year.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2024/02/08/d-c-to-dangerous-driv...
Georgia is working on a similar bill for people convicted of street racing.
https://visionzeronetwork.org/accelerating-safety-states-cha...
There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others where it may kill. It is not great for the environment either.
I think limiting speeds to, say, 100mph for every road legal car will be unpopular. People love their fast cars, especially the rich and powerful, and manufacturers love to sell them. But technically, it should be easy to implement, and may improve road safety.
I am only talking about the top speed, powerful cars will keep their high acceleration. There is also a good chance that people will modify their cars to raise the top speed, and it is fine outside of public roads, but could result in serious penalties if caught using such a modification on public roads.
Ambulance and fire truck driver here. There's no good reason for emergency vehicles to ever go much faster than the speed limit, and we would experience life-changing amounts of personal liability if our driving got someone hurt.
While it's sometimes important to get a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible, that's less frequent than you might think, and it's always more important to get them there in one piece.
In addition our vehicles are heavy and they don't stop quickly, so physics is another good reason for us not to speed.
Police cars might be another story but my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.
100%. The UK police will happily abandon a pursuit these days, it's been shown all too often that it causes far more damage and harm than it prevents. It's usually easy enough to track fleeing vehicles in other ways (helicopter, traffic cameras, static observations) that it's simply not proportionate.
Good question. My guess is as follows:
Per the NHTSA [1] alcohol, excess speed, and not wearing restraints are the top three causes of vehicle-related deaths in the US in roughly equal measure (although alcohol edges out the other two). The German autobahn infamously doesn't have a blanket speed limit and is about as safe as other European highway systems. To me this means that a case can be made for high speeds on public roads in the interest of expediency (though, for cultural reasons, I would not personally make it for the US). I can't, on the other hand, imagine endorsing road sodas or not wearing seat belts. In other words speed is only contextually dangerous while driving drunk and not using safety equipment are inherently bad which is why I'd imagine the latter two have been legislated.
Anecdotally I'd be much happier if more attention was spent on enforcement against bad driving behavior like tailgating, weaving, failing to signal, driving drunk, and running traffic signals than speeding. Nearly every brush with death I've had on public roads has been due to these, not somebody doing 95 in the fast lane.
[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
It's actually even safer: https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/what-is-the-accident-...
When roads are well designed, maintained, and drivers well educated, and within the constraints of a culture which consider the impact of one's behaviour on others, speed does not appear to be a primary contributing factor in fatalities or accidents in general. However speed is a compounding factor when accidents occur. Meaning it increases the likelihood of fatalities when accidents do occur for other reasons. Still, despite all of this, the Autobahn has a significantly lower rate of fatalities than other roads within Germany.
Neither of those are blanket dangerous. Driving a car on a rural road in the middle of the night is about as dangerous whether you're doing 100mph or mildly drunk. Not being restrained is only dangerous if you crash or someone crashes into you. They can all three be performed in normal road conditions without actually resulting in a crash, injury, or death.
But everyone speeds. It's fun, everyone does it once in a while, as a treat! And driving sucks too, so the faster you go the less you have to do it. You can't punish everyone, but you can punish a drunk because, gosh, that couldn't/wouldn't ever be me. Those drunk jerks! And seatbelts? You only get punished for those if you get pulled over and don't remember to put it on.
Most driving related crimes don't go punished because the judges and the juries are probably guilty of the same damn thing, all the time, and gee whiz, I'm not a criminal, so this person isn't either.
Its why you can pulp a pedestrian in your car while speeding and dicking around with your phone and get off pretty much scot-free.
* A government mandated alcohol, cigarette, and BMI limit to prevent major health issues.
* Government surveillance of our emails, messages, phone calls, bank accounts and internet activity.
* Abolishing cash so all our transactions are electronically monitored to prevent fraud, money laundering, crime, and tax evasion.
* Limits on free speech.
There are many examples of ways in which authoritarian policies could, in theory, make society safer. Some of us are more comfortable with authoritarianism than others.
I visited California once and was going from LAX to Kings Canyon National Park. I was driving the speed limit (I wasn't in any hurry) and got passed by literally everyone on the road. The vast majority of people drive faster than the speed limit. The question is "how much" over the speed limit you can comfortably go before you run the risk of being stopped and fined.
Repeat offenders should choose between not having a license to drive and having a mandatory speed limiter installed in their car. The issue is that it is not trivial to do on all vehicles.
- There is already a whole lot of regulations on what makes a car street legal, including rules that can be quite unpopular among drivers and yet important on a large scale. In particular those related to the environment.
- Limiting the top speed of cars does not imply surveillance or advanced GPS-based systems. The idea is just to make it so that the car can't exceed speeds well beyond the highest speed limit in the country.
- The gouvernement is already telling you how fast you are allowed to go, and will watch you for it.
A 100mph limitation will only affect you if you are speeding, if you don't speed, nothing will change for you. There are some exceptions and special cases: race cars, imports, etc... but these are just details that can be dealt with, as it done today on other aspects.
I'm curious where you live. In the major US city I live in, well above 50% of drivers are going above the speed limit at any particular moment on any particular highway.
How many, and how long before they straight up deserve to just go to jail for a little society time-out?
Even modern cars have some trouble knowing the actual speed limit of the road you're currently on.
In Canada I don't think the speed limit is ever higher than 110 or 120km/h - limit to 130km/h and have an override, get full on in trouble (incl loosing all insurance) when disabled.
If track use only maybe even have some kind of device that isn't publicly sold to disable the speed limit there.
Also I doubt any north American car is randomly gonna show up at the German Autobahn - gonna get across the Atlantic first
Still, interesting idea that could have legs when the technology got better.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5099205/california-tech...
Too much correlation, not enough causation here.
Only "rich people" can afford pricey cars, while there are with much certainty "non rich people" that enjoy fast cars.
And there are a ton of affordable cars that can go 200kph+, or that can be riced into being able to do so.
The reasons I mentioned this goes the other way: the rich and powerful have more influence than the average guy, by definition. And they tend to like fast cars, it is a status symbol and they can afford it, and there is no denying that driving fast can be enjoyable. It means that they are going to do what they can (which is a lot) to keep the privilege.
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LOL. You have no idea. Street racers are usually people who have little or no money.
If this is actually being implemented as widely as the article suggests, I guess we'll all find out the answers to these questions pretty soon, the hard way!
This will put an onerous burden on people who borrow cars.
If they intend to go more than 10 mph over the posted speed limit in the borrowed car they will need to make sure to only borrow cars from people who have not been convicted of speeding over 100 mph and forced to have an ISA installed.
I recall someone analyzing records from LexisNexis or similar (maybe in a news article or lawsuit?) and uncovering all kinds of instances where they were incorrectly labeled as speeding due to crossing a lower-limit road. Unfortunately I can't find the link.
I.e. you just remove it.
Machines should never enforce laws because they don't have the ability to know when doing so would be unreasonable.
Also, glitch does not look like a big problem, since for now the system will only verbally warn, just once.
I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another thing we’re going to lose in our brave new world.
Just two days ago I did a long distance trip and in general I could engage cruise control at the speed limit allowing me to focus more on other potential hazards around me.
Occasionally I would need to move out the left lane (I live in country where we drive on the left side of the road) to overtake someone travelling slower than me, and somewhat often while in the process of overtaking, someone who was going 20+km/h over the speed limit would drive at a completely unsafe following distance behind me until 30s later or so when it would be possible for me to move back into the left lane.
I don’t care much if other people want to speed past me, but I’m not going to slow down or unlawfully speed for them to do so, so this makes these situations way more and needlessly stressful.
No doubt at least some of these other drivers regard me as the unsafe driver in these situations.
If people would rather just generally use cruise control themselves at the speed limit, the roads would be more predictable, it would be safer and stress free. They’re at most saving 10s of minutes on 7hour trip, it’s not worth the cost.
Speed limiter seems justified for people who are repeatedly endangering others.
Is this a reference to your driving, or your shooting?
Fyi, this is being written from public transit. You didn’t think I would actually drive to work, did you? ;-)
It also introduces atmosphere of terror on public roads making walking or cycling dangerous. It's a way bigger problem than guns.
Gun utility: small Car utility: large
(data from CDC and NHTSA for 2023)
Gangs have easy access to guns when everyone does.
Oh, that's OK then, they clearly don't matter.
[1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...
Have you actually tried to purchase guns or ammo lately? There are genuinely few states, where freely available and unrestricted can be used without an asterisk attached.
Depending on the state, you can't own a gun with a barrel of a certain length, or a certain magazine capacity, or you can't own a gun if you're a felon, or you can't sell a gun without doing a background check on the purchaser, or you need to hide your gun when you leave your home, etc.
You might think guns should be regulated more strictly and cars should be regulated less, but it's dishonest to represent the situation as you have. America has decided as a society that both guns and cars are valuable enough to let people use, yet dangerous enough to control the use of.
They are not. This is a very common misconception. I suggest you go purchase one at a gun store.
Wait, no, that's an excessively extreme level of control, while seatbelt laws are an acceptable level of control because, actually I don't know why, but anyway speed limiters are somewhere between these two levels of control, and therefore acceptable. Or not. One of those.
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Increasing penalties for speeding without this device has issues. It's basically impossible to prove that you intended to break the law, and that you didn't just misjudge your speed. Worse there's become a culture of mildly breaking the law, and it's even harder to prove you intentionally went beyond what's acceptable in that culture. There's a reasonable doubt that it was a honest mistake. This makes it politically, legally, and morally problematic to have significant penalties attached to speeding.
But if you're caught speeding because you disabled the device that a court ordered installed to prevent you from speeding, all worries about intent go out the window. It is, beyond a reasonable doubt, a deliberate violation of the law. Not the actions of a well intentioned person who was in a hurry and bad at judging their speed. This means that, relative to speeding, penalties can be significant increased resulting in better deterrence.
Specifically it looks like Virginia's new law makes it a "class 1 misdemeanor", which is the harshest class of misdemeanor in Virginia law, and the same as a DWI or simple assault. Sentencing maximums are a bit deceptive because they typically aren't what are assigned, but theoretically punishable by up to a year of confinement.
Aside from that cars phone bome anyways as ot is, so another way to crossreference data.
This can be as nontrivial as you want it. The problem is rather that a state shouldn't treat its citizens like that. That is probably why they start with repeat offenders.
In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, and only allowed to operate light 2 wheel vehicles like scooters where you will only kill yourself and no one else.
This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location.
Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.
People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.
I think current penalties for reckless driving are far too lenient. Driving is not a right, but a privilege. If someone chooses to use that privilege irresponsibly, they should lose that privilege.
Personally, I would advocate for a license revocal process that happens much quicker than what we do now and provides a mechanism for regaining access to that privilege through a rigorous process of eduction and community service.
Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.
Do what now?
You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/secti...
Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.
Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.
The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted.
States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.
eg: https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-t...
https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/complete-pre-licensing-req...
Other states could adopt the same requirements.
Freedom isn't free. It's always cheaper to take away people's freedom instead of doing the hard work of building infrastructure to naturally promote traffic calming. Too bad America (left and right) doesn't believe in freedom anymore.
American's still believe in freedom, in my opinion, its just that the entrenched powers make it increasingly impossible to imagine a world that actually nourishes human freedom and, lacking that, we just sort of flail around in frustration. The single insight which Americans must digest in order to move forward is that both governments and corporations and, indeed, any powerful entity whatsoever, can and often do interfere with human freedom and flourishing and all of them need to be continuously attended to and restrained by law and by the vigilance of the people. The second most important thing is the understanding that negative freedoms mean nothing without the resources to transform them into positive freedoms and if we fail to provide those resources then enormous amounts of human potential will be wasted. The second is a harder pill to swallow given the U.S. mythology, but I would be satisfied with the former for now.
Cars driving around create a lot of noise. Driving on a rough surface like concert, let alone a bumpy surface like brick or cobblestone, creates a ton of additional noise. Another hint is that gravel driveways are cheap, but they also make it very very easy to hear when someone is pulling up to your house.
Anyone living next to these roads _might_ have some cars go a bit slower, but at the cost of not being able to sleep at night.
Then there is the fact that America loves big cars with big off roading wheels. I think the assumption here is that most speeders would be discouraged by the uncomfortable ride, however I think reality is that the people in that hummer going 90mph on a city street just won't care about a rougher ride.
There are some cobblestone streets in Prague and cars driving through them, even slowly, generate a lot of unnecessary noise.
Count me out, I don't want to suffer from extra noise just because it would slow some people down. I lived in one such street for years and even with sporadic traffic, I had to open my windows at night. I hated that.
That is not the problem Virginia is trying to deal with with this legislation. They are trying to deal with the problem of a very small number of drivers who are driving much faster than the speed limit and much faster than even most speeders go.
These are drivers that have been convicted of speeding at more than 100 mph. That is a criminal offense of the same level as drunk driving rather than a mere traffic infraction.
It is just those drivers that they are trying to slow down.
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Agree with the rest of your comment. I also think the main reason for high traffic deaths in America is road design.
https://www.theautopian.com/if-you-ever-see-this-speed-sign-...
Just check out how slow it takes to do hurricane evacuations, and we know about those days ahead of time.
The Maintain Top Safe Speed thing was envisioned for transiting across fallout-contaminated areas in the weeks and months afterwards. It prescribes there would be cops stationed at the ends of such routes, limiting the flow of cars entering so that those within the stretch would not be congested and could go fast.