> the simplest ones would involve 1) a mandatory breathalyzer, 2) speed limiters, 3) sensors that shut down the car when reckless driving is detected, and 4) shutting down the car if seatbelts are not used.
1) Some (many?) states require drivers with a history of convinced DUI/DWI to get these systems installed. From articles I've read, they're rather a PITA -- it takes a lot of breath pressure, and you may be prompted at random times as you drive down the road. This seems reasonable for someone with a history of drunk driving, but for the majority of drivers who don't drive drunk, it would be a major turnoff; people would likely just drive pre-mandate cars for as long it takes to get the mandate overturned.
2) Let me know when you have a system that can determine what speed is "reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway". If you want to put a limiter at 100 mph, that's OK with me -- setting up the gearing so above say 80mph is unattainable seems reasonable too. It's very rarely reasonable or prudent to travel at that speed on public highways. The posted speed limit may offer a suggestion of what's reasonable or prudent, but it's very often not the case.
3) What do you propose here, that doesn't shut down my car when I'm avoiding a road hazard? Hooning feels like something where you can know it when you see it, but may be hard for a sensor system to detect accurately. Doing donuts in a field with no one around isn't unsafe. Doing it in the middle of an open freeway is. If we were able to compute this type of decision, we wouldn't have human drivers, and hooning would be dead. It also presupposed that there's a reasonable way to shutdown a car without consent of the driver that's safer than whatever the driver is currently doing.
4) I can't believe people would drive very far with all the godawful alerts that go on when you drive any distance with the seatbelts off. Again though, it's a question of is it safer to stop the vehicle without the consent of the driver or to let them continue to drive and annoy them into compliance.
some (many?) states require drivers with a history of convinced DUI/DWI to get these systems installed
But mandatory breathalyzers in all cars would prevent the initial DUI offense. If they were mandatory in all cars, car makers would make them more convenient, so maybe instead of blowing into a tube, you just have to blow at a sensor in the sunvisor.
The posted speed limit may offer a suggestion of what's reasonable or prudent, but it's very often not the case
But it's a good first step - set the max speed for cars at the posted speed limit, subtract 10% at night, 10% more for rain, 20% more for snow (so for example, a 60mph road would have a max speed of 55mph at night, 50mph during rain, and 40mph during snow)
Note that these are still just "maximums" and the onus would be on drivers to go slower when conditions warrant.
What do you propose here, that doesn't shut down my car when I'm avoiding a road hazard?
Cars are getting more autonomous, so having it drive to the side of the road or to the nearest exist if on a freeway seems like the obvious choice.
As for seatbelts, I think the driver should be free to choose to use them or not, but only as long as they get signoff from their insurance company. Whether or not a driver uses a seatbelt only affects himself, unlike DUI, speeding or wreckless driving.
No, it isn't; it's whatever the locality decides is a good setpoint for a revenue source. Most "speed limits" have nothing to do with safety.
Even on interstate highways, where the "revenue source" motivation is the least, many speed limits are still too low given the improvements in vehicle handling and performance since the 55 mph rule was arbitrarily selected in the early 1970s. Of course, that argument assumes that 55 mph was reasonable for early 1970s cars--but if the primary purpose is safety, well, there are still traffic deaths at the current speed limits, so why not lower them further? Why not stop people from driving at all, if nothing short of that will eliminate traffic deaths?
That kind of argument leads down a rabbit hole. I think a much better way of viewing things, as I said in another comment upthread, is in terms of a principal-agent problem. If you are driving yourself (or flying yourself, for that matter), you can make your own judgments about safety (and take the consequences). But if you are flying (or driving) other people for money, then you have to abide by an explicit set of standards because it's no longer just you who takes the consequences if you make an error of judgment. And the more people who are endangered if you make an error, the more stringent the standards should be.
> since the 55 mph rule was arbitrarily selected in the early 1970s
It was selected in 1974 in response to the 1973 oil crisis in the hope of reducing oil consumption. 55 was intended as a speed that delivers best mpg for typical 1970s vehicles.
Seems like your objection would be solved by the proposal.
Towns would no longer have this bullshit revenue source, and might actually set the limits to a reasonable level instead of one intended to make you screw up.
> Seems like your objection would be solved by the proposal.
No, it wouldn't. In fact the proposal would make things worse, because it would give an even greater level of control to governments than they have now. Right now, all they can do is give me a ticket if I'm speeding. Under this proposal, they would be able to remove control of my car from me altogether based on some arbitrary limit. That is thousands of disasters waiting to happen.
> Towns would no longer have this bullshit revenue source, and might actually set the limits to a reasonable level instead of one intended to make you screw up.
You have much more faith than I do in the ability of the government to know better what is reasonable and prudent under a given set of conditions than the person actually driving the car in those conditions. Not to mention their ability to ensure a safe implementation of the actual mechanics of the proposal.
I have a lot more faith in road engineers than individual drivers on determining safe limits. Untrained individuals are pretty crap at this, especially in areas they're unfamiliar with - an out-of-town visitor can hardly know that there's a low-visibility hairpin turn coming up.
Removing the perverse revenue incentives of artificially low limits seems like a good step.
> I have a lot more faith in road engineers than individual drivers on determining safe limits.
The road engineers aren't there. The driver is. Also, the road engineers suffer no consequences if the limits are wrong.
> Untrained individuals are pretty crap at this
Perhaps. If so, I think it's because individuals have no voice in determining the limits, and they know the limits are bogus anyway, so they don't view exceeding them as an error, they just view it as a game they're playing vs. the police. In other words, since there is no reward for exercising better individual judgment, and the penalties are unrelated to the quality of an individual's judgment, there is no incentive for individuals to develop better judgment.
> an out-of-town visitor can hardly know that there's a low-visibility hairpin turn coming up.
That's what warning signs are for. There's no need for it to be a speed limit; just a "caution, hairpin turn" sign is enough.
> Removing the perverse revenue incentives of artificially low limits seems like a good step.
The way to remove those incentives is to stop allowing governments to penalize people who have caused no harm. Sure, put up a sign that says that, according to our best qualified road engineers, the maximum safe speed for this road is x. (For bonus points, make the sign programmable so the posted limit can vary with weather conditions, day vs. night, etc.) But don't allow the government to give me a ticket and make me pay a fine just because I exceed speed x. If I cause an accident and it's found that I exceeded speed x, then the government can penalize me--but penalize me because I caused harm (and, if you like, tack on an extra penalty because I ignored the advisory sign and my error of judgment contributed to the harm).
They were there when the road was designed and built, and they did various calculations based on actual physics, road width, medians, upcoming intersections, etc. to determine a limit. "Eh, this feels like a 75" from an untrained driver with three big accidents on their record shouldn't be of equal value.
> Also, the road engineers suffer no consequences if the limits are wrong.
Real engineers have liability and licensing implications for fucking up.
> If so, I think it's because individuals have no voice in determining the limits...
Nor should they, really, as they're supposed to be based on empirical data about the nature of the road. Your attitude reminds me of this New Yorker comic: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630
> That's what warning signs are for. There's no need for it to be a speed limit; just a "caution, hairpin turn" sign is enough.
There are several tight turns near my house. One's a 25 mph one, another is a 15 mph one. Even as a local, I find the numbers a handy reminder; there's absolutely no way a non-local would be able to figure out which turn should be taken at which speed.
> "Eh, this feels like a 75" from an untrained driver with three big accidents on their record shouldn't be of equal value.
Any such driver should have already suffered enough consequences from three big accidents to have changed their behavior. And if they haven't changed their behavior, how is a speeding ticket (which costs a lot less than three big accidents) supposed to?
> Real engineers have liability and licensing implications for fucking up.
For things like bridges and buildings, yes. And for consequences that are easily seen, yes. But what consequences do road engineers suffer if they set the speed limit on a road too low, forcing people to take more time and burn more gas?
> There are several tight turns near my house. One's a 25 mph one, another is a 15 mph one.
Yes, turn warning signs with a safe speed recommendation included. No problem there. But can you get a ticket if you go around the turn at a higher speed than posted, but don't cause any harm? (As I understand it, you can't; the speeds on those yellow warning signs, unlike the ones on the white speed limit signs, are advisory only and you can't be ticketed just for exceeding them. Which is exactly the kind of thing I'm advocating, just for all limits.)
It's hard to tell from a posted limit sign if an engineer was involved. Or, if the engineer was directed to a target limit rather than allowed to find the appropriate limit based only on the road design and such.
No, just an even worse power put in the hands of governments.
Try this thought experiment: suppose we are at some point in the future, when self-driving cars are ubiquitous and are proven to be safer than human-driven cars. Do you want governments to have the ability to force your self-driving car to do something based on some arbitrary setting of a limit, controlled by government bureaucrats? Or do you want to have control over what algorithms your self-driving car runs and what actions it takes if it detects a problem?
> Or do you want to have control over what algorithms your self-driving car runs and what actions it takes if it detects a problem?
I'd rather not be driving in a world where the other drivers get to pick the "run a family off a cliff if it prevents a bumper dint on my vehicle" algorithm.
I want everyone's cars to follow the same rules, I don't want individual people modding their cars to obey only the laws they like or to behave differently than everyone else's cars.
Sounds like you have a hard-on for the government.
The federal government already regulates motor carriers, including inspections by federal and state regulatory bodies. They understand how to predict risk for vehicle operations, and can scale that assessment up to massive fleets like UPS or USPS or down to an individual vehicle operator.
End of the day, individuals on average are awful at risk assessment and consistent behavior. To borrow another phrase, brakes are what allow cars to drive faster.
yeah, I think it's the difference in opinion between those that see cars only as transportation, and those that see driving as an experience itself.
I'm happy to give up control of driving if it means car travel is safer and more convenient, just like I'm happy to get on a train, bus, or airplane and let someone else drive (under high regulation - I don't want my pilot to decide on his own that ATC is being ridiculously conservative and there's plenty of room for him to land between two A380's).
The posted speed limit is some information, but more important are things like size of the lanes, visibility, amount of other traffic, separation from the other direction of traffic, separation from non motorized road users, curves in the road, pavement condition, etc.
If US-101 in Sunnyvale were posted for 45 mph, that wouldn't be a reasonable and prudent limit; it's got lots of separation and wide lanes, and the pavement is ok -- traffic permitting, you can travel at high speeds. If it were posted at 80 mph, it wouldn't be reasonable and prudent either -- the pavement isn't that great (unless it was repaved recently), most cars would be bumping around too much at that speed.
Moreover, I don't know who would purchase a car that promised to strictly follow posted speed limits, when they have alternatives.
1) Some (many?) states require drivers with a history of convinced DUI/DWI to get these systems installed. From articles I've read, they're rather a PITA -- it takes a lot of breath pressure, and you may be prompted at random times as you drive down the road. This seems reasonable for someone with a history of drunk driving, but for the majority of drivers who don't drive drunk, it would be a major turnoff; people would likely just drive pre-mandate cars for as long it takes to get the mandate overturned.
2) Let me know when you have a system that can determine what speed is "reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway". If you want to put a limiter at 100 mph, that's OK with me -- setting up the gearing so above say 80mph is unattainable seems reasonable too. It's very rarely reasonable or prudent to travel at that speed on public highways. The posted speed limit may offer a suggestion of what's reasonable or prudent, but it's very often not the case.
3) What do you propose here, that doesn't shut down my car when I'm avoiding a road hazard? Hooning feels like something where you can know it when you see it, but may be hard for a sensor system to detect accurately. Doing donuts in a field with no one around isn't unsafe. Doing it in the middle of an open freeway is. If we were able to compute this type of decision, we wouldn't have human drivers, and hooning would be dead. It also presupposed that there's a reasonable way to shutdown a car without consent of the driver that's safer than whatever the driver is currently doing.
4) I can't believe people would drive very far with all the godawful alerts that go on when you drive any distance with the seatbelts off. Again though, it's a question of is it safer to stop the vehicle without the consent of the driver or to let them continue to drive and annoy them into compliance.