> The board issued the recommendations Tuesday at a public board meeting after determining the crash was caused by excessive speed, drug-impaired driving and Nevada’s failure to deter the driver’s speeding recidivism due to systemic deficiencies, despite numerous speeding citations.
So, despite drug use and a history of speeding by the at-fault driver, the rest of us must suffer. Got it.
What is speeding related? Speed limits are completely arbitrary.
395 in Eastern CA, a straight line for miles thru the desert (i.e. perfect conditions most of the time; there are stretches near Bishop and south where you could take a nap as long as your wheels are true) has 65 state limit, and I90 winding thru snowy mountain passes in WA is 70. So, if I go 70 in the icy forest and cause a crash, I'm not speeding and it's ok; and if I go 70 on the dry straight road I am a terrible person who was speeding.
Yes. The bureaucracy knows and loves us, {human unit #78,042,196} but most of all knows what's best for us. Compliance is mandatory. {human unit #78,042,196} has been docked 12 freedom units for your outburst. Please report to Central Brainwashing tomorrow between 10:30am and 10:45am at Brutalism Plaza.
Increase active enforcement; make penalties more severe; and treat repeat offenses like DUI.
It's not the place of the government to put limits like these on devices just because they want to avoid having to commit to behavioral change through enforcement and penalty.
> It's not the place of the government to put limits like these on devices just because they want to avoid having to commit to behavioral change through enforcement and penalty.
I mean... That kind of _is_ half of their jobs, isn't it?
Dictionary definition of the word "regulation": Rules made by a government or other authority in _order to control the way something is done_ or the way people behave.
Note: Not that I necessarily agree with a gps based speed limit facility. My car displays posted speed limits on the dashboard, and it frequently shows the wrong one, from a nearby surface road or who knows what -- a nice feature but more than occasionally wrong. I do think things like top speed governors make sense though (eg. no need for street legal vehicles to go over 100mph public roads instance).
The weasel word "related" is doing all the heavy lifting here.
Speed is constantly and accurately measured. Police love to say accidents are speed related, because that is always technically true; and it lends vain credibility to the most lucrative traffic law.
We have a similar problem with scheduled substances.
I'm interested by the way societies balance the freedom of one individual vs. the risk they pose to a large number of others.
Personally, I'm inclined towards solutions that many would consider very harsh towards the offender. But that's softened over time as I've become more aware human's limited ability to dispense true justice. E.g., wrongful convictions in death-penalty cases.
> Personally, I'm inclined towards solutions that many would consider very harsh towards the offender.
What is your reasoning? The literature suggests that harsher penalties do not significantly affect the rate or severity of offenses. Even if you feel that those punishments are just, long jail sentences are expensive to society.
Probably the most straightforward thing is to burden people who do care about rules, eg. not only take away their license, but make it illegal to sell or furnish a car to anyone listed on an online "no drive" list.
Just to be clear, I'm talking about my instinctive gut-reaction to the issue, not my settled view. I'm not 100% sure where that instinct comes from; probably somewhere in the depths of my psyche and/or world view.
The government saw how docile the public was during the pandemic and now knows it can get away with just about anything in the name of safety. Some people will grumble but most will simply accept what they've been told they must do.
NTSB may want to consider regulating the size of new trucks and SUVs, which are disproportionately causing deaths and damage, instead of inventing new problems for themselves.
No, the reaction by truck manufactures (Ford, etc.) was to switch from a "passenger car" chassis, which is regulated under CAFE, to a "light truck" chassis, which isn't. Remember that the PT Cruiser was classified as a "light truck". I think we can all agree that in no way shape or form would the average person believe the PT Cruiser was a truck.
> Under CAFE, vehicles can be labeled “passenger cars” or “light trucks”, with the latter category required to meet less stringent standards for fuel economy and CO2 emissions. A decade ago, the Chrysler PT Cruiser was the most egregious example of this.
> Big trucks and SUVs are often more comfortable for larger people.
This plays some part in it. I am fairly tall, and have longer legs, and there are sedans that I simply cannot fit into because they do not have enough room for my legs. Nevermind a coupe of any kind.
I do have a pet theory that part of the problem with bad drivers, especially inattentive drivers is that they're far too comfortable in their cars. They sit in a big cushy drivers seat with gods-knows-how-many adjustment zones, in-seat heating, cooling..massage even. Driving becomes a time to relax rather than a time to concentrate.
Around here we have these trucks that have giant wheels and they are jacked up like 8 feet. I see no practical use with these lifted trucks and are impossible to see around.
I've wondered if fines should scale with vehicle weight. Specifically, fines designed to prevent or reduce the damage caused by collisions. In theory, a 6000lb truck going 70 mph would be twice as destructive as a 3000lb car at the same speed.
I can’t imagine this is within the purview of the NTSB, who focus on individual safety features, rather than vehicle dimensions.
Dimensions are usually the domain of the licensing bodies that license drivers, where license classes dictate acceptable vehicle dimensions. If you want change, start there to up the licensing requirements for monstrously large passenger vehicles.
This is obvious nonsense. Larger vehicles are so much safer to their occupants that it overwhelms the very minor marginal risk increase to non-occupants from larger vehicles.
People who complain constantly about large vehicles almost never have a logical case, or even understand why they have proliferated so much in the last decade (Obama admin emissions regs).
Given the chance in an environment not distorted by emissions regs, most people will use cheaper, less safe cars, but there is no net safety upside.
> but that gets largely nullified if everyone is in a bigger car.
This is not true - the collision between two large vehicles is safer than the collision between two small vehicles.
If you are colliding at a given speed, you want as much crumple zone between you and the other mass as possible.
> That leads to an arms race with no benefit to anyone and massive costs.
It has safety benefits to everyone. As for other net costs, consumers seem to think that (after factoring in emissions regs-induced distortions), large vehicles are net better.
I've often joked that my retirement plan is to put all my money into buying and warehousing a fleet of base model Kias. I'll operate a rental service of cars that "just work" to criminals who want to rob banks or escape the robot police.
> Maybe ICE cars will be outlawed in cities eventually?
They already are in various cities around the world [1]
Note lots of European cities are also banning diesel vehicles, and tons of cities in Central and South America only allow you to drive your vehicle every second day. Odd license plates one day, even the next.
This is a fantastic idea. No one should be able to endanger pedestrians and other drivers through reckless speeding, which killed 12,330 people in the US in 2021 alone [0].
The weasel word "related" is doing all the heavy lifting here.
Speed is constantly and accurately measured. Police love to say accidents are speed related, because that is always technically true; and it lends vain credibility to the most lucrative traffic law.
We have a similar problem with scheduled substances.
Acceptable trade off. Driving and transportation are fundamental to economic growth. We should however enforce laws of speeding. Not through tyrannical measures like this though. You can’t say “I want a DIY culture” but also “it’s unlawful to hack my car”. Pick one.
The government has strict ways to make this trade off. Human life is evaluated in dollar amounts. This might make certain emotions running high, but it’s the only way to assess. Otherwise the safest society is no society at all.
Practical Engineering channel on YT recently did a video about this.
Definitely need to weigh the pros and cons of any change.
> you just made up 103 mph number but that's an acceptable speed on Autobahn.
That's how fast the car was going in the article, and it was definitely not on the Autobahn or anything like it.
I stand that it would be a very sane/reasonable change that vehicles in the us should be limited to 85 mph (the highest posted speed limit on any road).
> You can’t say “I want a DIY culture” but also “it’s unlawful to hack my car”. Pick one.
As far as I can tell from the actual article we are discussing, no one said this. Car mods remain 100% legal. The proposed features even allow speeding without modification.
How about a call to review and increase speed limits in many areas where they are set way too low. Country roads where the speed limit is 55, then magically goes to 35 for half a mile and back up to 55, and there's no cross road or houses within 10 miles. Interstates and Freeways with miles upon miles of multilane, straight roads and 55 MPH speed limits. And on and on.
Before it is said, I'm not talking about school zones, community, or other populated areas that have low speed limits.
Honestly speed limits shouldn't go up in these places until we open up deer hunting. They're an absolute menace and it's precisely these country roads you're talking about where I can count 100 deer on a 20 minute drive at night.
Deer herds in city limits can in fact be an issue! DC’s is substantial enough that the Park Service has to hire sharpshooters to keep it under control. One deer even wandered into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo a few years ago, with predictable results.
This makes me wonder, why are cars built to go ~120mph in the first place, when I can't think of a single place in the US where it is legal to drive that fast on a public road?
Because an engine works more efficient if it is not running at its limits. So driving at 90mph with an engine that can go 120mph is more efficient than an engine that can go 90mph.
Because a car that does well on the highway is also equipped for higher speeds. You don't want an engine that redlines at highway speeds so it's geared down, but that means you have headroom. You don't want tires or suspension that run at their limits during normal use either, so you get a car with all the parts it needs to go faster.
It sounds like you're saying the Jeep Eagle wasn't the greatest vehicle of all time. Almost like your saying that pieces of the interior falling off at speeds greater than 55 mph wasn't a good thing. I guess this is just one of those times we will have to agree to disagree.
I think partially it's because you don't want to have your engine/transmission constantly running at their peak. Sure your average car engine these days can probably do 120mph, but it won't do it for very long in terms of the car's overall lifetime.
Many consumer cars aren't. The engine may permit that level of speed, but the rest of the car isn't necessarily built for that. In some lower-end cars even driving at legal highway speeds can be uncomfortable.
A bunch of reasons actually. There are loads of places in the US where it's reasonable and legal-ish to go 80 mph. If you want a nice, affordable car that can go 80 mph without feeling like its about to fall apart, it will probably be able to go 120 mph too.
There are scenarios where I would want a lot of acceleration or top speed (or both), legal consequences be damned. You're not buying a car that goes 120mph all the time, you're buying a car that can do that once if you need it to, even though you very likely will never need it.
But most importantly, because people want it and companies are willing to build it.
The German autobahn also exists and still has sections with no speed limit (for now, anyway). Being "built for the autobahn" (ie high speed) is a major selling point for German cars.
The vast, vast majority of cars are designed with public roads in mind. Out of the huge number of people that drive in the US, a very small portion regularly use their cars off public roads where 120mph is a usable speed.
I think this is a major issue as well. Adequate following distances give you a reasonable amount of time to stop should the car ahead of you slam on the brakes for any reason, it gives other cars the ability to seamlessly change lanes rather than slow down which causes traffic, and they cost you almost no time as you can create a following distance by dropping your speed to literally 1-2 MPH less than the guy in front of you for 30 seconds (and going that much slower for that little time can add less than a second to your trip time depending on your average speed).
This all feels intuitive yet so many people on the road fail to keep a distance for no discernible reason. Is it that they think you're supposed to be close to the car ahead? Is it that they feel driving is a competition rather than a cooperative arrangement set up so that nobody crashes into anybody else?
You can be tracked without the EV. License plate readers, cell
tower logs, electronic payment transactions, etc. Laws are for preventing tech from being a panopticon. The tech is inevitable.
The tracking goes much deeper than that [1] and it isn't the only part of the ongoing overdigitalization of cars. Access to diagnostics and the ability to repair them yourself have suffered a lot with the introduction of EVs. Parts and manuals are harder to find for those than ICE cars. Mercedes won't even let you open the hood of the EQS you bought from them.
Some countries in Europe have average speed cameras. They photograph you at two points along a highway, and if your average speed is over the limit you get a fine.
What sorts of speed limits do they have in Aus? When I was there there was a mix of 2 lane roads and divided highways which looked similar to interstates once I was outside of the city but I wasn’t driving. For context, 100-110km/h is how fast you’d safely go on the 2 lane roads and 130km/h on rural divided highways in the US (maybe even 140km/h in really flat states).
Glad this is only a recommendation at this phase. I suspect it's in that class of solutions which would create an enormous and dystopian enforcement apparatus far more troubling than the problem it was created to solve. For me, anyway, your mileage may vary (ha ha).
I don't deny that traffic accidents are a problem, but let's not forget that traffic fatalities (both by vehicle mile and by population) peaked about 100 years ago, a lifetime before SUVs and "big ol' trucks" became a thing. They are now about 5% of that apex, trending generally downward or staying about the same[1].
If this is enacted (and probably even if it isn't) I suspect I will just drive older, dumber vehicles until we have actual self-driving cars, skipping the intervening period of having cars too dumb to drive themselves, but which think they are smart enough to police how I drive.
So they're recommending that auto manufacturers add what cars already come with (speed limit warnings) and still leaving it to the states to do and enforce whatever they want. Nice.
In India, the cars give a warning sound after crossing a certain speed. It is dumb and annoying. No one cares. Just another "safety" regulation that increases the prices for us.
That isn't always true, for example I find it too easy to speed in 25MPH zones. This tech also ruins the excuse the driver didn't realize they were speeding, good luck fighting that ticket.
It'll go in the car's event log and be available for inspection by insurance companies, courts, police, dealerships, etc. Repeat offenders might receive a court order mandating it be switched from 'passive' into 'active' mode, similar to ignition interlock devices today.
Realistically how would you ever know, if there's simply an agreement that you let the car collect "some telemetry" and simultaneously allow the manufacturer to share that data with "their partners?" If you say it's because you read agreements like that before buying a car, I just don't believe you. Look at all the things Toyota and Subaru have done in this arena over the last few years.
Unless there is legislation to prevent it we will reach a point where at the very least private insurance companies will have access to this data, provided they are willing to buy it. In an even worse scenario we'll have courts and law enforcement with access to this as well.
This is why my next car is hopefully going to be my last one. I have my eyes on an ND Miata. Tried researching the privacy aspect and found one reddit comment from 69 days ago saying the infotainment system is old enough to not do this crap. Does anyone have more info on that?
Aside from it's a new restriction upon you, why is this atrocious?
I can see a safety-related argument that you may need to briefly accelerate to get out of a sticky situation. I cannnot see a safety-related argument wihch says BuyMyBitcoins needs to be allowed to drive 10mph or 20mph above the posted limit for an extended duration of time.
I expect ISA in active/enforcing mode is coming, and it's just a question of whether new cars have it in 5 years or in 30 years.
Because the people who support this are also the ones who hate drivers and do crazy things like impose 20mph (30km/h) speed limits in cities on the main roads. The point is to degrade the quality of life and force everyone into public transport slice by slice. But the HN crowd is disproportionately made up of those who think this way.
If speed limits were set to the natural safe speed the road was designed for people would be far less cynical about these things.
Quite frankly it’s even more tracking under the guise of public safety. So now I’ll have some sort of driver permanent record that needs to be hooked in to some system that needs to know where I am so it can say whether or not I’m speeding. Not only can I not turn this off, it’s a trove of data that can incriminate me in other unrelated ways. That data can be monetized as well. In this premise the insurance agency is already looking, so why can’t other data brokers?
Here’s where I think you’ll disagree with me the most. Speeding is bad but it doesn’t warrant having some big brother system to keep track of everytime someone has ever gone 10-20 over. People die because of speeders, yes, but not enough to warrant this kind of surveillance.
We still have other ways of enforcing speed limits and enhancing public safety on the roads.
Maybe the road would be safer (or just as safe but more efficient) with a posted limit 20mph above what it is. But the pearl-clutching mothers of the world can't imagine a scenario where you can drive 50mph on a suburban street without killing half a dozen people so we'll never know.
Average speed measurements on gantries over motorways in UK seem to do an excellent job at reducing speed to the legal limit, because getting ticketed for going over is a £100 fine and 3 penalty points on your licence.
Accrued points take 48 months to expire off your licence and it only takes two tickets (6 points) to lose your licence as a new driver. Experienced drivers are going to lose their licence when they hit 12 points.
On top of the £100 fines, insurers all hike their rates for people with points.
Cynics will say this is just revenue generation, but it seems to work, and £100 is cheaper than a lot of fines in US jurisdictions.
This is how it should be. Drive dangerously? Get summoned appropriately. Instead, in the US, it's up to the states, and many states choose to do nothing or reverse course to play politics (like how TX got rid of, or turned off, their red light cameras a few years ago)
So, despite drug use and a history of speeding by the at-fault driver, the rest of us must suffer. Got it.