Modern Vespa

Lame, OK at least to me it is and hopefully this is not also coming to bikes. I just get tired of the whole nanny state mentality at times...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/27/tech/europe-speed-limits-scli/index.html

It's just a proposal. It hasn't been approved yet.

Me, I think it's dangerous.

Bill x

I have to smile that people are worried about this, but don't seem to flinch at the idea of self-driving Uber cabs and the like. Now THAT is the idea which scares me to death.

It could be they want this to make it easier for self driving cars to navigate the road. If everyone is going the same speed it is one less variable they need to take in to account.

There may be a point sometime in the not too distant future where a special grandfather permit will be required to operate a vehicle that cannot operate itself.

We have loads of self driving cars operating in the Phoenix area. They don't scare me one bit. I have yet to have a single self driving car, cut me off during lane change, pull out in front of me, turn left in front of me, be distracted by cell phone or texting, etc. They are MUCH more predictable than the human drivers on the road.

-Craig

But how do we get all the dumb asses into self-driving cars so we can enjoy our ride.

The proposed "Intelligent Speed Assistance" is not dissimilar to a familiar cruise control - except that it 'knows' the speed limit and if allowed, will stick to it. However, it will be easily over-ridden by use of the accelerator, and can be disabled at first switch-on for the rest of the journey.

I can see it being quite popular.

A Hero of mine - Alex Roy said recently that we are in the final years of driving what we want and how we want.

If speed limiters were introduced then no one on a highway could overtake.

Or is it me ?

Bill x

Wrong - that'd be bloody dangerous! You can over-ride this system just by pressing on the accelerator, just as you might do a kick-down in an automatic.

An explanation:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47715415
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/27/all-new-uk-cars-to-have-speed-limiters-by-2022-under-eu-plans

I trust self driving cars more than the Texting, Eating, Reading people driving.

So you can override it at will then ?

Seems a bit pointless if you can.

I know that you can't trust people to stick to the speed limits but this seems a bit much.

We can't trust you to control yourself so we're going to control you.

Bill x

I guess what it boils down is that we can't be trusted to adhere to the speed limit.

Bill x

Volvo limits the new models to 180 km/h.... heck, there are many cars on the road that does not even go that fast!

My car is limited already now. It does not go over 230 km/h....without de- restriction, which is of course readily available.

In Finland the highest legal speed limit is 120 km/h. Give me a car that does 140 km/h and I will never block anyone around here, nor do I ever need more speed for overtaking in smaller roads where the speed limit is 80-100 km/h.

No biggie. Saves a bit of gas & emissions too, I'm all in favour

What if you are an Autocross enthusiast? I know people who drive a car that is driven on the road in autocross events too.

This is for new vehicles only, starting 2022.
By the time suitable autocross cars are too old, this kind of fun have gone out fashion anyway... sorry, not buying.

It's all for the greater good.

Trying not to make a real statement here but I winder if this would play out differently response wise on say a Ducati forum? Face it most people do not buy a Vespa or a scooter for a speed rush. YES I know all too well there are PLENTY here that have faster cars and or bikes but in general you do not get a scoot because you have a need for speed.

I ride fast, I'll admit it. Nothing reckless but I do keep up with the left lane even on the Vespa. I think speed limits are too low, even on the GTV 120 kmh seems a little slow but a fair limit and one I can give with and adhere to. 100 kmh just seems really slow....

People racing their cars started once there was more than one car on the road.
Heck after WWII GI's were coming back and making race cars out of old airplane wing fuel tanks.
I can see this happen in the nanny state EU, but will never happen in the US in the life time of anyone that is living now.

One of us! One of us!

It's very patronising if you ask me.

I'm all for road safety but not at the expense of my own ability to control my own speed.

Bah !

Bill x

This is a bit of a non story.
Under gentle acceleration your car will simply stop at the speed limit, but you can push down a harder and speed up. This is how the limiter in my Mini works. The only difference is it will use gps to pick a limit.

It'll stop accidental speeding but still allow you to overtake or otherwise speed, and you'll be able to disable it at start up, and you can guarantee it can be coded out entirely in most cars.

One of the cars we rented in Italy had what JimC described as an option. Since my husband didn't want to come home to speeding tickets from all the cameras he set it. Then it would beep if you manually accelerated above the speed you had it set to.

This.

Spitballing: might something like this be used to greatly reduce traffic?

I mean if I were to have said 150 years ago "design the most highly effective and efficient transportation system in which individuals in separate vehicles use a common path toward separate destinations" I'm guessing the most effective and efficient system would look exactly like...the opposite of what we currently have: lightly observed anarchy resulting in hundreds of thousands of wasted hours sitting in traffic and hundreds of thousands of deaths...simply so that we can pretend we have freedoms and some a-hole in an Audi can show how quickly he can get eight cars ahead.

Not that I care; I walk to work.

So basically this is like putting a breathalyzer in a car and then giving you a button to override it?

This I would absolutely love to be able to do.

I spend 30+30min in my car when driving to the office and back, what an absolute waste of time.

I have nothing against public transportation either, but my route would be so tricky, that it would take easily over 1h to one direction, with limited availability during the day.

I do have an opportunity to use my "home office" (=tiny, cosy room) once and a while, I take the most out of this.

So yeh, let the more clever transportation schemes come, I'm ready.

It's been on the cards for ages, was always going to happen.

There are so many vehicles on the road, so many breaking the speed limit this had to happen.

And although they say you can override it, it won't be long after that you can't.

The world is changing fast, this generation and the next are going through huge climate and environmental situations.

Make the most of this current fun, because we are the last to have it.

Personally as the world and drivers are the way they are I think it's a good thing.

I like speed, who doesn't but if your obeying the speed limit, you won't even notice.

Yep definitely a good thing and surprised it's taken this long to start doing.

Just think once you can't override it all those big engined Audi's and Mercedes stuck at the same speed as the rest of us lower classes.....I like that idea!!! A lot.

How would it reduce the volume of traffic on the road ?

You're still going to have the same amount of people driving.

People speed in all brands of car not just the German ones.

How many Vauxhall Novas do you see getting ragged around ?

Some people are just Dicks.

Here's a thought - Even if you limit the speed of vehicles you're still going to have increasing volumes of traffic on the roads because we keep reproducing.

Discuss.

Bill x

Didn't say it would reduce traffic.

Yes traffic numbers are only massively increasing.

As for other brands, yes all brands can be seen speeding, but I can certainly a lot of the most aggressive speeders these days ARE in those makes mentioned.

Still know it's a good thing and this is only the first step.

It wasn't related to you. It was a general statement.

How would it reduce traffic ?

The amount of cars on the road would still increase but we'd all be travelling at the same speed.

It's not going to prevent accidents that happen that have nothing connected with speeding such as people turning right on you or people pulling out.

Even if they are travelling at the correct speed they are still going to do it.

Think of pile ups on the highway when a vehicle ahead has stopped and you didn't.

That's not speed related, it attention related. If the car behind you has a system where its brakes operate independent of the driver and it avoids yours that's a good thing but only if the car behind that has the same system.

Same thing happened with ABS. It only really works if we're all using the same system.

More coming......

If you want to be holistic about it maybe if we all stopped making more children there would be less people on the roads and therefore less accidents.

Just sayin.

Bill x

Here's a thought.

If cars and motorcycles become self governing what happens to the performance side of automotive products ?

Bill x

We should all buy classic 60's Fiat 500's. Then we could all thrash them within an inch of their lives and not break any speed limits.



Also good for Autocross?

Count me in!!! Imagine it with a 300cc Vespa engine in it!

Give me a self driving car any day. I find no joy and driving a cage any more. Did that enough in my younger years. Setting in the back fixing a martini is more fun that driving with all those other people.

Now, you start messing with my Vespa, we will have to talk.

Not volume but flow: imagine an electrical grid without voltage regulation; that's what individualized highway traffic is like today: a million atoms deciding for themselves how fast or slow they want to go while sharing a common conduit. Certainly that's a large contribution to traffic jams. ...and the general shittiness of being on a highway.

And I guess I'm thinking more broadly about self-driving cars that are linked to an overall system streamlining flow etc.

But I'm spitballing: for all I know these solutions would simply compound the problem or simply create other, worse ones.

In general (not responding to your immediate post now, Bill) I find the whole anarchy of traffic interesting; it is, as far as I know, the one place where we allow and accept lawlessness that causes large scale annual manslaughter...so that we can feel "free". 1,250,000 people are killed in traffic accidents worldwide, every single year.

As for reducing the number of births as a holistic approach to nearly every single cause of suffering, yes. Yes. And also, by the way, yes!

Cars now, ptw later!

This is my car for track days. 400hp and AWD ... what are speed limits?

So how does one of these know what the weather is like and how to compensate for that? Cruise Control is extremely dangerous on wet roads...

Did you read the article? It has been agreed upon by EU member states. It is definitely more than a proposal at this point.

When you get your Ural you'll probably find that the posted speed limit is a pipe dream anyway. I know I can't reach 70mph on my Enfield Classic. Everywhere is within walking distance (if you have the time).

It hasn't been agreed in the UK yet and that's where I live so for me it hasn't.

Bill x