from Hacker News

You shouldn't be driving over 100 MPH-and your car shouldn't let you

by kayfox on 11/19/23, 5:20 AM with 134 comments

  • by rkuodys on 11/19/23, 6:31 AM

    Interesting that instead of addressing real problem - incompetence in driving, is solved by making world slower instead of forcing to learn to drive. In Germany it normal to drive way faster and noone has any problems

  • by hn_throwaway_99 on 11/19/23, 6:54 AM

    Regulations already mandate things like seatbelts, airbags, and backup cams in cars. I fail to see how "your car should not be able to go over 100 MPH" is significantly different.

    Another reason I find so many of these knee-jerk, vapid "muh freedom" responses so annoying is because I think there is valid concern over how this would be implemented, e.g. by using GPS to vary the limit as mentioned in the article.

  • by kayfox on 11/19/23, 5:28 AM

    This is interesting, but if not done well it could have considerable safety and security implications:

    1. If the databases are not kept up to date well, there would be a lag when highway authorities change the speed limit in an area, which could lead to traffic traveling at mixed speeds, which is a common cause of car crashes.

    2. For an attacker this presents a juicy and new DoS vector: You could break into an automaker and set the speed limit to something low and hold the automaker's customers hostage. This vector already exists for automakers who do OTAs of their vehicles.

    3. The above DoS vector could be more subtly used to target individual vehicles in furtherance of other crimes.

    4. Theres also the unanswered question of road cars which are also used in various types of races. A friend of mine uses her primary car in rally races, would the restrictions be lifted on private property? Would the databases be updated properly when a public road is used as a race circuit?

  • by eximius on 11/19/23, 7:06 AM

    I feel like most of our problems in the US are cultural/educational, not technical.

    The US population just feels... increasingly both hostile to itself and aggressively, maliciously ignorant.

    It is very disheartening.

  • by wlesieutre on 11/19/23, 6:43 AM

    How about a kinetic energy limiter so if you want to drive a 9000 lb Hummer EV it’s not able to drive as fast as a 3000 lb Corolla?

    If I’m remembering my math right, the Corolla gets to go sqrt(3) times as fast, about 1.73x

    So if you limit the Corolla at say 110 mph, a Hummer would be allowed to go 64.

    Edit - a question for the physicists, would kinetic energy or momentum be the better metric for how deadly a projectile a vehicle is? If it’s a momentum limit then the Corolla would be allowed 3x the top speed for its 1/3 weight.

  • by extr on 11/19/23, 6:45 AM

    Seems like a pretty good idea. Why do you need to go over 100mph? Really no possible reason.

    Geo-located speed limits seem a bit iffy. Fine if they work correctly, but I can see it being pretty annoying if it isn't perfect. And it seems like a potentially complicated thing for the government to run well.

    If you're opposed: just remember this would probably dramatically decrease your insurance costs, especially if you are a young male or have a teenage son.

  • by alexmolas on 11/19/23, 6:45 AM

    In 2022 in Germany -no speed limit in the autobahn- there were 2778 deaths in traffic collisions [0]. This is around 8 a day, while the population of Germany is 80M. If the proportion of deaths by collisions was the same as in US one would expect 40 deaths per day. Maybe the problem is not speed limit.

    [0]: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Traffi...

  • by 015a on 11/19/23, 6:35 AM

    This effort feels like another example of the government's desire to push law enforcement into the private sector. Mandate speed limiters > car companies have to pay for it > cars get more expensive > consumers have to pay for it. That's been the USG's go-to for years now, and its frankly unsustainable.

    California has issued 3,000 speeding tickets to drivers going over 100mph, per month. Do these people still have their license? Why?

    I think there's so many perverse incentives in speeding tickets that its hard to have an objective discussion about it. Speeding tickets represent a massive portion of county budgets in rural areas of the country; they're not going to be happy automating that income away. Its also interesting to think about how this impacts punishment today; they can't make the punishment too high, because then their revenue is impacted. Nationally, we can't set punishments at levels which actually impact behavior because we're too dependent on cars, and removing peoples' access to them is, reasonably, a cruel punishment.

  • by quantified on 11/19/23, 6:14 AM

    Don't limit the top speed of my 3.5L turbo V-8. Give me a choice of the 1.4L engine that won't make 90 on flat ground

  • by choppaface on 11/19/23, 6:11 AM

  • by lwhalen on 11/19/23, 6:31 AM

    Oh they want to install a geo-locating tracking device in my car 'for the children'. Haha, how about not only 'no', but 'hell no'. I'd rather die free than live 'safe'.

  • by torstenvl on 11/19/23, 6:33 AM

    I get really mad about stuff like this, because it's so easy for bureaucrats to unilaterally decide that utilitarianism should trump deontology when that isn't how human morality works at all.

    Things like this kill people and agency officials justify it to themselves with the comforting thought that it's okay because it's fewer people than would have died otherwise, never stopping to appreciate the difference between throwing the switch between trolley tracks and pushing a fat kid in front of the trolley.

  • by konstancja on 11/19/23, 6:09 AM

    I'll drive my car however fast I want on track day, thanks

  • by desireco42 on 11/19/23, 6:52 AM

    In US a real problem is that people don't know how to drive... Not all obviously, but significant number and you have a lot of incompetent drivers mostly because if you don't drive you can't work, so nobody dares prevent them from driving, yet they are functionally not capable of driving.

    I think self driving will help greatly there...

  • by cykros on 11/19/23, 11:53 AM

    I'd be much more okay with a car that monitors and tickets for speeding directly than one that simply doesn't do what I tell it to.

    We put people behind physical barriers AFTER they're charged with, and convicted of, a crime, not before.

  • by imgabe on 11/19/23, 6:30 AM

    Webpages should not show autoplaying video ads and your browser shouldn’t let them.

  • by TheLoafOfBread on 11/19/23, 3:38 PM

    You should not need a sharp knife and nobody should sell it to you. Same vibe.

  • by a4000 on 11/20/23, 5:00 AM

    Interestingly in Japan their manufacturers all voluntarily agreed to limit their domestically produced cars to 180km/h (112mph), which has been in place for decades now.

  • by hulitu on 11/19/23, 5:49 PM

    > The traffic signal on North Las Vegas’s North Commerce Street had been red for at least 29 seconds, but the Dodge Challenger did not slow down. Instead, it flew through the intersection with Cheyenne Avenue at 103 mph, almost three times the 35 mph speed limit. Carnage ensued

    And what has this to do with 100mph ?

    Put a radar there, and a policeman to check red lights violations.

  • by softfalcon on 11/19/23, 7:23 AM

    As long as car ads keep advertising power and speed, I doubt we’ll ever see a 100 MPH cap on any car.

  • by akira2501 on 11/19/23, 6:46 AM

    9 people dying in an accident is rare, but not that unusual. This can happen when a freeway ices up and a major pileup occurs. Sometimes church vans drive very slowly into places they shouldn't be and then end up overturned, sometimes in water, and often killing or injuring most of the people on board. This happens way more often than people would expect.

    Meanwhile, alcohol and drugs kill more people on the road than any other set of causes. Perhaps all vehicles should just have a breathalyzer interlock as a standard option? What other measures of condescending paternalism can we implement to "save lives?"

  • by xnx on 11/19/23, 7:44 AM

  • by thefz on 11/19/23, 8:23 PM

    I hardly disagree. We should have no speed limits and punishment for those who overestimate their driving skills and cause damage.

  • by 0xbadc0de5 on 11/19/23, 9:17 AM

    People who advocate for this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed to drive and their car shouldn't let them.

  • by readthenotes1 on 11/19/23, 6:17 AM

    Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

    Just because you shouldn't doesn't mean you always shouldn't.

  • by LispSporks22 on 11/19/23, 7:14 AM

    Look, the Gentleman’s Agreement already limits mah bike to 187 mph. What more do you nanny types want??

  • by satisfice on 11/19/23, 5:29 PM

    Are we not men?

  • by IronWolve on 11/19/23, 6:56 AM

    The old, some people are breaking the law, so we should restrict everyone else. Seems to be the trend of the nanny world we live in.

    You could drink and drive, better put in breathalyzers.

    You might be sleepy, better have eye scanners and steering wheel checks.

    You might be in bad health, better have yearly medical exams submitted to the state.

    Thats a never ending list, on any topic, to limit people. Bad trend to spiral towards the bottom of the nanny state. Whats next, telling people how they should talk, oh wait.

  • by robbywashere_ on 11/19/23, 6:45 AM

    I can’t stand bicyclists. They never obey laws. Blow right through those stop signs.

  • by avalys on 11/19/23, 6:33 AM

    One of the world’s most advanced economies has a huge highway network where a substantial fraction of has no upper speed limit. Fuck off with this nanny state bullshit.

  • by RaceWon on 11/19/23, 5:32 AM

    If that is in the snow, with 4 winter tires then yes, I tend to agree.

  • by fargle on 11/19/23, 6:36 AM

    > evidence of PCP, alcohol, and cocaine. Robinson also had a history of reckless driving

    ... and the takeaway is that the automakers should add governors to their cars. For shame, mfgs. For shame. Not like you can pin this on some drug-addled, drunk, reckless driver.

    I mean, he couldn't do what he did if cars (or oxygen) didn't exist, so let's everybody grab a pitchfork and start banning something