All new cars must have the devices from 7 July, adding fuel economy as well as safety. Will mpg become the new mph?
In the highway code and the law courts, there is no doubt what those big numbers in red circles mean. As a quick trip up any urban street or motorway with no enforcement cameras makes clear though, many drivers still regard speed signs as an aspiration rather than a limit.
Technology that will be required across Europe from this weekend may change that culture, because from 7 July all new cars sold in the EU and in Northern Ireland must have a range of technical safety features fitted as standard. The most notable of these is intelligent speed assistance – or colloquially, a speed limiter.
The rest of the UK is theoretically free, as ministers once liked to put it, to make the most of its post-Brexit freedoms, but the integrated nature of car manufacturing means new vehicles here will also be telling their drivers to take their foot off the accelerator. Combining satnav maps with a forward camera to read the road signs, they will automatically sound an alarm if driven too fast for the zone they are in.
This sounds like blown up bullshit.
How does this speed limiter work exactly, I don’t see that mentioned anywhere.
If I drive Autobahn it’s not the same as driving passed a school in the city. How does the speed limiter know the speed limit?
To know that accurately, sounds like a somewhat expensive mandatory piece of equipment.
And how come I have heard absolutely zero about this from either car reviewers or local news media?
I looked it up for my country (Denmark), these are NOT mandatory that I can find, and they can ONLY be installed by public authorized shops, and from the paperwork required, it seems like the installer decides the limit, there are no mandatory limits.
So it seems like the whole story is bullshit.
EDIT:
https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-knowledge/media-and-press/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa-set-become-mandatory-across
Intelligent speed assistance seems to be a thing, but this is a pretty crucial part:
From the OP the Guardian article:
Yes and that’s how it will continue to be with Intelligent speed assistance.
Article is bullshit these are NOT speed limiters, which is a completely different thing, despite that I can see numerous articles in English erroneously calling this speed limiters, when it’s nothing of the sort.
Otherwise, what’s an ACTUAL speed limiter called? You know like what is popular in many new cars, that have speed limiters that prevent you from driving faster than for instance 160 km/h.
In Canada we call them engine governors and they’ve been around for decades (mostly on semis/tractor trailer units).
I know most Mercedes cars have had speed limiters for many years, but those were traditionally at 250 km/h.
An engine governor sounds more like preventing revving it to high.
https://www.engineeringchoice.com/what-is-engine-governor/
This describes an engine revving governor, exactly as it sounds like, such a mechanism will not limit the speed of a car, but limit the revolutions on the engine. Probably to prevent damage to the engine.
In the US, a device that sets max speed for a vehicle is called a governor. They’re on cement mixers and things like that
“Combining satnav maps with a forward camera to read the road signs, they will automatically sound an alarm if driven too fast for the zone they are in.”
“From now on, however, cars will be designed with systems that are impossible to permanently turn off, restarting each time the engine does. Will car lovers see this as pure progress?”
It doesn’t sound hard to disable… speakers only have 2 wires. Snip-Snip.
You aren’t disabling the system, that still works fine, it just has no output.
IIRC it’s not an audio alarm, the car will push back on the pedal so that if you push past the limit it will need a bit more force.
And even if they were just speakers, they would most likely be the main speakers, so you’d be taking out your sound system.
Just quoting the article:
“Combining satnav maps with a forward camera to read the road signs, they will automatically sound an alarm if driven too fast for the zone they are in.”
I read the original paper a few months ago, actually manufacturers can choose between an auditory warning, vibrating the wheel, pushing back on the pedal, or outright slowing the car down.
https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-knowledge/media-and-press/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa-set-become-mandatory-across
You’re right ofc, I remembered this on vaguely.