There is something darkly amusing about Los Angeles, it of the perpetual traffic jam, being unable to go without a day without some sort of police chase. But it seems this is more or less the case. do a cursory search for any given date and there’s a very good possibility that one of the many news helicopters in the area has captured footage of some criminal attempting to evade authorities; usually in a vehicle deeply unfit for that purpose. Between that perpetual shame and their increasingly car-unfriendly climate, it’s not surprising that the state of California has proposed legislation that would make it illegal for manufacturers to sell a vehicle without a speed limiter capping it to ten miles an hour above the limit. Unsurprising, but not any less stupid.
The EU is currently implementing a somewhat less stupid version of this scheme. If the car reviewers on that side of the pond are anything to go by, the speed limiter seems to be successful in one thing. Above else, it makes your vehicle an annoying beeping machine that knows it’s absolutely right. And will tell you that this 45 MPH road is actually 25 until you remember to switch off the warning every time you start the car or just learn to accept that even classical music will begin sounding like post-modern trance on account of all the beeping. And that’s with the UK’s crumbling infrastructure, nevermind the US’s, which basically makes the UK look like Switzerland, if those YouTube channels whose sole purpose is to dunk on every infra planning decision the US has made since Eisenhower was in office are right.
And this is before we get to exemptions. Unless they propose police cars, ambulances, fire engines and the like also get a limiter. $5 says that all state-issued vehicles would go into that exemption. Remember to give your local low-level bureaucrat a friendly wave as they go by at Mach 1.5.
Crucially, this does nothing to address the actual increased dangers of the road. Running a stop sign or a Red light? Getting distracted by fiddling with screen-only controls that nobody tested before release? Road Rage? Lack of periodic retraining? All unchanged but now the perpetrators will go through the storefront at exactly the limit +10.
Then again, maybe I don’t need to worry all that much. Revenue generation is something which speeding does quite nicely for local law enforcement. I expect that there will be some quiet resistance coming from them once the realization of possible loss revenue hits. Or they start writing tickets for 1MPH over. It all rather depends on Jurisdiction and likelihood of assholish behavior.
Self-driving cars are really really hard to do. You can see it through phony autopilot claims, cars getting blocked by traffic cones, and on the small things that they should get right, but don’t. One of those is the ability to read road signs. Not to mention being unable to act on judgement if such a thing isn’t available. As ever, governments are trying to come with tech solutions to societal issues. It’s easier.
It doesn’t work, but it’s easier.
