E-scooters and e-bikes don’t have speed limits that vary by street. In order to implement a governor capable of limiting a car to a 20 mph speed in certain areas while still allowing it to run at highway speeds in others, you’d need either a computer vision system to read the speed limit signs or a GPS paired with a perfectly complete and up-to-date speed limit geodatabase, and you’d need to give either such fallible computerized system control over the throttle (which could be a safety hazard in and of itself, for multiple reasons).
The difference between a e-bike governor and a car governor that can be set to something lower than 70 mph is like this.
Just have a 20 mph limit in the city, and no speed limit outside the city. This would also require moving all the highways outside the city, but I think that would be an improvement.
How’s that going to work? The car limits its speed on the basis of an onboard computer connected to the internet that knows your exact location? Kind of think we should be moving away from that kind of thing instead, cars that spy on you are creepy.
You don’t need the Internet, only gps. You can also design a system that only connects to the gps and internet network if you want to go over 20mph. That way the gps only tracks you on the highways or between cities.
But in general, driving a car is not a good option if you don’t want to be tracked, because you need to display an identifying number at all times. It’s common for police to use automatic license plate readers, and who knows how that data is stored.
The acoustic bicycle has been for a long time, and probably will be forever, the preferred vehicle for trouble making revolutionary types
I have a bicycle and use it more than my car but I still need a car and I don’t want my car to also be a computer. There is no way a feature explicitly restricting your behavior is going to be designed in a way that respects your privacy, most new cars already store all data and phone home unaccountably, and they’re obviously going to want to remotely upgrade where/what speeds are allowed in real time. Yeah there’s license plate trackers and those suck too but they aren’t always present everywhere or recording fine grain data to the same extent.
Until the people controlling the software can be trusted or the software/hardware is made entirely transparent IMO computers in cars beyond abs/transmission is bad and should be resisted.
They’re obviously going to want to remotely upgrade where/what speeds are allowed in real time
Thats a good point. I guess it would be a sacrifice to need to do an update every time the map changes. And probably cities will want to expand their slow zone and not want cars to speed. So an internet connection is probably necessary, at least to update the maps each time you turn on the car.
There is no way a feature explicitly restricting your behavior is going to be designed in a way that respects your privacy
I don’t see why this would be the case. Either way, you can think of this feature as a smart override to a dumb speed governor. Therefore, the software exists to expand your behavior.
I don’t want my car to also be a computer
That is a big ask. Particularly given the fact that the market inexplicably wants their cars to be a computer. It seems to be the case that people who want their privacy respected need to sacrifice some conveniences. So you probably will either have to struggle to maintain an old car, do a lot of modifications to a new car, or not drive a car at all, if you want your privacy respected in the near future, regardless of whether speed governors become mandated.
Given that this is c/FuckCars, i’d recommend not driving a car at all. Perhaps a DIY ebike is a good car replacement.
You acknowledge that an internet connection would be needed. There’s no chance these companies willingly make their software open source and if they did it wouldn’t help with the user adversarial goal of speed limiting so that’s an extra reason not to. So you’ve got an unaccountable black box with free reign to connect to company servers from your car, how do you expect that to go?
i’d recommend not driving a car at all
Yes, great, I’d love to, please give me the public transportation infrastructure I would need to make that happen. In the meantime let’s do the speed limiting low tech and outside of my car with bollards or whatever instead of making the experience of needing to drive even more hellish and dystopian.
Even if you try to simplify the system to “20 mph limit in the city, and no speed limit outside the city,” you still need an internet connection to tell you where the city limits are. This is especially true since they can change due to annexations.
Seems like a subtle downside compared to an enormous upside
Edit: I’m not sure your claim of ridiculously bad fuel economy is correct. I’ve seen some sources that show slight decreases in fuel efficiency at 20mph. Fuel efficiencies are about the same at 20mph and 75 mph. https://www.mpgforspeed.com/
And it seems that slower is better for electric vehicles.
It’s easy, just require speed governors in cars.
Where I live, they’re required in e scooters and e bikes, which are far less dangerous than cars
We have different definitely of “easy”
E-scooters and e-bikes don’t have speed limits that vary by street. In order to implement a governor capable of limiting a car to a 20 mph speed in certain areas while still allowing it to run at highway speeds in others, you’d need either a computer vision system to read the speed limit signs or a GPS paired with a perfectly complete and up-to-date speed limit geodatabase, and you’d need to give either such fallible computerized system control over the throttle (which could be a safety hazard in and of itself, for multiple reasons).
The difference between a e-bike governor and a car governor that can be set to something lower than 70 mph is like this.
Then make nation-wide limit at 20 units of imperialism per hour
Found the rational one!
Just have a 20 mph limit in the city, and no speed limit outside the city. This would also require moving all the highways outside the city, but I think that would be an improvement.
How’s that going to work? The car limits its speed on the basis of an onboard computer connected to the internet that knows your exact location? Kind of think we should be moving away from that kind of thing instead, cars that spy on you are creepy.
You don’t need the Internet, only gps.You can also design a system that only connects to the gps and internet network if you want to go over 20mph. That way the gps only tracks you on the highways or between cities.But in general, driving a car is not a good option if you don’t want to be tracked, because you need to display an identifying number at all times. It’s common for police to use automatic license plate readers, and who knows how that data is stored.
The acoustic bicycle has been for a long time, and probably will be forever, the preferred vehicle for trouble making revolutionary types
I have a bicycle and use it more than my car but I still need a car and I don’t want my car to also be a computer. There is no way a feature explicitly restricting your behavior is going to be designed in a way that respects your privacy, most new cars already store all data and phone home unaccountably, and they’re obviously going to want to remotely upgrade where/what speeds are allowed in real time. Yeah there’s license plate trackers and those suck too but they aren’t always present everywhere or recording fine grain data to the same extent.
Until the people controlling the software can be trusted or the software/hardware is made entirely transparent IMO computers in cars beyond abs/transmission is bad and should be resisted.
Thats a good point. I guess it would be a sacrifice to need to do an update every time the map changes. And probably cities will want to expand their slow zone and not want cars to speed. So an internet connection is probably necessary, at least to update the maps each time you turn on the car.
I don’t see why this would be the case. Either way, you can think of this feature as a smart override to a dumb speed governor. Therefore, the software exists to expand your behavior.
That is a big ask. Particularly given the fact that the market inexplicably wants their cars to be a computer. It seems to be the case that people who want their privacy respected need to sacrifice some conveniences. So you probably will either have to struggle to maintain an old car, do a lot of modifications to a new car, or not drive a car at all, if you want your privacy respected in the near future, regardless of whether speed governors become mandated.
Given that this is c/FuckCars, i’d recommend not driving a car at all. Perhaps a DIY ebike is a good car replacement.
You acknowledge that an internet connection would be needed. There’s no chance these companies willingly make their software open source and if they did it wouldn’t help with the user adversarial goal of speed limiting so that’s an extra reason not to. So you’ve got an unaccountable black box with free reign to connect to company servers from your car, how do you expect that to go?
Yes, great, I’d love to, please give me the public transportation infrastructure I would need to make that happen. In the meantime let’s do the speed limiting low tech and outside of my car with bollards or whatever instead of making the experience of needing to drive even more hellish and dystopian.
Even if you try to simplify the system to “20 mph limit in the city, and no speed limit outside the city,” you still need an internet connection to tell you where the city limits are. This is especially true since they can change due to annexations.
Youre right. I edited the comment
Restrict every car to 20mph? Yeah, no.
Why not? We can let the busses go faster
Fuel economy on faster roads would be ridiculously bad.
Seems like a subtle downside compared to an enormous upside
Edit: I’m not sure your claim of ridiculously bad fuel economy is correct. I’ve seen some sources that show slight decreases in fuel efficiency at 20mph. Fuel efficiencies are about the same at 20mph and 75 mph. https://www.mpgforspeed.com/
And it seems that slower is better for electric vehicles.