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Why Can't My Car Tell the Speed Limit?
I got a ticket on my way to the Guy Kawasaki event yesterday—34 in a 25. I wasn’t trying to speed—I simply wasn’t paying attention. Here’s my question: why can’t my car tell the speed limit and warn me when I’m over? Seems simple enough to do in theory. You wouldn’t need to annotate the roads physically, you could do it with GPS and maps. I’d pay for this service.
Posted by windley on November 2, 2007 8:27 AM
Comment from Jesse Stay at November 2, 2007 9:03 AM
My family had a Ford Taurus growing up that did this. Eventually the warning tone got so annoying that we had to just turn it off. Sorry to hear about your ticket!
Comment from Scott Barlow at November 2, 2007 2:20 PM
Yeah - some of the older Fords did this at 55 MPH I think. You couldn't change it manually - so no use. 2000 N is a tough place to drive over the limit (even if that's not where you got it).
Bummer about the ticket. I'll look for your update on Twitter that reads "At traffic school" ;)
Comment from john at November 2, 2007 9:26 PM
Yes, the technology is available in various forms. But most people would rather spend money on movies or sports than improving traffic.
I'm curious where it was. First, it's kind of BS that they ticketed you for less than 10 MPH over (unless you were really doing 50 - that Ferrari just cruises, doesn't it!). It's actually really hard to drive just 25 MPH and I usually recommend that such a slow speed be reserved for very local and short streets. More reasonable posted speeds are generally 30 MPH for any sort of local collector, and 35 MPH for collectors. Speeds are really supposed to be set by measuring the 85th percentile of actual speeds.
Maybe as more people get slammed by insurance rate hikes from tickets in unreasonable zones, they will demand more reasonable speed limits.
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