Filed under: Gadgets, Trends, Tech
Intelligent Speed Adaptation slams the brakes on speeding
The Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) system uses a GPS and mapping system to determine where a vehicle is located and at what speed it's travelling. ISA, which was developed by the Motor Industry Research Association and backed with funds from the U.K. Department for Transport (DfT), was demonstrated last week using a motorcycle. When the driver exceeds the posted speed limit, he or she will receive a two beep warning. Once their speed is 5 mph over the limit, the vehicle seat vibrates as another warning. If the second warning is disregarded, ISA takes over and slows the vehicle until it's at or below the speed limit.Critics point out the system does not take into account when drivers accelerate out of dangerous situations. Touché.
Related:
Cars obeying speed limit despite you
[Source: U.K. Times]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TheOne442 5:55PM (8/15/2006)
Think 10yrs from now, if a GPS speed system like this was in all new cars would you buy one? Nope.
There is to much risk for new car sales if this is brought over seas. Couldn't happen
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WillDaThrill 6:09PM (8/15/2006)
Not going to happen. It'll put police and state troopers out of their cash cow. The first thing people will do is rip out the associated equipment.
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Dr1v3r 6:16PM (8/15/2006)
Soooo, lets say I am rushing to the hospital because my passenger is dying or my loved one is at the hospital dying... The damn people who work in the government will ensure the meddling will never stop.
Lets all just become robots and have it done with.
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Mad Detroiter 6:31PM (8/15/2006)
Damn, it's a good thing we broke away from the Brits. Just another example of how they don't value freedom the same way we do. They, as well as most other European countries, in the interest of political correctness, maximum government control, and so called safety, are legislating themselves into a painful submission. Talk about taking the fun out of life.
Just another reason to buy old / classic cars!
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joe 6:36PM (8/15/2006)
i, for one, welcome our crash-inducing, speed-reducing computer overlords
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Vern Southard 6:38PM (8/15/2006)
This type of big brother speed control may be useful for commercial fleet owners who for insurance cost purposes require their drivers to obey speed posted speed limits. What however is to prevent some company
from selling the speed control technlogy to municipalities like they have sold traffic light camera speed traps that automatically issue tickets by mail? The GPS speed sensors and controls will not only take away one of the greatest freedoms we now have, which is freedom of movement from one place to the other without being under constant surviellance, and also add a huge cost factor to driving. Considering the technolgies that are now available in high tech automobiles, many of which are manufactured with over 500 horsepower, and have the steering, braking and handling to allow safe driving at high speeds..and radar operated speed controls and braking, to prevent
running into the car in front of you..why would we want to have the remote speed contol GPS systems installed in our expensive cars? Only idiots that hate driving would tolerate that type of robotic control, and most of us like to drive our cars, or we wouldn't all be making those payments every month. Driving fast has little to do with safety. Driving smart has something to do with safety. Why not tag the brain dead dolts who drive slow in the fastlane with GPS controls and automatically force them off the road into a parking lot so the rest of us can get to work or fun or whatever other destination we want to get to efficiently and enjoy the drive in the process, without having to resort to difficult passing maneuvers just to get along down the road.
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Corey 6:50PM (8/15/2006)
Resistance is futile.
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Rich 7:01PM (8/15/2006)
This is a HORRIBLE idea.
1 - Not all speed limits make a lot of sense.
2 - GPS isn't perfect. What happens when you are on the freeway and the system thinks you are on a residential road. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, you slow from 65 mph to 25 mph and get rear ended by the guy behind you.
3 - There are so many real world situations where it is safer to speed, at least for a short time. To merge safely into traffic. To change into another lane to pass someone that is going 20 mph under the limit instead of slamming on your brakes causing chaos to those behind you. On a 2 lane road while you are passing someone that is going 20 mph under, you speed for a short while to spend the least amount of time in the oncoming lane as possible, etc. etc. etc.
The bottom line is these things will NOT increase safety.
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Keith 7:08PM (8/15/2006)
"Don't think of me as Big Brother, think of me as the shepherd keeping an eye on my flock"
Some random lyrics from a Coldcut album.
In other words, NO WAY, worst idea EVER!
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ZoomZoomin' 7:50PM (8/15/2006)
If something like this ever became mandatory/commonplace, that would be the day I began to hate driving.
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Jerry 7:54PM (8/15/2006)
It's okay. The Highway Revenue Agents don't care whether you're accelerating for reasons of safety either -- they will happily write you a ticket for getting out of a dangerous situation, while people who do the most horrific dangerous things imaginable are completely ignored. If they don't care about safety, and they don't, why would anyone else?
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RacetrackOwner 8:29PM (8/15/2006)
It's a bad enough idea in general -- but motorcyclists are the LAST category of motorists who should be denied full control of their vehicles. In fact, I'm pretty sure my state's DOT motorcyclists handbook even advises that it is safer to ride at a slightly higher speed than surrounding traffic. Or maybe that was the MSF people.
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Mk 8:36PM (8/15/2006)
I'll drive a Mad Max-style monster before I'll buy a new car with this system. I don't even like On-Star and the new accident black boxes.
classic porsche 911/912 is looking better and better. well designed (albeit "backwards"), air cooled, non computerized, and looks great. MAYBE mechanical fuel injection being the only technology on the whole car.
This system on a motorcycle is EVEN WORSE. Losing control to the internal computer on TWO WHEELS is more likely to kill you, or at least destroy your vehicle, with a much slimmer margin of error.
Maybe it is just a hypothetical, but even if it is just an empty article, it is softening the public for such techno-nannies. If it isn't this system, it will likely be another just like it, or actually worse, and eventually the nanny state will spread to the US from wherever else it starts.
People can deny the slippery slope all they want, as we all slide faster down it...
Am I the only person who thinks this, among other trends, might be forboding of dangerous tyranny?
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Jay 9:09PM (8/15/2006)
In addition to all of this, have you ever seen a map--even an online map--that was fully up to date? Say they change a speed limit on one road from 40 to 45 and the GPS system doesn't get updated and you can't go the posted limit? Imagine getting behind someone who has that system and can't increase speed? Imagine the congestion that could cause. There's a road near my house that all the major online map services still show as a state highway even though the highway was rerouted 15 years ago and that strip of pavement has been simply a county road since then. I'm sure there will be plenty of instances in a system like that where speed limits don't get adjusted like they should and cause all kinds of problems.
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cowboy bob 9:09PM (8/15/2006)
We are the government. Resistance is futile. You will be assimulated. You will become part of the collective. Independent thought is impossible. Resistance is futile. You cannot escape. Prepare to be assimulated.
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Sam Gonzalez 9:21PM (8/15/2006)
assimilated. Maybe we should have the speed monitoring.
(Not serious people - before I get more hate mail)
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Marc James 9:26PM (8/15/2006)
This makes me absolutely sick. I will drive my car however the fuck I want. I will never spend a penny on something that controls me. Consumers rebel!
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Edmund Dantes 9:44PM (8/15/2006)
How long before the police start sending out tickets by using data collected from electronic toll systems such as EZPass and IPASS.
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Big Brother 10:08PM (8/15/2006)
All your brakes are belong to us!
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CE?? 10:26PM (8/15/2006)
This is very exceiting, hope one day it will be popular and affordable for normal people.
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