Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
California Senate Passes Bill Requiring Passive Speed Limiters (roadandtrack.com)
38 points by rntn on May 26, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 124 comments


California government seems to be afflicted with a disorder in which they pass laws and add regulations to pretend to address problems without doing any of the basic things to improve governance and improve infrastructure that would obviously actually help address the problems. (e.g. enforce speed limits and distracted driving laws where they matter, not just on freeways)

It’s the same thing with the new income-based adjustments to electricity rates, which “helps reduce the burden of utility payments” without doing anything to address the fact that California has the among the highest cost of electricity anywhere. I don’t think the legislators think about this or care, because look! they are “addressing the problems”.

Will adding a require speeding bell in cars reduce car-related fatalities? Or just cause people to learn how to shut off or ignore the government-mandated bell?


> In the text of SB 961 that system is described as: “An integrated vehicle system that uses, at minimum, the GPS location of the vehicle compared with a database of posted speed limits, to determine the speed limit, and utilizes a brief, one-time visual and audio signal to alert the driver each time they exceed the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour.”

No mention of how much the manufacturer is allowed to charge you every month, for access to "your" car's proprietary GPS->Speed Limit database.


It’s also not uncommon to see out of date speed limits on Google/Apple maps.

I can only imagine some future manufacturer’s database would be even more out of sync.


Car manufacturers forget about their cars infotainment systems as soon as they sell them. I just drove home on a road yesterday that was totally missing from my Toyota's built-in map. Even if they offer a map update, it's probably already out of date and they probably charge for it. I'm sure the speed limit data is going to be equally fresh and easy to update.


This is why I refuse to buy a new car without android auto/carplay. I feel that’s a core essential feature at this point, at least for new cars.


The number of times I've looked at the speed limit my car thinks it is supposed to be and seen 80 on what is effectively a residential road...

Or that the highway near my house that the car seems to think is 35.

Barring also adding some sort of managed database owned by the state I don't see this being remotely viable.


Many cars use vision systems to identify the current speed limit, eliminating the need for a database.


> I can only imagine some future manufacturer’s database would be even more out of sync.

Well that will be illegal then.?


GPS alone isn't accurate enough for this anyways.

As much as I hate them, speed cameras seem like a solution that is easier to implement.


> ...speed cameras seem like a solution that is easier to implement.

Nothing's easier than passing a law...which says that implementation is someone else's problem.

> GPS alone isn't accurate enough for this anyways.

Per article:

> If the system has conflicting speed limits in the same area, the higher speed limit is used.


Given this law, it seems reasonable to expect the State to provide said database, no?


Good. I don't understand why speedometers go up to 130 mph. I don't know why Americans feel they have a God-given right to break the speed limit. If you aren't going 10-20 mph over the speed limit, you're not following the flow of traffic. I will be going the posted speed limit of 65 mph (and not in the far-left "fast lane") and have had so many insane aggressive drivers tailgate me and road rage. The de facto speed limit is always higher than the posted one. If they update the posted limit to match what is followed and enforced, then the de facto speed limit will increase.

Laws that are on the books but rarely enforced is a recipe for abuse. It is unjust that I, as an immigrant to this country who can be deported if I commit crimes, have to violate the posted law in order to keep up with the flow of traffic.

Edit: Actually, it looks like this just informs the driver that they are going over the speed limit. Not good. It needs to physically restrict the speed of the car.


Your opinion demonstrates some combination of appeal to authority and weak empathy. People drive fast because for any number of reasons: they enjoy driving fast, want to get to their destination earlier, have competing priorities, are not paying attention, and so forth.

There are many laws on the books that are rarely enforced and its not a recipe for disaster. Some laws are just old and achieve functional obsolescence. Some laws exist only so that they can be enforced as helpful to prevent or investigate other unrelated criminal behavior. The only disaster here is irrationally limiting the discretion of judicial and law enforcement agents to appease some blind appeal to authority.


In what other domain of law are people allowed to violate the posted law because of their feelings? The "flow of traffic" is just the sum aggregate of what all the drivers are feeling like doing given the current conditions, like the price of a stock is just the sum aggregate of what all the investors are feeling like doing given the current conditions. If that's how the US wants to govern speeding, then that should be the law.

Why is an appeal to authority wrong, when we are literally talking about the speed limit, which is a law posted by an authority? Obviously what is legal is not what is moral/ethical, but if the speed limits should be changed, that is a different conversation than if the law should be enforced.

What is the point of a law that is not enforced? I guess Americans are used to seeing a posted number and then having to do mental math to calculate what the real number is (prices). That feels literally insane to me. I feel like I am living in Crazytown, USA.


I will not invent some conclusion to answer for the emotional state of all other people. I wouldn't know what any other person is feeling unless I talk to them.

Appeals to authority are logical fallacies because they are blanket excuses to ignore evidence in order to satisfy an opinion out of convenience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#In_the...


I really don’t think you’re referencing appeal to authority correctly here.

They’re not saying it’s logically objectively correct that people should go 65mph on a highway, due to the fact that authority has stated it thusly.

They’re simply saying that because the authority has made that law, the authority should enforce that law.

Now, they might be committing the Just World fallacy by complaining about the unequal treatment average drivers get versus immigrants.

There is some ground we can cover to discuss how to reasonably increase traffic law enforcement without just shutting it down with a poorly applied accusation of logical fallacy.

WRT speeding, I think automatic speed enforcement would be pretty simple. We already have automatic tolls and traffic cameras everywhere.


>What is the point of a law that is not enforced?

You're looking at it like:

This is a law. It is not perfectly enforced. We must perfectly enforce it.

Everyone else looks at it like:

This is a law. We pay lip service to it's utility, and pay fines out of tradition, but are fairly certain it probably shouldn't even be a law anymore, but unfortunately other systems are cripplingly dependent on it as a revenue source. It's not actively causing much harm. If it were perfectly enforced, so many goddamn new problems manifest. If it isn't enforced at all, so many problems manifest. Leave it alone.

You should sit and meditate on the legal system, and maybe do a bit of reading up on some examples of terrible/counterintuitive outcomes of legislation.

Having done exactly that, I've come to the conclusion that legislation/enforcement is more about making threats against the governed populace, and in reality, many things passed as law could not survive being perfectly enforced without becoming severely disruptive.

Besides which, this is the United States. Law enforcement is technically an extra obstacle placed in the way of people engaging in the pursuit of their own happiness. Only the pursuit is guaranteed. Not others being safe other people's pursuit thereof.

There was a reason why "home of the brave" was a moniker; and it had nothing to do with warfare or the natives. It had to do with the fundamental level of courage necessitated by living in a culture in which liberty was valued above all else. Everything was okay by default. That was radical thinking at the time.


> The only disaster here is irrationally limiting the discretion of judicial and law enforcement agents to appease some blind appeal to authority

Those are exactly the people I want to limit though - the kind of people who decide “driving while black” is a crime they need to investigate.


> weak empathy.

try empathy for the people killed by other drivers doing in excess of 100mph.


> It needs to physically restrict the speed of the car.

There are situations, where it would be dangerous if you cannot exceed the speed limit. All cars in Japan are limited to 160 km/h, even though the fastest speed limit is 120 km/h, this to allow for situations where exceeding that limit is necessary.


What situations is it necessary to exceed the speed limit?


Once I was in a remote national park with a friend of mine, and they started having stroke-like symptoms.

We talked to the medic on site, and luckily the symptoms seemed to be abating. The medic (also a LEO), told me to drive my friend to the nearest hospital, 45 minutes away. The medic said, "Drive fast, but not too fast. Unless the symptoms get worse, in which case drive REALLY fast."

The symptoms did not get worse, gratefully. But this is a case where a LEO was telling me when it would be a good time to speed.


Sometimes in passing a driver acting dangerously it pays to get passed them as quickly as possible.

Or perhaps getting away from a natural disaster.


An unintended consequence of this will be massive lines of cars going down the highway because no one will be able to get up the speed to pass safely.


Going well below speed limit for no reason is also illegal in _some_ places.


You mean like a tornado? Most natural disasters will end up with many people clogging the roads, generally won't see a lot of speeding as an option.


When other cars do. This is why, regardless of any other rationale, we can’t automatically limit speed limits anywhere unless we can do it everywhere all at once.


One of the issues is that posted speeds often don’t match the speed the road allows people to comfortably do. To bring speeds down, the things that are generally most effective are street narrowing, speed tables and humps (to bring to speeds safe in neighborhoods), and then obstacles like protected bike lanes or pedestrian refuge islands.

When a street is designed to allow someone to comfortably do 45 because it’s maybe 2 lanes in one direction instead of 1, but posted as a 25, people will speed on it.


Also useful to do stuff like make roads curved and add trees to the side.

A YouTube short I saw the other day about this concept: https://youtube.com/shorts/MyT7F5zuOU4


> add trees to the side

also great way to get someone killed if they meet one


But a good way to save pedestrians on the sidewalk


Ok kinda makes for city. We had outcry when some country roads were cleared out of trees. Each of them had a life on them.


I'm sort of sympathetic to that argument, but my observation has also been that most drivers are terrible at judging safe speeds for a given road. They go way too slow when they don't need to (a gentle curve on a highway) and drive way too fast for conditions at other times (a narrow twisty two lane road with blocked sight lines and blind driveways).


Also visual narrowing, such as adding trees and light curves. People drive what they feel the road should be and mostly ignore speed limits.


Some towns deliberately post speed limits below what drivers would naturally go in order to set speed traps for revenue.


> Not good. It needs to physically restrict the speed of the car.

What I’m hearing is that you either want to have a mixed bag of automatic enforcement on some cars and none on other cars, or, you want everyone with a noncompliant car to be forced into an upgrade.

If you think about it for more than a few seconds, either approach is bad. In the first case you have added new safety issues while you try to remove them. In the 2nd case, it only sounds like a good plan if you want to redistribute wealth from the middle and lower classes to car manufacturers.


I think just adding it to new cars would be enough. Eventually all unregulated cars would age out.

For the upgrade path, it could be treated like building codes, which change every so often without requiring immediate retrofit of all homes/buildings: require it as a part of resale.


When new cars are forced to go 55 on that one long curvy downhill where the big trucks are all going 80, you just increased fatalities on that corridor by a LOT. And probably for like 15+ years without forcing regulation that requires updates. The body count will be very substantial when you multiply it across all of the roads, or even just California roads.

Not trying to be contrary or throw up imaginary hypotheticals, I drive a car that sometimes has trouble keeping up with traffic on such downhills because I’m very top heavy.

People that talk about stuff like this seriously have no appreciation for the variety of car and road types that are already present in the real world. Robot assistance being offered is fine. But robot enforced compliance killing people in the name of safety is absurd.


I think realistically the limit would not be as low as 55, and also commercial trucks would be a likely target for actual immediate retrofit. I was talking about non-commercial privately owned cars.


Sounds like your car is not fit to be on the road to begin with


I have a bumper sticker that says "Vehicle speed monitored by GPS / Speed limiter in use", like some commercial trucks have. It dramatically cuts down on the road rage.


> just informs ... Not good. It needs to physically restrict

Would you trust the system to be reliable? (Among the many issues in topic.)

I have met many that call car systems trying to keep people inside lanes "plain dangerous after experience".


Is this satire? 10mph and over is usually with the flow of traffic. Many speed limits are artificially low and that’s why traffic flows faster.


Having to break the law to keep up with the flow of traffic has been weirdly normalized in the US. I don't disagree that speed limits are artificially low in many cases, but the expectation that everyone should respond to this by exceeding the limit (instead of maybe lobbying to get the limit changed) seems goofy.

And it moves from goofy to dangerous when the response of many drivers to people who don't respond that way is to behave super aggressively towards anyone going the speed limit, even if they're in the right-hand lane.


what you're seeing is a different kind of breakdown of law-and-order. instead of not enough regulation to the point of anarchy, at a certain point a highly bureaucratic highly regulated system gets to the point of over-regulation. instead of reducing "crime" it perversely increases. this isn't "goofy", it's very predictable and certainly can be dangerous.

take california where this kind of speeding is rampant.

- it has very regressive speed laws compared to other western states with similar roads. it has 55mph maximum for trucks (and cars) pulling trailers and on two-lane. 65mph anywhere else maximum. most neighboring states have eliminated split speed limits and have 75 or 80 max.

- it has a comparatively large, very professional highway patrol (CHP). it certainly isn't for lack of enforcement capability.

- a very large population (39M) means state politics is a combination of huge bureaucracy and big money. there's a proposition system, but even that is essentially inaccessible without lots of money. even if something good did start organically, by the time it was mangled by the self-serving politicians it'd end up worse than where it started.

- california has roads and drivers. lots and lots of both. and lots of urban sprawl too. nearly everyone has to contend with it, like it or not.

so the reason "everyone" responds to this by exceeding the limit, is that it's easier than the alternatives. a majority of the drivers "realize" (to some extent) that they have approximately three options:

a) drive the speed limit and get punished by other drivers and sometimes law enforcement [1],

b) same as a, but make it one's life mission to change the laws effectively, or

c) put your foot in it and go with the flow of the herd. even if there were 10x the CHP presence, they can't stop everyone.

there are so many people who vote this way with their accelerator pedal, that if you go with the flow of traffic even if it's 20mph over the posted limit for 10 years you might not get a ticket. if you ever do, no harm, no foul: you were simply randomly selected for the "extra road tax".

this is a different kind of democracy. it's very "direct" and very real time. the rules aren't written down, but they aren't imaginary either. in short, it's the polar opposite of the dejure government system. it's actually extremely democratic: one car, one vote for the "correct" speed.

of course there are outliers and "criminals" in this society: the guy in the black mercedes who "doesn't give a shit" and wants to go as fast as he can. his concern for the other drivers is as slalom obstacles. AND ALSO the guy who sets his speed control to whatever the sign says and becomes an obstruction. they are both ignoring the other drivers and thumbing their nose at the rules of that society.

it's a lot worse than "goofy". when you've conditioned people that the "right" way to effect change in government, whether democracy or not, is defacto closed-off and inaccessible. and then there's a problem, people will organically find a way to fix the problem. if the cheapest easiest way is simply to ignore the dejure government rules en-mass, that's what will happen. it's hard to imagine how to "get back" from it, if that's what you want. it's a testament to the unprofessionalism, selfishness, and pure stupidity of our elected officials that they've ignored this possibility allowed it to cross that line.

as for speeding, if california would post really reasonable speed limits, a larger group of people might find it "not worth it" to go faster than posted. perhaps they didn't really want to go faster in the first place. you'd have to make this a solid majority in order to cause the pirate society to fail. it doesn't seem that likely. it's pretty cheap to just ignore something.

[1] if you drive substantially slower than the "herd", perversely you will draw more CHP attention and be more likely to be pulled over. are you drunk? is your car unsafe? are you on the phone? violating CVC 24000? are you unlicensed or uninsured? are you simply the first/slowest car the motor-officer catches up to, and therefore a safer/faster option to get to the next doughnut?


Incredible comment. I have always used a radar detector and Waze to speed pretty much whenever I want. Despite increasing attempts by state legislature to stop my speeding, I just learn more countermeasures. Keep in mind I’m talking about driving 85-90 on a 70mph straight interstate (i70) not flying thru a neighborhood

Moreover, the coming generation of cops don’t see speeding the same way older cops do, so yes you can’t speed, but in my state cops are rarely sitting in medians and doing enforcement (and definitely not going thru all the trouble to hide in the trees and risk their life to pull out on a highway), post Covid and with the new gen of cops it’s very noticeable. Savvy speeders know this, and the cops that are there are marked on Waze or are going to be detected by radar otherwise.

The rules are unwritten. Like you said, but beyond that - You can use signals intel (radar) and intel (Waze) in combo with situational awareness to avoid most situations where you’d get caught (most of the time) the decision to make this calculated risk and rely on your skills and equipment lets you avoid the law. Stuff like this happens with regulations all over I imagine


I am 100% serious. It is unjust that I, as an immigrant to this country who can be deported if I commit crimes, have to violate the posted law in order to keep up with the flow of traffic.


General advice:

Stay in the second to right lane. Never go more than 7 miles over. After 10 miles over, the tickets get expensive, and the police have more of a reason to pull you over. 7 mph accounts for speedometer errors and makes you part of the pack but not the speediest.

Make your car look respectable; Like it's driven by a person who could contest a ticket.

If pulled over: Be polite but not obsequious. When asked, immediately admit to going 7 miles over as a matter of fact so you don't get tailgaters. You'll most likely get a warning.


I know quite a few people, and I was once one myself, who simply keep to the limit. You can assert your right to drive only the speed limit, you have that.


That is what I do, because politicians in my jurisdiction constantly talk about "law and order" and being a "nation of laws", in addition to much anti-immigration rhetoric.

I still get tailgated, honked at, and road raged. Often by a large pickup truck.


Yes, it takes a bit of fortitude to stand against something similar to peer pressure. Modeling behavior, like fully stopping at stop signs, always using blinkers, getting your passengers to use their belts, etc. can take a bit of a mindset.

Ultimately, lawbreakers will break laws. Just like the trope of getting a gun illegally.


Peer pressure is one thing. But tailgaters and road ragers could put your life in danger.


traffic flows faster because the roads widths and other affordances are designed for high speed, even on low speed roads.

If you want people to go slower, make the roads/lanes narrower.


Indeed, we build roads that feel like you should go 45mph on them and then slap a sign that says 25 down and wonder why pedestrians die. US road design is trash.


US road design undoubtedly is hot garbage, but US drivers are trash too. Nobody's forcing anyone to speed through a neighborhood regardless of street design, following the posted limit so you don't mow down pedestrians isn't that hard.


True, though I live in the Netherlands now and the drivers here (mostly) obey because speed limits are actually enforced and the street design is better. They’re not somehow more virtuous I think.


Show me you've never been to Germany without showing me.


Horrible. Texas used to follow this belief too, that exceed speed was the primary cause of traffic accidents and so must be heavily enforced, but then reversed direction with positive results.

The bad logic is as follows: Speed in excess of posted limits increases the probability of a traffic related accident. This is affirming the consequent in combination with an appeal to probability. The reality is that there are typically a multitude of variables responsible for traffic accidents, and so isolating and then blaming one of those variables in isolation results in a belief system that ignores evidence.

The primary cause of most traffic accidents is driver inattention irrespective of their speed. A driver who is not paying sufficient attention and driving with excess speed is more dangerous still, but the primary factor there is still not the speed.

Now instead of heavily enforcing speed limits aggressively everywhere, often as a money making venture for local municipalities, Texas police instead focus on more import aspects of criminal law and community service. Reckless driving is still just as heavily enforced however.


I agree that driver inattention is an issue.

That's why road redesigns that makes drivers less comfortable with high speeds are important. It makes them slow down and also become more attentive. People respond to the psychological cues of their built environment. Here's a YouTube short explaining it: https://youtube.com/shorts/MyT7F5zuOU4


I was with you until your assertion that enforcement is the answer. Copying Texas on traffic engineering is not a serious take:

https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/trf/trafficsafety/engin...


That is the opposite of what I said.


Speed may or may not be the cause of accidents, but higher speed 100% makes accidents worse in terms of outcomes.

Sometimes roundabouts are found to increase accidents relative to four way stops, but they're still held to be an improvement because the accidents are on average much less severe.


While the SF bay area has been sticking silly circles into pre-existing intersections, there are many roundabouts and circles in the Northeast that keep everything moving. Sitting at a red light when there is no other traffic breeds contempt for traffic laws.


Relative speed difference is another key factor — arguably more important than absolute speed — but is more difficult to regulate.

When traffic on the highway is near a standstill you really shouldn’t fly down an open lane at the highway speed limit


I certainly agree speeding is not the sole cause of accidents...

But your conclusion is not supported by this -- if anything it encourages towards a similar result through technology...

Less people can speed.. less police officers would be needed to police 'just' speeding, those police officers would not be able to collect money for their local municipality.. and would be assigned alternative duties, or focus on wreckless driving (which could still generate money)


Texas went through that conclusion as well starting about 15 years ago. If speeding must continue to be heavily enforced and officers are needed elsewhere then just use technology to automate that enforcement. This was incredibly unpopular and such technology was removed through various forms of democratic and legal processes at great expense to various municipalities. This was the final nail in the coffin that killed heavy enforcement of speed and traffic light violations. Instead speed and traffic light violations are used as evidence in determinations once accidents do occur.

During this same time period Texas has become drunkenly addicted to traffic circles. Supposedly these simultaneously ease congestion and reduce accidents. These are also generally unpopular, but not so much so to warrant large law suits or rush to the voting ballots.


It seems like you’d want to address every one of the variables.

If thats true wouldnt addressing an easy one of them be a way to start?


Treating the most impactful ones is usually the best. The safest speed is zero, create that limit and no more accidents ever.


No, that is called bias.


You will not eliminate bias as long as humans are involved in the decision making process. So it’s pretty trite to point it out like this.

A collection of humans making a collective decision compromising on everyone’s biases is called politics.

California has decided through a political process to take a step against speeding.

Now, you may not personally like it, but you are in no position to say they are wrong.

Applying Texas’ example as evidence of California’s objective mistakenness is also logically inconsistent. You did not state any conditions which may apply in Texas but not in California. You are equating the two in an all-else-remaining-equal fashion.


Ultimately, Gavin Newsom will need to sign it. I doubt he will unless he plans to end this term and move out of California. Remember how Dukakis lost Massachusetts. Different but has similarities.


What? Higher speeds are way more deadly. And e.g. increasing the speed from 60 to 66 adds about 20% to your stopping distance.


You can arbitrarily increase stopping distance by slowing down earlier. If you wait until you must lock your brakes time is a more critical factor than velocity.


Taking for granted that cars should have a GPS system installed, and that drivers can always accept that...


The driver will own the GPS system, no? How is this different from owning a smartphone?


> How is this different

In that GPS subsystems I want off are off.


Wire cutters are the universal off button.


We have a problem with third subsystems in the car checking that all security subsystem be present in order to start normal march (as opposed to "degraded mode" or just "off").

I have seen vehicles which worked with some security subsystems disconnected, and others that refused to work properly.

Plus, you have the issue of the method: "Welcome to your wedding: this is your wife, and this the complimentary gimp (should you want to dispose it, you have the onus)".

Plus: have you considered how much the complementary gimps (etc.) that come with the car inflate its price?


If they start checking for it you can use a dummy load on the antenna port


Also a universal guilty verdict if you try to beat the ticket.


Wait until it becomes illegal


You can't update/upgrade your onboard car infotainment/ECU like a smartphone. I'd assume the onboard map data going stale FAST.

You get to choose which smartphone to use, and when to upgrade them. The lifecycle of a car is A LOT longer than its onbaord infotainment.

I see no mandated free of charge on data updating, nor mandated support timeframe.


You can change a smartphone a lot easier than an integrated GPS system


Tangential to this bill, wonder if anyone has predictions on how driving a car yourself vs taking a robotaxi (e.g.,Waymo) will play out over time (assuming autonomy doesn't get derailed due to risks in the tech or crippling regulation). I ride Waymo a bit these days and it's still surprising when the car comes to a complete stop at stop signs. I'm actually delighted by it and I say that as a fan of driving (and, candidly, speeding when I do) though certainly not on traffic-choked roads and freeways. If I could vote tomorrow, though, and everyone would drive as "thoughtfully" as a Waymo, I'd vote for it. That said, I can't see any politician in a red state like Texas, or even in many blue states, telling folks they have to give up driving themselves. Is it a foregone conclusion that if the tech does in fact survive this break-in period, that governments will stop people from driving? Will it have to be a hybrid forever in the name of "freedom"? A lot of ink has been spilt about this already on HN and elsewhere, of course, but always interested in the HN crowd's current view on this.


I do worry about mandatory self-driving cars: e.g. if the government declares a curfew they won't go anywhere.

However I do agree that self-driving would reduce mortality a lot, the question is whether the price is too high. This is in fact an interesting dilemma, not the trolley problem.


Good point. So maybe the answer is some sort of quid pro quo. You're forcing me to give up driving myself? I'm forcing you, the government (through voting; cue laughter from the cynical gallery), to restrict what you're able to do to self-driving cars (need a warrant to force-stop, no en-masse disabling, etc.). I say that with a US-centric viewpoint, of course, because there's zero chance countless countries around the world be sensitive to their citizens' objections (questionable in the US as well of course, but not out of the question).


My UK 2017 Ford has technology that achieves this functionality, albeit not switched on by default and therefore also not unable to be deactivated by the user. It's fine, I guess?

The car has a camera that records speed limit signs as it passes, and shows the last speed it saw on the dashboard. I'm not sure if it's the camera or the built-in maps that allow it to distinguish between single carriageway and dual carriageway roads, which have different limits for the same signage, but it's pretty good at it. It does have GPS, but it doesn't seem to use it for limits in general driving -- that probably means it's insufficient for this law.

One may set visible or audible announcements, or even update the cruise control limited, based on the current detected limit. The downside of using a camera, though, is that as good as it is at picking up the right limits (and it is good!) it struggles with advance warning signs and also with some junctions on corners where the limit changes if you turn off.

On the other hand, if the audible reminder sounds when your speed goes above the limit then the obvious thing to do is to hit 85mph then not slow down and it won't bother you again :).


Not much but it’s a start.

Unfortunately the US treats every street and road like it’s a country road when it comes to speed limits, with a lot of deaths as a result.

Great video on this at https://youtu.be/bglWCuCMSWc?si=AseOYw8Lo7DKw0or


Three things missing so far from the discourse:

1. It all but eliminates plausible deniability for those fighting speeding tickets.

2. New drivers will certainly benefit from the additional alert, as they often have no idea they’re speeding.

3. The federal government has been moving in this direction for a while. It’s coming.


We do we allow cars to be sold that can go over the speed limit by such extreme amount? It seems like we have the technology to have cars automatically limit their speeds to the speed limit of the street they are on.


Passive limiter: a gps based speed detection for a “brief one-time” audible & visual warning if speed greater than 10mph over the highest posted “limit” by 2029 50% then adoption 100% in 2032.


The speed limit was about gas consumption in a supply crisis. And it should be still about energy consumption.


What? Do you just not care about safety at all or something?


California politics are already a meme. I just wish they would stay in California.


I don’t like this but I also don’t know the alternatives.

People drag race right in front of my house all night long on the weekends. It’s absurdly dangerous.

We are on the edge of a residential neighborhood (so our house faces the main road), and a few blocks from a police station. The police do nothing.

I don’t think I’ve seen somebody “pulled over” in my city in like a decade.

A few days ago I say a guy pull into the oncoming traffic lanes and hit the top of 3rd gear to cut in front of a line of cars at a stop light.

Just absolutely insane, deranged behavior and I see it every single day.

Edit: I was mistaken and thought this limited speed. Apparently this is actually useless.


> The police do nothing.

> I don’t think I’ve seen somebody “pulled over” in my city in like a decade

Seems like there’s a pretty straightforward alternative here - have law enforcement enforce the law.


And not sit there by the side of a boring flat, relatively safe highway with a radar gun in one hand and a hamburger in the other one, pulling over mild mannered "easy targets" going 70 in a 60. Actually patrol neighborhoods looking for the drag racers and pull them over. Break up the massive "street takeovers." Catch the guys weaving in and out of traffic dangerously (even if they're staying under the speed limit).

Hell, if they handed out a $200 ticket for everyone browsing their phones while driving, they could probably fund their entire departments.


> Seems like there’s a pretty straightforward alternative here - have law enforcement enforce the law.

As a law-and-order kind of person, this my first reaction as well.

But it seems so obvious, I have to wonder: what's at work that prevents this solution from being enacted?

I.e., are there factors I'm not aware of that make it logistically and/or politically difficult?


When I was young, I would go down to Front Street in Philly on weekend nights. It's an industrial area so the street is real wide to allow for 18-wheelers to turn in and out of the warehouses and factories. This made it ideal for drag racing and showing off souped-up cars. It would get really crowded with folks showing off their cars and participating in the races.

One weekend after my buddy and I went down there, I saw on the news that the police intervened finally to stop the drag racing. It was a very big operation to quickly and simultaneously pull enough cops cars out to block both ends of Front Street entirely to corral all of the racers and spectators in. Helicopters were also deployed in case someone wanted to try to speed through the city to escape. In the end, all the cars they managed to corral got impounded. I don't know what the long term effect was on the drag racers.

I imagine that if you're going to do it right – and not just set up a bunch of reckless high speed chases through neighborhoods/cities – it actually has to be a fairly large operation, pulling in a lot of resources for a substantial amount of time. And I don't know if it ultimately stops drag racing or just pauses it for a while, nor do I know what the opportunity cost is of pulling all the resources away from other policing tasks.

While I'm generally for impounding drag racers and ATV swarms, I do think there are tradeoffs and risks that the police department leadership has to take into account.


Traffic stops (and domestic abuse) are some of the most dangerous things a cop does. Even if not dangerous, it's likely the things that get them the most abuse.

When something is dangerous or unpleasant, even if we are paid to do it, we will often hesitate to do it.


Not sure where you live but our cops do nothing but give out traffic tickets. Hide at lights that are really long and ticket people who grab their phone while waiting. They pick random low volume stop signs and hand out tickets to people who have been accustomed to rolling them.


Around here, the cops don't like getting out of their cars, so their speed traps are visible a mile down the road.

In MD, however, it was a very different story. They would hide behind bushes.


In some cities in CA, the police department is understaffed (and traffic law enforcement particularly so) because 1) pension reform / reductions, 2) housing costs and general cost of living making police salaries unattractive, and 3) unpopularity of police as a job choice.

Also probably they spend their budget importing fentanyl or buying office furniture from their brother or something (mostly tongue in cheek here, and I certainly haven’t done or seen an audit but unfortunately “inspired by true events”)


> 2) housing costs and genera cost of living making police salaries unattractive,

A friend's neighbor in wine country is an early retired officer due to injury - their benefits pretty much match many tech workers.

Looks like in San Jose police salaries start at $111k and max out at $186k, BUT additionally SJ spent $58M on overtime. _Average_ overtime pay for officer, sgt, lt and captain were $38-68k and some earned as much $200k in overtime. So the salary is probably $150-$220k on average I'd assume. Not as bad as many think.

But it's possible I'm reading some of this wrong.

[1] https://www.sjpdyou.com/for-applicants/additional-informatio... [2] https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-spent-58m-on-police-ov...


Sadly, any complicated technological solution appears easier than trying to reform and change the politically charged nature of American law enforcement.


Straightforward, sure. Likely? Never.


I don't think this will help with that. From the text of the bill, the only requirement is that the system alerts the driver when they are more than 10mph over the limit. The system us not required to limit the vehicle speed, nor is it required to report the infraction to the authorities.


Ah, my mistake. I had been reading about this and read “passive speed limiter” as something that…limits the speed.

This sounds absolutely and completely useless.


So it's just another annoying fuse to pull. Along with OnStar and the cell modem.


I’m sure a beep from their car will put an end to that.


Speed camera? Road diet/speed bumps? Or, y'know, having police enforce the law.


I'm curious why you don't like the idea, because in my opinion it doesn't go far enough and should instead require active speed limitation in new vehicles (i.e. the car is prevented for exceeding the speed limit by a certain amount or at least has a much lower top speed governor). For something as regulated and potentially dangerous as driving, it seems pretty silly that cars are able to massively exceed legal speeds, particular since it's a "feature" that plenty of people take advantage of regularly with very little in the way of consequences.


Problem is law enforcement not enforcing the law. It is not the lack of laws.


bay area?


They just need to reinstate curfews for certain neighborhoods and arrest those who are in violation of that. There are better knobs to twist.


I genuinely can't tell if you're being serious or not. Are you?


Anyone want to annex California? It's clearly becoming more trouble than it's worth.


(I actually laughed out loud)

We'll get many large backgardens ("for investment only - currently inhabited"), as the same proposal was made in the UK in 2021 (if I remember well. Cannot search for the article right now).

Edit: ok, etiquette obliged. I am checking. The results are much worse than I understood... (This is so unnerving I typed 'understool', and there could be many slips in that.)

> The EU ruled on 6 July 2022 that all new cars manufactured in Europe must be fitted with speed limiters as of July 2024

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-car-spee...


How long until they come for our acceleration, too?


Some Teslas have really absurd acceleration from standstill where acceleration accidents happen.

The acceleration should atleast should be 'opt in' some how.


fyi annex means the opposite of how I think you are using it.

e.g. “The city annexed part of the outlying county to increase its property tax base. It now has to provide services to that area.”


I assume that's exactly what he meant, like Mexico annexing California



Ah, I see. My mistake!




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: