Goodbye Speed
From July 2022, all new cars sold in the European Union will be mandatorily fitted with electric speed limiters. This includes cars sold in Brexit Britain. The speed limiters will use GPS technology and cameras to read speed signs. When a driver exceeds the speed limit on a given road, the speed limiter will come into play.
The technology aims to alert drivers and this can be done in a variety of ways. The accelerator pedal can push back against the driver’s foot. An auditory warning signal or a visual warning signal can also be triggered. Flashing lights and annoying noises. Drivers will be able to override the technology or turn it off, but it will automatically turn on when the car is started again.
The idea of helping drivers to stick to speed limits is laudable. But I Can see it creating problems. Some of those problems are to do with road safety. On more than one occasion I’ve had to accelerate hard to escape a situation that would have otherwise resulted in an accident. Most recently, joining a dual carriageway from a slip road, a large lorry on the dual carriageway began accelerating as I approached the slip road exit. By the time I got to the dual carriageway, I was going to drive straight into the truck. I was going too fast for an emergency stop in the space I had available. I couldn’t slow down rapidly enough to let the truck pass me. The only choice I had was to shift down two gears and floor the accelerator. Getting up to 90 miles an hour prevented an accident. In emergency situations like that, you have to be decisive. Flashing lights, auditory warnings and speed pedals that push back will interfere with that decisiveness. Speed used sensibly is a safety feature
Another problem is that dangerous drivers are going to be dangerous drivers regardless of deterrents like speed limiters. Those people are only remorseful if they get caught. In that case, speed limiters will only make a worthwhile difference if they lead to convictions. For that to happen, the activation of a speed limiter will have to send a message to law enforcement, or there will have to recorded data that can be made available to law enforcement.
Data about our driving is already recorded on ‘black boxes’ that are fitted on new vehicles. Recording data and alerting authorities whenever somebody travels at a certain speed, without contextual information, is dangerous. Even if data alone could be relied on, it would only be safe if law enforcement and other agencies with access to that information could be trusted.
Given the track record of governments and law enforcement in the ‘free world’ (Western democracies), especially the recent track records, I seriously doubt that anybody in power can be trusted with information that could be used to secure convictions against ‘undesirables’, or sold to corporations for a profit. Speed limiting technology and black box recorders are going to be bad news for certain people. That probably means poor people, non whites, and certain religious groups.
In the United Kingdom, the current government provides more than enough examples of outright racism, immorality and greed guiding it’s actions and policies. How many unjust convictions and inhumane deportations might black box records and speed limiters help to secure? Muslims and blacks will be targeted. The United Kingdom lags behind the USA in terms of entrenched institutional racism, where things will probably be even worse.
The British government is all too eager to sell confidential information to corporations for the right price. If all of our speeds are going to be recorded, how long will it be before that information falls into the hands of insurance companies? Insurance premiums will shoot up. That won’t be an issue for the rich, but for the poor it will likely put a serious hindrance on their ability to afford insurance. Without insurance, they will be breaking another law. And then even more of them can be thrown into prison, or deported to places like Rwanda. As for the poor who decide not to drive, and who don’t work within a short distance of their homes, how are they going to get to work?
If the 99% of people who can’t afford to ignore the law can’t go fast, what’s going to happen to sales of sports cars? And what about motorcycles? How many people will still be willing to spend a hundred thousand or more on a car that can’t go any faster than a ten thousand pound / dollar alternative? Very few people. And that’s going to lose sports car manufacturers a lot of money. That might be a good thing.
I don’t hate sports car manufacturers but I do support freedom and self determination. Automobile companies have a lot of money, and money controls power. Once the ‘advancement of driver safety’ starts hurting the big money makers, it has a chance of being reversed. Our countries are not controlled by governments who listen to the people they govern, they are controlled by corporations that line the pockets of the governments. The sports car manufacturers might be the ones who finally buy back some autonomy for drivers.
Decisions in America and the United Kingdom are based on what makes money, not on what makes sense. Britain relinquished its grip on the slave trade, not because it made moral sense to do so, but because it was no longer profitable enough to continue. Not much has changed.
I’m an optimist at heart. I believe that our quiet frogmarch towards an increasingly draconian future, with feudal levels of distance between the rich and the poor, will eventually be reversed. If you don’t think that will happen quickly enough, you can rise above the impact of these changes by getting rich. If you lack any skill or ability that could easily be monetized, maybe you could buy yourself a pair of trousers with enormous back pockets and become a politician.
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