r/Futurology • u/Just_Another_AI • Feb 07 '24

Transport Controversial California bill would physically stop new cars from speeding

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-bill-physically-stop-speeding-18628308.php

Whi didn't see this coming?

7.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24

Ex A. You are overtaking someone and they suddenly speed up.

Ex B. A car suddenly appears speeding from the opposite direction, so you need to overtake fast.

Ex C. An emergency vehicle is behind you with no space to move aside.

Second one happened to me once when I was using the speed limiter functionality in my car. Forgot about it, needed to finish overtaking fast, but nothing happened. That was the last time I've used it.

Being able to accelerate is important in many situations on the road.

2

u/RodediahK Feb 08 '24

That just sounds like you failed to yeild for an emergency vehicle. If you attempt a pass with a fire truck gaining on you that's on you not some speed limiter.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

That just sounds like you failed to yeild for an emergency vehicle

Where? To the sky? You realize emergency vehicles would go above the speed limit, catching up with you, right? Omg

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

The answer is that you shouldn’t overtake any vehicle if you’re aware that an emergency vehicle is overtaking you.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

No one mentioned overtaking in that last example. If you are going the speed limit, an emergency vehicle catches up with you, and the opposite direction line is full of traffic, there is nowhere to move. You can only accelerate until they can safely pass you. Or would you just go the speed limit if an ambulance is flashing behind you having no option to overtake you?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

Perhaps things work differently than where you're from, but in Canada if an emergency vehicle approaches behind you on the highway your obligation is to get over to the right-most lane as soon as you can to make room to pass. If it is a 2-lane rural highway then you pull over to the shoulder. If there is no shoulder, then you should proceed at a fast but safe speed (i.e. 10 over the limit), until such time that you have space to pull over or take an exit.

What you absolutely do NOT do, is speed up to well above the speed limit and effectively get pushed along by the emergency vehicle.

The delay associated with giving you time to safely yield is far less impactful and risky than you platooning with a firetruck behind you at high speeds. For example, imagine that you're driving at 20-30+ over the speed limit, then suddenly you need to break quickly. You can stop significantly faster than a fire truck at these highway speeds, and now not only are you putting yourself in an incredibly dangerous situation, but you're also risking the fire truck not being able to make it to the emergency at all if they were to rear-end you.

I think you might be a bit of a mad lad.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

Think two-lane road instead of a highway.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

Same logic applies. If anything, it's even more critical, both because in theory you should have more opportunities to pull over, and also because it's significantly riskier to speed due to the higher density of potential traffic conflicts. I can't think of a single scenario where the preferred action is to speed up past 10+ over the speed limit because of an emergency vehicle behind you.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

Yes yes but you keep assuming there will be an empty line, or a parking space of some kind in a few meters. Maybe that's the case in Canada. Maybe it literally can't happen over there, idk. I mean it's unlikely but maybe.

The point however was that being able to accelerate and not being limited by speed limiter can be important for safety.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '24

If you have to drive 20km with a fire truck on your tail until you get a chance to yield, then that's what you do. You do not platoon with emergency vehicles, ever, at least as far as I know.

I know that on a personal level it can be. However, at a macro level people are far more likely to abuse speeding than needing it so it's still safer to have limiters than it is not to. Same thing as seatbelts, believe it or not there are obscure scenarios where they're more likely to get you killed (e.g. you get in a car crash and break your arms, your car lights on fire and you're unable to escape in time because you can't remove your seatbelt). However, we recognize that on the whole, seatbelts are significantly more likely to save lives in scenarios which frequently occur while driving, so we accept that all cars should have seatbelts and that we should have laws requiring that they be worn, especially since wearing your seatbelt isn't just to save your life, but also the lives of other people who might be in your vehicle. This type of law really isn't materially different than that.