Ford has announced a new intelligent speed limiter system which reads traffic signs and reduces fuel flow to keep your vehicle within the speed limit.I guess that if you're inattentive this Big Brother feature might save you from a ticket. Right now, it's voluntary. No word on what will be in the future.
Another reason to buy a '67 rag top Pony if you have a hankering for a Ford ...
20 comments:
What happens if the camera can't "see" the signs? Can't do much about GPS, though, unless you don't want a nav system.
I can't see this being a selling feature buyers would voluntarily opt for.
What happens if the camera can't "see" the signs? Can't do much about GPS, though, unless you don't want a nav system.
I can't see this being a selling feature buyers would voluntarily opt for.
What happens if my Wife is having a baby? What happens if she's having a heart attack? What happens if I'm passing another car and something I didn't see pops up ahead of me? More and More, I'm thinking MYOB should be the watchword now.
I see fortunes to be made crippling all the snooping software crap on cars, refrigerators and thermostats.
Just to mention the other side of things:
Darn those fuel injected engines, they monitor my RPMs and frequently have RPM limiters on them limiting my speed. I think we should stay with carburetors.
Darn those antilock brakes, their pulsing pattern does not allow me to perform drifts as easily and my stopping times are irregular. I can pulse my own brakes thank you very much.
Darned those seat belts, keeping me in my vehicle. What happens when something comes up through the floorboard (actually happened to both my father and I [2 separate occasions]) if I had been wearing a seatbelt X ad thing would have happened.
I could go on. We all know the risks played by speeding drivers is greater than the compounded risk of "But I have a really good reason to speed". Where does it stop?
Besides soon apple/audi/google will be driving the no longer owned by an individual cars anyway. We will just wind up leasing them by the mile.
Well, to be fair it appears a driver can temporarily override the limiter by stepping on the gas pedal, literally. That takes care of the passing or speed up for safety issue.
It also appear that you can completely turn the limiter off with a press of a button (probably until the car is started again) like traction control in many cars.
That being said, I would look for any way possible to permanently disable it if I didn't completely avoid such a feature to begin with.
@RK Brumelow: Welcome to the nanny state, where your betters know what is best for you, so you should just do what they say.
Soon, everything that is deemed to be bad for you will be illegal, all restaurants will be Taco Bell. *I'm* the enemy. Because I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, freedom of choice. I'm the kind if guy who would sit in the greasy spoon and think "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the big rack of Barbecued spare ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I *want* high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese alright? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinatti in a non-smoking section. I wanna run around naked with green jell-o all over my body reading a Playboy magazine. Why? Because maybe I feel the need to okay pal? I've *seen* the future, you know what it is. It's made by a 47 year-old virgin in gray pajamas soaking in a bubble bath, drinking a broccoli milkshake and thinking "I'm an Oscar-Meyer Wiener". You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cacteau's way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Your other option: come down here, maybe starve to death.
Did you also notice the European idea of fair?
Maybe the first in line for this should be former Nokia boss Anssi Vanjoki who in 2002 was fined a massive €116,000 for doing 75km/h in a 50km/h zone on his Harley Davidson. In Finland traffic fines are proportionate to your income.
More socialist redistribution.
Not 'buying' into that one... Nope...
@divemedic Can I suggest you have your sarcasm meter checked I think you missed my point completely
I'm all for every restaurant being Taco Bell
...... Just as long as they are still paired with KFC.
Try driving the speed limit in the Atlanta area, and you'll soon be leading an angry, horn-blowing parade!
@Ted, they were the only survivor of the restaurant wars after all.
@Dirk Depends on when where. 75/85 in the morning/evening commute one can be passed by an arthritic snail. Same for eastbound 20/285 in the mornings.
@RK: Sorry, I was reading HuffPo this morning, and after a morning of that, residual stupidity makes it difficult to detect sarcasm.
"I can't see this being a selling feature buyers would voluntarily opt for."
A surprisingly-large number of people in the comments liked the idea, including one sheep who wanted speed limit cameras everywhere, that had license plate readers to notify nearby cops.
@DiveMedic HuffPo? There is not enough brain bleach in the multiverse, might as well read Jezebel. Twitter and FB are bad enough. Had a relative say she thought it would be a good idea for someone to shoot up the NRA headquarters, and people wonder why I do not frequent either.
"I can't see this being a selling feature drivers would voluntarily opt for."
I can see parents of teens wanting something like this for their kids. I can't see many parents wanting it for themselves though.
If it gets deployed without too many fatal incidents being blamed on it, I can see the insurance industry lobbying for it to become a mandatory safety feature like air bags, seat belts, or brakes.
Not buying a Ford. I'll keep my old Honda running.
But as for fines adjusted to income, why the hell not? Why should only people living at the financial edge have their lives wrecked by the municipal court system (which exists primarily as a form of shadow-taxation)?
Ford must have acquired a bunch of engineers from Airbus. That's the way those airplanes work. The computers make all pertinent decisions, you can't override them. Stupid types of crashes due to this sort of thinking.
---------------------------------------
Regarding the Airbus crash in France? Cockpit voice/sounds recorder has one pilot yelling and banging on the cockpit door, trying to get back into the cockpit, right up to impact.
----------Armoured door claims 150 lives.-----------
I am so going to make the Southern Belle read this.
She wants a Ford F150 for Christmas.
Says Ford is the only truck we SHALL buy because they did not take a government bail out.
Memory fades, but there was that whole thing about Ford putting that black box thing in vehicles that recorded your every move a while back as well. But, but we don't intend to use it...
Post a Comment