Or an angry boyfriend?
Why Europe’s Mandatory Speed Limiters Mean The End Of Driving As You Know It
The Autopian | 8 July 2024 | Matt HardigreeLately, automakers have been applying new technologies to limit exceeding the speed limit. Most new cars will let you know what the car thinks the speed limit is and warn you, one way or another if you are exceeding that limit. Some cars beep. Most cars flash some sort of symbol on the dash. Some new cars can even be set to stop the driver from going any faster, but that’s a choice the driver makes.
If you’re in Europe, it’s now a choice that the government makes. As of July 7th, all new cars sold on the continent or in Northern Ireland have to have a mandatory speed limiter installed. The system is generally known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) and it’s probably going to show up on a lot of vehicles in the United Kingdom as well because the country basically shares a car market with the rest of its neighbors.
…“Arguably ISA will mark the beginning of the end of a world in which people choose their cars on the basis of its top speed and the time it takes to accelerate from 0 to 60mph. “It’s a sign of things to come,” he continued. “Increasingly, the car is going to decide what you can and can’t do.”
Increasingly, carmakers are trying to take the role of driving away from the driver. This view sees the driver as an unfortunate necessity, a stand-in for a computer until a computer can do the job. That view is winning. It’s winning in California and it’s winning in other places.
Whether this would work in America is a matter of debate as we’ve already experimented with a national speed limit and it didn’t last long.
Charlie Daniels weighs in:
And when I hit the ground, I was making tracks,
And they were just takin’ my car down off the jacks,
And I threw the men a twenty, and jumped in and fired that mother up.
Mario Andretti would a’ sure been proud,
Of the way I was movin’ when I passed that crowd,
Comin’ out the door, and headed toward me in a trot.
And I guess I should o’ gone ahead and run,
But somehow I just couldn’t resist the fun,
Of chasing them all, just once, around the parking lot.
Well, they headed for their car, but I hit the gas
And spun around and headed them off at the pass.
I was slingin’ gravel and puttin’ a ton o’ dust in the air.
Well I had ’em all out there, steppin’ and fetchin’
Like their heads were on fire and their asses was catchin’,
But I figured I better go ahead and split before the cops got there.
Well, when I hit the road, I was really wheelin’,
Had gravel flying and rubber squealing,
And I didn’t slow down ’til I was almost to Arkansas.
Well sir, your wife would have lived if only you were able to get her to the hospital sooner.
Or a collapsing economy…
The logical side of me says this makes perfect sense. The part of me that is constantly driving over the speed limit says they should F*&! off.
Also, this should come as no surprise. We now live in a world where men dressed as women, who play video games in their parent’s basement are considered cool. Of course they don’t like fast cars.
Choice Is Life.