One of the biggest complaints readers make is about speeding. I share those concerns.
A year or so ago, I was heading north in the right lane on the Trans-Canada near the Sooke exit in Langford around 11 a.m. when when a car passed me on the right, using the shoulder, doing about 170 to 180 km/h.
It was a grey tricked out Cadillac. That’s about all I could tell you. Still on the shoulder, it passed a line of traffic and disappeared toward the Malahat. No chance of catching the plate number or describing the driver.
I expected to see a calamity further up the road, but somehow the Caddy made it through unscathed. A miracle.
I recalled that incident when a friend called a few weeks ago about speeding issues. He recounted the days travelling in the family Oldsmobile. It was equipped with what we would today call a “progress bar” in the dash. The bar would move and change colour, from green to yellow to red, as vehicle speed increased. He felt this was an effective warning feature that enhanced driving safety.
This led to more discussion about why speed governors aren’t standard vehicle equipment. Very good question.
But, like most issues around automotive safety, it’s complicated.
More cars have speed limiters than you might think. Europe is leading the way again, by making Intelligent Speed Assistance systems mandatory on new models of vehicles sold in the EU from 2022. Manufacturers such as Mercedes, BMW, Citroen and Tesla already have the devices incorporated into their programming, in response to the legislation.
But there are tech problems right out of the gate. Systems that optically scan speed signs have malfunctioned either by failing to read signs or by reading the wrong type of sign. For example, a smart car started speeding up after it mistakenly read the 100 km/h maximum speed sign posted on the rear of a semi-trailer.
Even though speed limiters have been active on many big rigs for years, the powerful trucking industry lobby is split on the benefits and rewards of the devices in both Canada and the U.S. This is sowing confusion and delays for North American legislators in moving forward on all vehicles.
Proponents of speed limiters on trucks point to fuel savings, crash reductions of up to 50%, insurance savings and reductions in vehicle emissions.
Other trucking industry advocates claim that speed limitation, especially on open highways, causes “platooning” — the bunching up of those big guys into long, slower moving convoys. This can lead to congestion for other vehicles or block drivers from timely access to exit ramps. Platoons also create speed differentiation — where the difference in speeds between vehicles creates more interactions, such as lane changes, braking and unsafe passing.
Truck movement research has shown, contrary to popular belief, simple highway speeding is not a big crash problem statistically. The majority of speed crashes occur as a result of cars moving at different speeds coming into conflict with one another.
Another problem is the way that speed tech is being applied by manufacturers. It can be overridden, either through making programming changes to a car’s computer system or by just ignoring or outlasting the vehicle’s temporary warning signals. This might change in the near future as controlling speed becomes desirable in order to avoid conflicts with autonomous vehicles. But for now, there are very few vehicles with absolute speed-limit controls.
Finally, while Europeans seem generally more amenable to this type of restriction, North Americans, lovers of the free and open road, are likely to put up much more resistance. We don’t have to look any further than the vaccine resistance movement to imagine how many will view government attempts to control how we drive our vehicles.
What’s more likely to occur in the short term is enhancement of the “black box” already installed in your vehicle. This device is currently installed in 96% of all North American vehicles. It was designed to extract vehicle data in milliseconds in order to tell your car’s airbags to deploy.
Currently, the box monitors things like wheel spin, pedal position, g-force impact and seatbelt use. With the technology available today, they could be told to monitor your routes through GPS, alcohol or drug odours in the vehicle, cell phone use and perhaps even conversations inside the car seconds before a crash.
Yes, there’s a ton of legal issues here. But waving the freedom flag at legislators might not work on this one as insurance companies may demand intelligent black boxes before they offer coverage, particularly to inexperienced drivers.
Whatever the ultimate solution to speeding might be, there’s a grey Cadillac out there that needs to be first in line.
