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0 pointssandworm1015y ago0 comments

>> The technology for speeding cameras

Speed cameras are not the go-to tech. Nearly every car on the road has a GPS, either organic to the vehicle or inside the driver's phone. If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

This was done by a few rental car companies many moons ago (circa 2001). Speeding laws don't know how to account for such data. Should someone speeding continuously over many miles be fined more or less than someone who speeds twice, each time only for a short distance? Traffic laws are premised on the systems by which people are caught (cops, traffic cameras etc). They are not adapted to the perfect knowledge that modern tech can provide.

https://www.drivers.com/article/428/

Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to limit all cars to a particular speed while on public roads. Japanese motorcycles are already limited by industry agreement, iirc 300kph (see the Hyabusa fiasco). Merc/BMW cars are limited to 250kph. Those limit could be lowered via a simple software patch.

0 comments

AnthonyMouse5y ago

> If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

So then you get a speeding fine for being a passenger?

Wouldn't people just turn off their phones?

> Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to limit all cars to a particular mas speed while on public roads.

This is useless because most "speeding" would be within the limit for the country, e.g. there are places in the US with a speed limit of 85 MPH, whereas most of the problem is really people driving 70 in a 45.

And trying to enforce the actual speed limit on the specific road would be fragile and dangerous because if your vehicle detects the limit wrong it could force you to drive 30+MPH below the flow of traffic and cause an accident.

sandworm101OP5y ago

>> if your vehicle detects the limit wrong

Welcome to one of the most basic and most difficult problems for AI-driven vehicles: What is the speed limit? Temporary limits, work zones, school/park zones based on sunlight, weather, children/workers present or not, emergency vehicles beside road or not ... it is complex but also something every driver manages every time they get behind the wheel. While it is possible to drive dangerously slowly, far more people are being killed by driving too quickly than too slowly. The default is generally, if unsure, err on the side of slower.

gus_massa5y ago

It's interesting to compare this with the subcomments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25545467 with some interesting interpretations like

> It is unsafe to drive the speed limit if everyone is going 10-15mph over the posted limit.

AnthonyMouse5y ago

> it is complex but also something every driver manages every time they get behind the wheel.

It's also something that humans are still better at judging than machines, because they have general intelligence. They can tell that a speed limit sign for a service road visible from the highway is not the speed limit for the highway. They can guess what a sign covered in rust or sludge might have said based on the road conditions or the speed of other traffic or personal knowledge of the area.

And when the machine gets it wrong more often, you don't want it to be overriding the human driver by force.

cameronh905y ago

In the UK at least, it's relatively simple. If it's a red circle with a number in it, that's the speed limit - anything else is advisory. In my experience, cars with built in sign readers do an exceptional job of working out the current limit (more reliable than me, certainly!).

2 more replies

hansvm5y ago

That brings back memories of Pokemon Go issuing bans after flights because you must be location spoofing to have travelled that quickly.

On some level, a device owned and controlled by the consumer and asserting a particular travel speed seems like the wrong place to put that kind of enforcement.

dwighttk5y ago

>it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

oof... Glad Google doesn't have that info about me.

sandworm101OP5y ago

Got bluetooth on your phone? Some cities are using bluetooth IDs to measure traffic flow, a phone or car's bluetooth ID as it passed sensors and calculating the speed based on the time taken to cover the distance. This isn't used for speed enforcement, they don't match the IDs to individuals/cars, but it certainly could be.

https://www.econolite.com/products/software/bluetoad/

"Advanced Traffic Management Systems Bluetooth Detection. TrafficCast proven algorithms for filtering and processing data inputs to compute real-time travel times and speeds."

blackboxlogic5y ago

Most Tire Pressure Monitoring systems also broadcast a unique ID that can be used to derive traffic patterns.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointssandworm1015y ago0 comments

>> The technology for speeding cameras

https://www.drivers.com/article/428/

0 comments

AnthonyMouse5y ago

> If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

So then you get a speeding fine for being a passenger?

Wouldn't people just turn off their phones?

> Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to limit all cars to a particular mas speed while on public roads.

sandworm101OP5y ago

>> if your vehicle detects the limit wrong

gus_massa5y ago

It's interesting to compare this with the subcomments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25545467 with some interesting interpretations like

> It is unsafe to drive the speed limit if everyone is going 10-15mph over the posted limit.

AnthonyMouse5y ago

> it is complex but also something every driver manages every time they get behind the wheel.

And when the machine gets it wrong more often, you don't want it to be overriding the human driver by force.

cameronh905y ago

2 more replies

hansvm5y ago

That brings back memories of Pokemon Go issuing bans after flights because you must be location spoofing to have travelled that quickly.

On some level, a device owned and controlled by the consumer and asserting a particular travel speed seems like the wrong place to put that kind of enforcement.

dwighttk5y ago

>it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

oof... Glad Google doesn't have that info about me.

sandworm101OP5y ago

https://www.econolite.com/products/software/bluetoad/

"Advanced Traffic Management Systems Bluetooth Detection. TrafficCast proven algorithms for filtering and processing data inputs to compute real-time travel times and speeds."

blackboxlogic5y ago

Most Tire Pressure Monitoring systems also broadcast a unique ID that can be used to derive traffic patterns.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse