EU plans to fit all cars with speed limiters

[Kondor3]

The biggest problem driving over there was ground-fog and haze, and while our own folks (GIs, tourists) drove sensibly in that kind of soup, I've seen Euros doing' 80 and 90 and 100 mph and better when you couldn't see 200 feet in front of you - scary, silly bastids.

Probably why the govt man wants speed limiters.

Probably... still, the Autobahn system has existed for 75-80 years without such controls... and it's served the people over there well enough...

There's just something very sad, to someone who knows the freedom of the open road... about putting hobbling-chains on a race-horse, so to speak...

Very sad, indeed...

 

[Jarlaxle]

Is it an AE86 Celica, Bianco?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

People die. That's what we're here to do.

My land speed record is 164 mph in 1988 Porsche 928 S4. Speed limit that.

I did 130+ in a '70 Impala on a regular highway, and topped out at 206 on a track driving a Mustang that wasn't street legal.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Damn, I can't top that. The best I ever did in a street/strip daily driver Mustang was about 158 and it still more in it. ZR rubber, good suspension. Ran like a dream.

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

A very long time ago, I had a chance to drive a friend's 1959 Porsche Spyder...

...from the southwest German city of Mannheim, up to Amsterdam, around Christmastime...

No speed limits on the Autobahn for much of the way between Mannheim and Dusseldorf, until we veered northwest to cross the border into the Netherlands...

And a sportster-car that hugged the ground, steered like a dream, ultra-responsive, and doing 110-115 mph as easy as rolling off a log...

Now... 110 or 115 mph may not seem like very fast, to the speed-demons out there, but, with your butt low to the ground, in a small roadster, on dry winter roads, and no speed limits on the Autobahn, it was one of the most memorable drives of my life...

I'll be sad to see speed-governors put on Euro-cars, if that's actually gonna happen, and I understand the safety and life-saving issues, but...

Damn... that no-speed-limit thing on the Autobahn system for much of the trip up north was a goddamned blast for a young guy...

Mind you, it was a fairly old 'used car' by the time I saw it, but Porsche usually builds well, and this one had held-up well over the years, and was a joy to drive... fast...

< turns off 'Memory Lane' and gets back onto 'Today Road'

>

If there's still no speed limit on the Autobahn, then the speed-governors won't trigger and you'll still be able to drive fast.

 

[Kondor3]

"...If there's still no speed limit on the Autobahn, then the speed-governors won't trigger and you'll still be able to drive fast."

Autobahn speed limit proposal revs up debate in Germany

The Washington Post --- By Michael Birnbaum,May 20, 2013

BERLIN &#8212; For many in this car-crazy nation, the freedom to hurtle down the famed autobahn at 120 mph or more is an inalienable right.

Germany, one of the world&#8217;s top car producers, is alone among industrial countries in allowing drivers to decide for themselves how fast to race along the highway. So a proposal this month to impose a speed limit of 75 mph has set off an election-year battle that has some people questioning a basic tenet of German identity.

The traffic-cop-like suggestion from a top opposition leader challenged Germans to pick two popular obsessions &#8212; safety and sustainability &#8212; over another: a seemingly primal need to use their 500-horsepower engines to catapult themselves across their country&#8217;s gently rolling countryside.

...

Autobahn speed limit proposal revs up debate in Germany - Washington Post

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I had no clue, so I had to go looking.

Looks like they're considering speed limits on the Autobahn, but I don't know that they've settled that yet.

In any event, the Electronic Speed Governors sound like more Nanny-Statism from Brussels, just as some of the Germans and Brits cited in the article have come to believe.

This all sounds like a bad idea, anyway.

Applying brakes rather than lifting the gas pedal sounds pretty dangerous under various conditions.

And, of course, it does not take into account the hundreds upon hundreds of legitimate reasons why one might need to go above the speed limit without a Governor interfering.

A woman going into labor, and minutes from delivering, and minutes from the hospital, being driven by her husband, is the first and most glaringly obvious reason that comes to mind, and, of course, there are hundreds of other examples.

 

[whitehall]

What do they do when they drive on the Autobahn where there is no speed limit? Presumably there well be still another computer to disable the other computers controlling the car. It's a brave new world the Orwell would be proud of.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Such a device will be easily circumvented.

 

[Mr. H.]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to post lower speed limits?
Then employ more cops (increase employment) to write more tickets (increase revenues).

Why do folks always have to re-invent the fucking wheel?

 

[R.C. Christian]

Nanny state mentality prevails in the EU.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

I oppose it on safety grounds.

What if there is a truck coming up behind you that lost its brakes, and you just passed a speed limit sign? Do you think the car hitting the brakes because it doesn't know about the truck is going to save lives?

HAHAHA. Shut up you blithering idiot. Anyone can come up with once-in-a-million-years scenarios in which you need the speed. Next you'll say - what if the space aliens are after me?

hahahahaha

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Nanny state mentality prevails in the EU.

Nanny state?? Speeding drivers kill and maim OTHER PEOPLE, and that's the issue you moron. I don't care if you want to commit suicide but homicide is another story. Seat-belt laws are arguably nanny-state but NOT speed limits. THINK

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Damn, I can't top that. The best I ever did in a street/strip daily driver Mustang was about 158 and it still more in it. ZR rubber, good suspension. Ran like a dream.

Do your kids know that daddy is a psychopath with no concern for the safety of others?

 

[ShootSpeeders]

[

And, of course, it does not take into account the hundreds upon hundreds of legitimate reasons why one might need to go above the speed limit without a Governor interfering.

A woman going into labor, and minutes from delivering, and minutes from the hospital, being driven by her husband, is the first and most glaringly obvious reason that comes to mind, and, of course, there are hundreds of other examples.

Of course there are rare (not hundreds) occasions when you need the speed but so what?. No law works perfectly - we can come up with cases when you need to drive drunk too.

Speed limiters would do some harm and a million times more good. THINK

 

[gallantwarrior]

Hah, hah, hah, hah....I lived in Germany for years...yeah... figure the odds....hahahahaha....

 

[whitehall]

Another reason to thank God every day that Americans don't exist in a world governed by the E.U.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to post lower speed limits?
Then employ more cops (increase employment) to write more tickets (increase revenues).

Why do folks always have to re-invent the fucking wheel?

Some euro big-shot has a brother in the speed limiter business. The best answer is, as you say, to lower speed limits and raise penalties. I guarantee that here in america if doing 15 mph over the speed limit was a felony with a penalty of $3000, people would obey.