18 April - The slippery slope?
I spent the holiday weekend in Hampshire and despite the dire forecast of
various transport pundits I found the roads near empty in both directions.
Yesterday morning on the radio I heard another complaining about an EU plan to
force cars into adhering to speed limits using camera and radar technology.
It was said that the UK would not opt out because manufacturers could not be
expected to make cars destined for Britain different to those delivered to the
EU. Utter balderdash churned out by a lying government led by a liar. Maybe we
should expect steering wheels to move to the left in the immediate future.
But opting out of big brother EU rules on speed limiters is far easier than
that, it is just a case of ticking a software box.
For example all Teslas come with the same equipment on board whether you buy the
cheapest model of its type or buy into the extras. The differences are software
controlled and you can pay to have them after purchase and the car upgrades over
your wi-fi.
My humble Hyundai has a speed limiter and it projects the limit on to the Head
Up Display (HUD). When I bought it the EU importers specified a fully specified speed
limiter but the UK importer was a cheapskate and refused to pay the Koreans
for the HUD projection. In Ireland the specification differences were greater, they didn’t get
adaptive cruise control.
Despite Hyundai UK being cheapskates my car came with a comprehensive speed
limiting system; apparently it was a mistake on the first batch of 50 imported.
Some of those cars became review samples and when the second batch came into the
country some of buyers kicked up a stink over the speed limiter numbers not
displaying on the HUD as they had been led to believe they would.
Hyundai caved in and allowed the dealers to flick the software switch and Hey Presto it
all worked the same as the European ones (and the first 50 UK models) did.
In practice the speed limiter can be a damned nuisance. I once set mine to 20 in one of those horrible
socialist boroughs in North London. On a dual carriageway with speed cameras and a central reservation a bus on the
inside lane decided to pull out as if I wasn’t there. It was a nasty moment
because at 20 the accelerator pedal did nothing.
When you drive along the A2016 half a mile to the East of Belmarsh and reach the enormous
50 m.p.h. limited roundabout cars briefly
face the 30 m.p.h. limited road into Thamesmead and mine reads the sign.
It doesn’t brake hard because my car does not make the link proposed by the EU
but if it was so equipped nothing would happen.
As you may remember, my son was chairman of
the European Union vehicle safety committee - not any more obviously - but these
rules spend a long time in their gestation period. He told me when they were
proposed that speed limiting would be a driver choice, just like it is to
switch off traction control or the beeps my car makes when reversing. Switching
off the limiter will become part of a driver’s start up routine.
London buses already have such a system - maybe not all of them yet, it has
proved difficult to retro-fit - but they do not slam on the brakes when passing
from a 40 m.p.h. zone to a 20 as they do at the northern end of Harrow Manor
Way. It is recognised that rapid slow downs are dangerous. Even after our idiot
government follows EU rules - and it will - the system could conceivably stop
acceleration beyond the limit but it will never provoke emergency stops. Almost
all politicians are irredeembly nuts but engineers outside academia are not.
I think I might ask all my election candidates for their view on 20 m.p.h.
limits, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, cycle lanes and bus lanes and vote accordingly.
The danger associated with the EU’s big brother rules is mission creep. First
the speed limiter issues speeding tickets, then it is no longer an
option and finally you are deemed to be uninsured if it is not working properly.
Maybe a revolution is the only way forward in our burgeoning police state.