Emerging tech Toolkit
Story: TfL to test speed-limiting tech this summer
False assumptions
This idea of so called "Intelligent" vehicle/speed control/adaption has been around under the above and several other names for years. The first thing that should make one suspicious is simply the number of name changes that the system has gone through.
One of the false assumptions is one that is endemic amongst our lords and masters, that the ONLY issue on the roads of today is that people drive too fast. It is the ONLY sin. The fact, as indicated by the government's own statistics, is that less than 3% of road accidents have speed as a major contributory factor. The rest are down to the usual litany of driver intoxication, inattention, aggression or incompetence. Sadly there are no automated mechanisms to detect any of these problems. They have to be detected by experienced road traffic police officers. Humans! No, we can't have humans doing the job! So we have to dumb down the problem.
So, aside from the fact that even if this tech fixed all of the speeding issues, it could only knock out that 3%, another question hangs over the system. It has been shown in studies overseas that once the driver has acclimatised to the system, their concentration and attention levels drop considerably. They also rely on the system and the local speed limit to limit their speed. IE they floor it until the limiter kicks in. It has been suggested that even if it did drop that 3%, the side effects would ramp up the carnage due to the increased inattention.
The bottom line is that we need to drive our own vehicles and take responsibility for the consequences. Trying to remove all the risks from the road by automated means will simply not work.
Human nature will compensate for the reduced risk.
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