All new cars must have the devices from 7 July, adding fuel economy as well as safety. Will mpg become the new mph?

In the highway code and the law courts, there is no doubt what those big numbers in red circles mean. As a quick trip up any urban street or motorway with no enforcement cameras makes clear though, many drivers still regard speed signs as an aspiration rather than a limit.

Technology that will be required across Europe from this weekend may change that culture, because from 7 July all new cars sold in the EU and in Northern Ireland must have a range of technical safety features fitted as standard. The most notable of these is intelligent speed assistance – or colloquially, a speed limiter.

The rest of the UK is theoretically free, as ministers once liked to put it, to make the most of its post-Brexit freedoms, but the integrated nature of car manufacturing means new vehicles here will also be telling their drivers to take their foot off the accelerator. Combining satnav maps with a forward camera to read the road signs, they will automatically sound an alarm if driven too fast for the zone they are in.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    My comment on US plans to make impaired driving detectors mandatory also applies to these speed limiters.. I admire the desire to make it safer, but holy shit are car manufacturers going to jump on this opportunity to sell out all of your driving data to insurance companies, causing your rates to randomly double and removing any semblance of privacy, and it will also involve additional parts and sensors that will be as closely corner cut as legally allowed such that it breaks as frequently as possible.

    a “safe” idea, sure, do I want it, absolutely not, and I will never trust a corporation to implement it ‘correctly’.

    • n3m37h@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      They already sell you all that data sorry to tell ya. Never allow your car to access your contact list unless ya want the manufacturer to sell that data off too

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        4 months ago

        Well, they don’t sell that from me, because I drive a car that’s 31 years old lmfao. No car built past 2014 has any kind of draw for me, specifically because of these kinds of privacy invasions and general corporate bullshittery.

        • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          GM stopped selling data to one of their many data customers, and their PR spun it like they stopped collecting and selling your data.