The Road Safety people have been spruiking the "Speed Kills "message for many years and that is undoubtedly true. The police accident investigation branch in New South Wales reports that speed was a factor in 127 of the 307 road fatalities of 2014 and so far this year - for 146 of the 350 road deaths.
One of the options under consideration is a clever device that tracks the vehicle and sounds a loud and consistent warning if it exceeds the speed limit. It is similar to the navigation systems we use to get from place to place by linking with a satellite and instead of telling the driver which turn to take it monitors the cars speed with the posted speed limits.
The suggestion is that this be a tool available to the courts to impose on repeat speeding offenders. It has been compared to the alcohol analysis lock which people with alcohol offences must fit to their cars as a condition of holding a valid driving license. The engine will not start until they blow into the device and record an alcohol free reading.
This ISA monitor leaves the driving decisions in the hands of the person behind the wheel and only gives a loud and persistent speeding warning, and it can not be muted or turned off. Critics claim that would be a distraction that might be more dangerous than moderate speeding because it would sound the moment the car edged over the posted limit - and it would take no heed of the speed of the surrounding traffic flow.
Most modern cars have cruise control fitted and it is a fact of life that those who travel the arterial highways with a posted speed of 110 kph know that if they fit their cruise control to that limit they are constantly passed by other traffic. Either other drivers are not using cruise control or have set their unit higher than the posted limit.
There is an option to control highway speeds which has been implemented in some other countries. Cameras capable of reading license plates are strategically located at various points on the journey between cities and computers automatically analyse the time each car takes to complete the gap between cameras - and compare that time with the legal speed needed to achieve that result. Speeding means they arrive too quickly - and receive a fine in the mail.
That has been tentatively tested against this nations trucking fleets by has so far failed to get full implementation. There are no plans to link this ISA speed warning device to actually controlling the speed of the vehicles to which it is fitted. From a safety point of view, it is deemed essential that full control of the car must always remain in the hands of the driver.
That will change when the age of the "driverless car "finally arrives. All the cars on the road will be automatically governed to move at a uniform grid speed by their proximity to one another and the surrounding conditions.
Until humans convert from drivers to passengers the speed of vehicles will be at the mercy of human temperament and sensibility !
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