... the Brits are proposing that new cars should have
speed limiters which use input from GPS receivers
and CD-ROM maps.
Au
http://www.drive.com.au/news/default.asp?section=news&page=http://drive.fairfax.com.au/content/20000211/news/news2.html
Now it's satellites to stop you
speeding
First Published: The Sydney Morning Herald
Friday, February 11, 2000
There are serious moves in
Britain and Australia to use
spy-in-the-sky technology to
make speeding impossible.
Bob Jennings reports on the
end of the speeding ticket.
Road traffic authorities in
Australia are closely examining
the results of tests on
satellite-controlled electronic
speed limiters which could be
fitted to all cars in the UK within
10 years.
And similar schemes are on test
in the Netherlands and Sweden.
But, according to a report to the UK's Transport Secretary John Prescott,
the results of the three-year investigation into the feasibility of installing
"intelligent speed adaptation" would present the Government with its
biggest hot potato in transport policy since the arguments over the
introduction of seatbelts.
Safety campaigners in the UK maintain that fitting the devices to all private
cars would save two-thirds of the 3,500 deaths caused on the roads every
year and reduce by a third the annual total of 320,000 accident injuries.
The report claims that the devices, which use Global Positioning System
satellites to pinpoint the exact locations of cars, would virtually eliminate
speeding.
This is being viewed with interest by authorities in Australia, where the
irony is that it would mean the sacrifice of huge revenues from speed
cameras; in NSW alone last year, revenue from speed cameras was $25.4
million.
According to Lachlan McIntosh, president of Intelligent Road Systems
Australia, there are other options on the speed limiters in addition to
control by the satellites used for GPS in-car navigation systems.
These included a system in which the limiter could be set by the motorist
in the car, much in the manner of speed warning devices such as those
already found in cars such as the Commodore. Other versions could be
activated by roadside beacons which triggered the speed limiter by
microwave link.
"Yes, in Australia we are very aware of these trials - in fact I have driven a
car in the Netherlands with one of the devices," Mr McIntosh said.
"There is a potential for trials to be conducted in Australia and the Traffic
Accident Commission in Victoria is monitoring it very closely. However,
the implementation of such devices would be another matter altogether; it
would require us to look very carefully at the implications."
The UK system uses the combination of a satellite navigation system to
pinpoint the location of each vehicle, an in-car computer loaded with a
digital road map encoded with the speed limits for each street in the
country, and a device to slow the car if the speed restrictions are
breached.
The system involves careful mapping of the speed limits in any given area,
and linking this information to the in-car satellite mapping systems which
are already widely used in Australia and overseas.
The black box monitors speed, and if the car attempts to break the speed
limit for the area, the vehicle's pace is immediately reduced by engine and
braking controls, much in the way that engine rev-limiters and anti-lock
brakes are operated.
In the UK, a report to the Government by a team from Leeds University
and the Motor Industry Research Association has already recommended
fitting the devices to cars to eliminate speeding, and it wants the devices
phased in within a decade.
The report claims that extensive trials have been so successful that a
phased program introducing a new generation of vehicle speed governors
in the UK would dramatically reduce traffic congestion, cut road accidents
and save lives.
Although the equipment would initially cost around $500 it would be likely
to get cheaper in future.
The final report is expected to recommend that the system remain
voluntary for existing cars but be required on all new cars by 2005,
becoming mandatory once sufficient adapted vehicles were on the road -
perhaps by as early as 2010.
The report will claim that positive benefits would start to flow from the
system once 60 percent of vehicles were fitted with it, since that would
have the effect of slowing down the overall speed of traffic.
Copyright 1999 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd.
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