proposing road changes who don't actually do any driving in the real world

The real reason the government want this is because they want to be able to turn off our freedom of movement. Imagine one dark day in the future, you want to use your car more than ever before in your entire life to move you and your family somewhere safer. No. The Community Safe Speed Enforcement Team have put a 1mph limit on all cars as well as shutting down all public transport. This is in addition to disabling internet or mobile phone signals. All under the Prevention of Terrorism guise.

They will not be happy until they have us under the heel of the great machine.

We do not need EVSC/ISA or whatever they are calling it now. We need or traffic police back, the uninsured/untaxed/unlicensed off our roads. The unsafe vehicles and loads impounded. We need the decent, honest, relatively safe driver left the hell alone. But there's not money (fines) in that is there? Oh no. Perish the thought of actually improving road safety.

And how can it cut accidents by 29% when (according to the DfT) it is only responsible for about 3% or 7% (depends on which set of lies you choose to believe) of accidents?

This sat nav system will also be used for road pricing and tracking you 100% of the time. It's the logical conclusion form Labour's policies (pseudo-voluntary ID cards, CCTV, DNA database, RFID Passports etc). All they can hear and see is "Kerr-ching!" and "Total control, all of the time".

There is no escape from Labour - you will obey their machine (so vote for anyone else but Labour when/if you get the chance).

unless the sat nav has up to the minute pictures it wouldn't stop collisions in a 30 when pedestrians or cyclists where in the carriage way when the shouldn't be

and the vast majority of speeders don't cause accidents otherwise there would be 10 million or so a week

Does it work in tunnels and other areas of poor GPS reception?

Will the government be the first to install Big Nanny in government vehicles.? Police cars?

Who pays?

Lane hoggers in the middle lane doing 50 MPH are a menace, especially the past few weeks. i personally travel at the speed limit and I do my best to ensure I am not hogging a lane, these systems will not address peoples bad manners and these people will continue to cause accidents as they often change lanes without ensuring it is safe to do so.

What happens when your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you, both equipped with this speed restriction technology, enter into a slower speed zone? Won't the car in front slow down before your car does? I'd hate like hell to rear-end someone else because their car thought they were going too fast...

Paris, because I'm sure she likes being under someone else's control...

Are they joking? So now everybody will need to travel at stupid 70mph on motorway? What a waste of time. Just go to Germany, where limits are quite strict: safe speed. So you go 140kmph (with all the traffic) without any problems. Often even more. But try doing something stupid and police will be on your back.

Maybe it will be easier to just educate people instead of creating silly rules? Do as in Finland - fines are based on percentage of your earnings from last year. Have fun breaking a speed limit (by considerable amount) few times in the year... BTW: they don't use points on the licence, there's no need.

The manditory adoption of such a device would make all speed cameras, and mobile SAFETY camera vans obsolete in a single day, them being such a gravy train and all it just aint gona happen.

If they are optional then that's never going to sell either, another stupid idea from another stupid quango (think tank), justifying their existence (I will go back to my Daily Mail now thanks!)

Clunk the door closed, Click the switch to technology solving another problem that didnt exist.

"Carbon emissions savings would be slim but definitely present" - is this before or after taking into account the emissions generated and other environmental damage caused in the making of the extra equipment? I don't believe anybody making this type of claim unless they can show that they have taken into account the total environmental cost.

"The main benefit, according to the report's authors, would come in the form of fewer accidents" - I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand the reduction in speed will mean fewer high speed accidents and resultant casualties. On the other hand you have all those people who will simply stamp their foot on the floor and go as fast as the car will let them, thinking less about how they drive in the process, which will lead to different types of accident, but at slower speeds.

Here's a better way to cut emissions, reduce congestion and accidents: Implement an integrated transport policy of which the core aim is to make local travel on busses, and train travel between stations, cheaper than doing the same journey in a car.

First accept that people who can afford to, will buy and run a car - so don't include maintenance, tax and insurance in when calculating the cost of a journey by car because I've already made the decision to shoulder those costs come what may. Now provide cheaper or equivalent alternatives for local and long distance travel with regular services run to time and people will use them. I drive 300 miles to London and back each week - it costs me £40 in diesel for my car but £120 on the train at the same time of day, with the same journey time, so my choice is to use my car and pocket £80.

So charge, for example, the equivalent of 20p a mile for local bus journeys, 10p a mile for rail journeys and 5p a mile for long distance coach services and people will start to use them instead of getting in their car. A return ticket to London for me would now come in at say £30 off peak. You could still charge a premium for first class, and peak time train/coach travel - say 30%-60% more - and it will still be attractive. I would happily pay £50 for a ticket that took me to London for 9am on a Monday and allowed me to leave at 6pm on a Friday.

Oh, and get rid of all those stupid fares. Prices are calculated only on the distance between the start and end points of the journey. As for tickets, just do Single, Single (Peak), Return, Return (Peak). Singles/Outbound valid for 30 days, Returns valid for 90 days. Simplification reduces cost, waste, confusion and time. Per-mile rates are reviewed every six months and will never rise by more than the average inflation rate over the previous 12 months.

But, as always, the Government answer is to find a way to take more money from us whilst ignoring the best solutions. Sigh. If this ever comes in it'll probably push me to moving into mainland Europe.

Time to get my coat.

Somehow I just don't feel represented by the bigwigs of the "Motorists' Forum"...

http://www.cfit.gov.uk/mf/membership/index.htm

How about increased speed limits on the motorway if the number of people going over 70mph reduces by more than 80%.

Anyway, it only takes a third of motorists (with high insurance premiums, reasonable egos, those with a point left on their licenses) to have these governors to keep everyone else in check.

Maybe we need to get organised and not need to speed, and get our thrills elsewhere...

just buy an old car/motorbike (btw bikers have a great excuse "sorry officer while you were nicking speeders some scrote stole the sat nav of my bars ")

Overtaking is hazardous so should be done as quickly as possible. If I decide to overtake a car travelling at, say, 25mph I'll accelerate to pass the vehicle and then reduce my speed appropriately *after* completing the manoeuvre. What I absolutely do NOT want to happen is for the speed-limiter to kick in at 30mph and thereby prolong my attempt at overtaking.

Seems like a sure-fire way to increase the number of head-on collisions to me. I wonder what the insurance companies will make of it.

Mine's the coat with a copy of the Highway Code in the pocket

My car.

MINE.

Keep your mitts off. Besides which, cutting in and overruling the driver is dangerous.

Not to mention the hideous prviacy implications of all this. I am a free englishman and I'll do as I damn well please. I am not beholden to the state to report or explain my behaviour at all times.

Leave me alone, and for god's sake lets vote in a party with some respect for us at the next election.

If the government and so-called "ex-spurts" are really interested in cutting accident rates then sensible and intelligent driving is surely and obviously the key (so obvious that you don't need spurts to explain that).

Road vehicles are potentially lethal. An aviation pilot requires minimum qualifications and spend a good time training as a junior pilot. What does it take to obtain a driving license? Just a load of dosh for driving lessons and the tenacity to retake the driving test until you pass. Why not apply psychological, aptitude and intelligence tests, and if you don't pass, then you don't drive? If you must throw in a bit of technology, then how about a personal key that will only work in the vehicles that you are qualified to drive? Simple as that. Road kills and injuries will, as sure as a cast-iron guarantee, drop by a significant percentage.

imagine the scene... 'thumping' down the motorway at 70, you cross under a minor road all your wheels lockup as you 'enter' this 30 zone... and you kiss the windscreen!!!

or... knowing that you cant do anything wrong, your crusing down the b-road, brick on the acelerator, revs bouncing off the limiter... you pass over said motorway and suddenly your doing 70! just in time for the obligatory speedcamera... as thats where they will now be positioned...

instead of all this servelince crap, why doesnt the government just employ someone to follow everyone about to log and ensure that they are not getting upto no good or exercising their will to free thought... zero unemployment and total coverage of the populus...

Just f**k off; c**ts.

... would be utterly lethal on a motorbike.

So, a mandatory fitting of controlling speed limiters will save 29% of all injury accidents. Can anyone from the Anti-car Forum tell me how this would work.

Road Casualties Great Britain, 2007 states that ALL road injury accidents, however caused, while exceeding the speed limit have an average of 6.5% of the total.

Where did the 29% come from? If this had been a private company, claiming such fantasy figures would have seen bosses sitting in an 8 by 10 room with a steel door and a peephole.

I'll tell you what. Pass a law requiring all motor vehicles to be preceeded by a person on foot carrying a red flag. That should reduce road deaths dramatically.

But the government is giving all the wrong messages, in particular that the speed limit is the safe speed to drive at - which is of course nonsense. If you hit a pedestrian when doing 20mph it makes no difference to the pedestrian whether you are in a 30mph limit of a 60mph limit. Speed limits are arbitrary, in most cases fixed 24x7x52 and take no account of road conditions, weather, light or other road users (e.g. schools coming out). The speed limit bears no relationship to the safe speed at any given time or place.

There are really only two companies that make the map data for all of the sat nav systems.

TeleAtlas which is owned by TomTom, and Navteq which in a couple of days will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia*.

One of the issues is that the map companies release their data once a qtr to their customers who then release the data on an annual basis to their customers which are the consumer. So if there is a speed change, not everyone would have it and it wouldn't be reliable. It is possible for these companies to make data available on a quarterly basis, however the onus of downloading the updates falls to the driver.

A larger problem is the accuracy of the hardware. Depending on the kit, the accuracy of the position and speed will be influenced on the number of sats and the accuracy of the clocks in the system. Lets not talk about the changes in the atmosphere or sun spots since we're not trying to get down to the centimeter accuracy.

If the concept is to create a method of enforcing speed on the highways, there are other technologies that can be used in conjunction with sat nav, or as a replacement.

Some of the Sat Nav systems incorporate an FM receiver to pick up traffic information. The same system could also broadcast route information and speed limits. This could be flexible enough to allow for speed zone changes based on the time of day or volume of traffic. Add to this the possibility of positioning rare earth magnets in the road and you *can* create a system that could use a sensor to determine your vehicles speed as well as align the center of the car to the center of the road. (Even this system will have issues too.)

So in theory, we could develop a system that could be used to help steer, and maintain speed on the roads. But it will flop. Real life has things like road debris, heavy traffic and the drivers do not drive uniformly. (Do I need to remind everyone about the Asian driver jokes that are told in California.)

Also another big reason. Part of the enjoyment of driving is being in control of your car. ;-)

* Navteq is owned by Nokia, but the transition is not yet complete.

...get the feeling that the government wants the UK taken back medieval times? You can't communicate with anyone that you can't physically see. You can't go anywhere. You won't have any money. You will have no rights at all. Now peasant, get back out in the field and get those turnips in that bag!

If you wish to live in a big brother state go ahead. No reason to turn the country I love into one just because you want all cars limited to 70. Limit your own car by all means, but don't expect your narrow-minded and unsupported argument to cut any ice with the rest of us. We don't want it. Of course, you might be the kind of person who would issue a speeding ticket to everybody doing 71mph on an empty motorway.

Many people feel the need to speed, particularly on motorways, partly because of the hectic lives we lead (we are the hardest worked in Europe) and the fact that there is so much congestion, so speeding on motorways in particular is a way of getting that time back. I drive 150 miles all on motorways each Monday morning (5am) and Friday afternoon (4pm) and a journey that should take about 2 hours 15 usually takes at least 3 hours. Including some speeding that you so loathe. Put an integrated transport policy in place that encourages people onto alternative transport and things will get better.

I for one value my freedoms such as they are and resent any unnecessary intrusions into them.

BTW if you'd like a 'proper' discussion about the issues around integrated transport et al, rather than simply posting a 'thou shalt follow the letter of the law' then feel free to post a constructive and well-argued response. I have been deliberately provocative because rather than discuss the pros and cons of the proposal, or the current speed limits, you've just supplied a knee-jerk reaction to other people's comments.

PS even the Police use their judgement when deciding whether to pull somebody over for speeding, so the 'limit' you love so much is viewed by them as a guidline in the first instance and a rule in the second. Regardless of what it actually is. Oh, and your speedo is only 5% accurate at the best of times, so you could be doing 70 indicated but 73/74 in practice.

We've all imagined the future where you enter the Motorway on-ramp and your voice command activates "auto-drive", which safely drives you at optimum speed and with ultimate precision, until you leave the Motorway again. That is the kind of speed control I could live with and even enjoy.

But plain *limited* speed without any of the benefits? What kind of sick and twisted future are we letting ourselves in for? And the Leeds Uni report looks completely contrived to me. NuLab have let the power go to their heads ... they're control freaks and they must be stopped.

What with rising unemployment, we could re-train and re-employ all the wankers, sorry I meant bankers and poor retail staff to walk in front of our cars with red flags. A clear indicator the car is moving and also will restrict the speed, doesn't need any expensive technological infrastructure either, I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before.

Any coat you like as long as it's black.

No, really! You see, satnav signals are very weak, all you would have to do is wrap the antena in aluminium foil and - bingo! - you are always doing 0mph on your drive! Perfect if the clots want to use this for road toll purposes. If they get suspicious, use a fake satnav signal, all you would need is a low-powered transmitter to swamp the weak satellite signals and you can tell the limiter you are wherever you want to be. Such kit is already used by hijackers in the States to steal satnav tracked trucks and cars and details are all over the web.

So be quiet and let the twits implement this, and then we can all get back to driving how we like!

"If you can read this bumper sticker, your not tailgating - your drafting!"

If this thing does the same stunt that restrictor plates do for NASCAR on the big ovals - I can see alot more clumps of cars banding together as they cant overtake as much... bigger crashes will result when it all goes wrong!

A simpler thing to do would place a mechanical limiter on all cars at 70-90mph.. And GPS limiter on all new UK cars from 2010 for areas with 20/30mph limits. Anything else the police can look after?

So there is less clumping of traffic on the dual carriageways and motorways at 70mph. If you surpase 70mph for more than 5 secs. You get blasted with warnings from the incar stereo...

Speed limiters will not stop a single dangerous driving act committed below the speed limit.

The speed limit database would cost a packet to compile (as already mentioned, the current info supplied by Navteq and Tele Atlas for sat navs is far from complete - even for some main roads) It would need to be live, up to the minute info to be able to react to temporary speed limits in place due to road works, bad weather and non speed related accidents.

Will having one installed automatically indemnify the driver against any form of speeding penalty, as technically it wouldn't be possible? Will it fuck!!!

What's the point if it's voluntary, unlikely to be guaranteed to be flawless and will cost the taxpaying motorist a shed load to achieve practically nothing at all.

The reality is that we need more traffic coppers on the roads if we are to make them safer.

The big brother technology is not capable of detecting the the worst drivers (the ones who ignore every road marking, disregard the road conditions, overtake on blind corners, tailgate etc, etc) and it is not capable of intercepting a single one of them in the act either.

How fast will you be able to go on school playing fields, pedestrian shopping centres, green lanes?

I see a new sport, find out where the satnav speed limiter does not work.

failing that, I see a lot of new cars wearing tinfoil hats...

Wouldn't this result in less fines?

Somehow I think those offended by this proposal need to slow down abit. I see this going nowhere..

The accountant logo...

HGVs have been physically restricted to 56mph for many years now. Ask a lorry driver what he thinks of the restrictors, or indeed observe the lorry traffic the next time youre out and about.

The limiter results in the accelerator being treated almost as a switch, 'ON' or 'OFF'. There's good evidence that such restrictors reduce the attention that drivers give to the road, especially when more of the other vehicles are fitted with them also. They result in an 'automatic convoy', where all the drivers have to do is steer and then the mind inevitably wanders.

Very very bad idea; if that comes in for all cars (or even just 'new' cars) I will most likely emigrate.

A little while ago, an aircraft in Australia decided that it was flying at the wrong altitude and splattered the passengers all over the ceiling. Now, aircraft systems tend to be engineered to slightly higher standards than the average car. So how long would it be before a car decided that it needed to slow from 70 to 30 on a crowded motorway?

A tombstone is the obvious result..

If speed limiters are put in place then what will all those speed-boys buying BMWs and other fast cars going to do? I'm sure they don't buy a these types of cars to just look good.

I look forward to the day when idiots on the roads are stopped from trying to get to their destination 30 seconds earlier.