Speed limit warning system becomes mandatory: great idea, poor implementation
From July, new cars will be required to have an assistant that alerts drivers when they are exceeding the speed limit. The good idea is modestly implemented.
(Image: Franz)
When the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community was signed in April 1951, the architects agreed on one thing: there should never again be war on European soil. The vision was that adversaries would become trading partners who would live together in lasting peace. The details of what bureaucrats did – and still do – with this idea decades later can make tears run down your face. The peace project has long been perceived by a certain proportion of citizens as an unmanageable jumble of sometimes unnecessary regulations. A criticism that is undoubtedly not justified in every case. However, those responsible on both sides are not making any friends with regulations such as the recent legal requirement to issue a warning if the speed limit is exceeded.
Well-intentioned
But the idea was certainly well-intentioned. Inappropriate speed is one of the main causes of accidents. There are plenty of them, even though the number of people killed in road accidents has been falling for decades. So there is a lot to be said for enforcing speed limits. As the police will never be able to carry out comprehensive, close-meshed checks, the idea of alerting drivers to excessive speed differently is an obvious one. This is why, from July 7, 2024, all cars registered for the first time in the European Union will be required to display a visual and audible warning when a speed limit is exceeded. It must be reactivated every time the car is restarted. Now, there will be drivers who find it excessive if a warning cascade is triggered when a speed limit is exceeded by just one km/h. But a limit also means staying within the limit. To what extent should be exceeding the limit be tolerable?
Nobody is perfect …
In my opinion, another circumstance deserves criticism, which the authors of the new regulation have easily placed in the hands of the industry. The presence of "Intelligent Speed Assistance" (ISA) is prescribed, but how reliably it works is not. Test cars show almost the entire range of qualities, although I have not yet come across a system that works absolutely reliably. A few manufacturers, including Mercedes and BMW, are making promising progress in this respect. Despite the occasional blind spot, the ISA really is a relief, especially as the person behind the wheel is not perfect either. However, these manufacturers do not represent the average, but are the absolute exception. In most test cars, the error rate is so unacceptably high that the assistance not only doesn't help, but is quickly ignored. I estimate that in my private Corsa-e, the display is correct about 30 percent of the time. Getting involved with such a system would be like playing Russian roulette with your driver's license.
Barrier-free parking
Often it's just a question of how easy it is to switch off the annoying mess. With Mercedes, the button for this is on the top level, while with some other manufacturers, the driver has to go into the depths of the infotainment system to do this – every time the car is restarted. The alternative is to be beeped at x times while driving, without there being any need to do so. In its current form, the idea of alerting the driver to speeding violations is certainly well-intentioned. In practice, it works so badly in many cars that neither those responsible in the EU nor the manufacturers are guaranteed to have their hearts set on it. The fact that they can blame each other for the bungling doesn't make it any better. They are doing a disservice to the European Union peace project and providing a further, albeit tiny, building block for the strengthening of those forces. They use frustration to tear down everything that has been painstakingly built up over the past decades. And this at a time when the European community is facing unprecedented challenges.
(mfz)
