Sorry tcmtech but your posts have nothing to do with electronics just a rant about the low standard of driving you witness on a daily basis. Just for info I worked in the heavy goods industry and have driven fully loaded semi’s albeit on test tracks, reversing one was “interesting”, and yes the standard of driving of a lot of the general public is dire.
In the UK we used to have four speed limits, 30mph for built up areas, 40mph for semi urban areas, 60mph on general roads, and 70mph for motorways and dual carriageways.
But today we have 20mph for schools, 30mph built up areas, 40mph, a new 50mph and 60mph, they have also introduced variable speed limits on motorways around big cities.
The police are equipped with high tech radar and camera equipment, and take pride in finding places where they can “ambush” drivers and will prosecute if you are caught exceeding any of the speed limits even by a very small margin.
They don’t stop you as you have been caught by a camera, the first thing you know is a fine arriving in the post, the cost of such an infringement is £100 + 3 points on your licence, get to 12 points and you are banned from driving for a period of time, usually a year.
I don’t currently have any points on my licence but I have been caught in the past.
The point of my post was to explore the technology that is currently available but not put to the use I was thinking of.
Car manufacturers are constantly looking for ways to use technology, some cars will automatically apply the brakes if the cpu thinks a crash is imminent. One of my cars, a sports car, has a yaw sensor in the middle of the car and if the car gets out of shape on a corner the cpu will apply brakes to one or more wheels to automatically try correct the situation.
There are also cars with heads up displays, I fancy one of those, some even have infra red vision.
Unfortunately none of these will improve the standards of bad drivers, so a car where it would be impossible to exceed the speed limits could eliminate just one aspect of bad driving.
A potential benefit would be that all the speed detection apparatus littering our roads, and earning the police a small fortune, would be made redundant. In addition, councils that arbitrarily set the speed limits may come under scrutiny by drivers complaining on the sheer number of limit changes that we currently have.