Why are vehicles made with the ability to go over the legal speed limits? Instead of cameras why not make it?

Question

law that cars, bikes etc can only go a given speed thus meaning boy racers and the like cannot break the law and show off even if they wanted to? It seems crazy to me on the one hand to make it criminal to do it and on the other give us all vehicles with the capacity to do it!!??

Answer 1

well theres lots of different reasons but to name a couple

The national speed limit is 70mph so if you regulated the car speed to that then you can still go over a 30mph speed limit so there would still be boy/girl racers

Take a roundabout as another example if you misjuged another cars speed and pulled out in front of them you need a bit of acceleration to get out of harms way

I could go on and on for hours but i wont, the problem is with the drivers not the car! Its an individual choice wether people break the speed limit or not and the only resolve i can see is tougher penaltys for speeding and dangerous or drunk driving

Answer 2

Well, in the first place, speed limits are different on different roads, so even if the vehicle is limited at the highest possible freeway speed limit, speeding would still be possible on surface streets, highways, and urban freeways, where the limits are lower.

Secondly, speed limits are not consistant - limits are different from country to country, and can change within a country over time. For instance, during the major oil crisis in the '70's, US freeway speed limits were reduced to 55 to save gas. Recently, those laws were repealed and speed limits rose to 60, 65, or even 70 mph. As another example, consider that the autobahn in Germany has no set speed limit. Cars manufactured for one set of laws would encounter problems when those laws changed.

And thirdly, why is there a problem here to begin with? So, your car can potentially go faster than the speed limit for a given road; so what? That doesn't mean you have to use that potential. It seems like you're just trying to shift responsibility for obeying the law from the driver to the manufacturer, and in a way that would be a constantly-shifting nightmare for the car companies.

Answer 3

that would only work if there were a uniform speed limit throughout. for example, if you have a highway speed limit of 65mph, then it would still be possible for someone to do 30mph over the limit in a 35mph zone. or what if the vehicle were used at a closed track where there was no speed limit? or what if the vehicle was used in another country? and how would you plan on retrofitting all the cars that had been built in the last 150 years?

it is a great idea until the details start popping out.

Answer 4

Our safest roads are motorways, where many drivers regularly exceed the 70mph limit.

Our most dangerous roads are city streets, where the limit in 30mph.

Therefore restricting all cars to 70mph would have little impact on road safety. It may even reduce it, because on motorways everyone would drive with their foot flat to the floor, not thinking about speed, leading to accidents caused (as most accidents are caused) by lack of attention.

Do you really think anyone would buy a new car that could not exceed the 30mph limit, when they could keep their old car that could be used safely on a motorway?

Those that really want to go fast would find a way to disable the speed limiter (many fast Japanese cars have 112mph limiters as standard, and German cars have 155mph limiters - which customers have found ways to disable).

Then there are technical safety issues regarding the specifications of each car. A car designed to do 150mph will have brakes and handling designed to work at 150mph, which makes the car safer at 30mph than a car designed to only do 30mph, or a car designed to only do 70mph.

The way petrol and diesel engines deliver their power, the top speed is generally incidental - torque is required for decent acceleration at lower speeds, and the top speed is whatever the engine produces at the limit of its ability. If electric motor propulsion becomes commonplace, we may well see top speeds fall due to the different power delivery characteristics of electric motors - they produce maximum torque at zero revs, so can provide decent acceleration without such high maximum poer outputs.

Also there are legal issues. Our speed limits are set by our government, but our car regulations are set by Europe. Different countries in Europe have different limits - there are still some unlimited Autobahnen in Germany..

Remember it is criminal to stab someone, but perfectly legal to have a kitchen knife - you just have to have the responsibility to use it sensibly.

Answer 5

Because of the nature of how engines work an engine that was only powerful enough to allow the car to travel at the maximum speed limit would be inefficient and very prone to failure and break down due to running on the edge of it's potential for prolonged periods.

Some countries such as Japan do have speed limiters fitted to cars so that they cannot go over a given speed

Answer 6

Speed limits vary from country to country and if the top speed was limited there would have to be many different versions.
Further to this it is not top speed that is the problem with vehicles it the monkey behind the wheel, 40 mph in a 30 zone is far more dangerous than 80mph in a 70 zone.

Answer 7

Supply and demand for one reason. And, a government conspiracy. They couldn't be handing out all those tickets now could they?

I forget which bus company it was, but in the U.S. when it was 55 mph, they fitted their buses with a governor that limited it to 57 mph. There was an uproar that in an emergency, a bus driver would not be able to properly respond.

I've been in a few situations where I avoided an accident by having to speed up. A couple of times stupid people behind me were trying to overtake traffic and not realizing everyone was doing the limit but them. If I hadn't speeded up, they would have hit me.

I think now the speedometer of a car in limited in the U.S. to 120 mph. But, that doesn't mean that's as fast as it will go.

Answer 8

Its just never been practical to fit speed limiters to every motor.

Now GPS system are more common there is talk of a unit that will adjust the max speed of your vehicle depending where you are.

You can already get a tracking unit for insurance which checks your speed, how long you drive without brakes and the kind of areas you visit.

Answer 9

Firstly if you make a car that can only do 70mph it is still perfectly capable of breaking the 30mph speed limit. Secondly from personal experience if you restrict the power of an engine it loses it's power to clime hills etc.
The ability to accelerate rapidly is often a life saver in certain driving situations.
Finally remember that it is never the car that kills but the idiot behind the wheel.

Answer 10

The ambos are responsive to the regulations and that they might desire to abide by them. in the event that they're utilizing their lighting fixtures and sirens they're warning different street consumers that a rushing motor vehicle is coming and to get out of how. in the event that they are not in an emergency and are not utilizing lighting fixtures and sirens then they might desire to obey the line regulations like absolutely everyone else. If an ambulance is getting used on a low precedence call however the character of the call adjustments so as that it turns into an emergency, on with the lighting fixtures and sirens and that they are ok. The ambos comprehend this and in the event that they velocity while this is not an emergency then they might desire to assume to be fined.