Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Mandatory speed limiters coming soon?

I somteimes drive minibus with a 62mph speed limiter. Its fine on the dual carriageway as you can just press the pedal full down & go without needing one eye on the speedo. It does mean the overtakes have to be considered much more carefully if you have no reserve.

Expecting a SatNav to control any limiter is not practical as they are not updated often enough to even take in permanent new limits never mind temporary ones. As others have said traffic sign recognition it not good enough either. There are people who would tend to rely on such systems totally & ignore the speed & actual signs. More work need on this one

The way that I read this is that it is still a proposal. A "group of key MEPs" does not constitute the approval of the European Parliament.

Perhaps common sense will prevail in the end.

By the way: if this comes into force don't think for one moment that UK cars won't be affected. The UK government will jump on the same bandwagon and it will be mandatory for exports to the EU anyway.

Satnavs often lose cover in cities and always in tunnels so this needs a lot of development yet.

I contacted Honest John, the Motoring Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph about this matter, Here is his reply:

This was trialed in the UK a few years ago and proved to be a disaster. Anyone who has driven a modern car with traffic sign recognition knows that the cameras do not always recognise the traffic signs. And if GPS is used to limit speeds, what happened in the trial was a car would be legally driving at 70 on the motorway, then passed under a bridge with a 30 limit on it and because of that slammed on its brakes. GPS does not work in three dimensions. The EC lobbyists have clients who stand to make a fortune out of this extremely flawed technology.

As I found out when I drove my van to Zurich to collect all the stuff from my flat. After 8 years of living and working there, I had managed to collect more than I could take back on the plane, so I drove over there to fetch it.

Problem was, I'd never actually driven a car in Zurich and was relying on sat nav to find my way through the one-way systems. As soon as I passed under the overhead lines for the trams, satnav went completely mental and was no help at all. took me about half an hour of dicking about to find my way to the apartment.

What a pain, I hadn't even thought about the overhead lines in cities I was recalling when I took the Morgan up to central London with satnav stuck to the screen looking for the Union Jack Club for an overnight. The coverage was pretty variable to say the least, it is a £100 Tomtom so nothing high end I will add in case that might be relevant.

. Had the same trouble in Hereford....three times around the same two roundabouts, forced to follow a s sign post in the end.

Lucky youcould hear my fan behind you Ray!

Thought I was being followed by a hover craft.

Like cats it will not trouble me in a 1980 +8.