California Senator Scott Wiener is introducing a new set of bills to make streets safer across the state, including one that would change how you drive.
Cars can already read speed limit signs without any form of tracking. What’s funny is it will read unofficial speed limit signs on private driveways. It’s anecdotal but a 2021 Camry I drove recognized a 10 mph sign that looked very similar to a DoT sign and displayed it on the dash.
Working in the industry on these technologies, this is a horrible idea. I’ve driven vehicles that already have it, and it’s nice when it’s optional, but would legitimately be a hazard if it was on all the time.
What happens when it’s dark and/or rainy, and it reads the 45MPH sign on the side road you were on, but misses the 70MPH sign when you’re actually on the highway? It limits your ability to actually accelerate to the flow of traffic as well, since it generally won’t change the speed until after you pass it. Or even better, you’re doing 70 and it catches a 35MPH on a side road adjacent to the highway? What happens if you just cover the camera and it can’t read anything? Does the car just go into limp mode and limit you to 25MPH?
This isn’t a hypothetical, I see it happen very, very regularly in even the best systems available. They also probably won’t work for the lighted school zone speed limit signs by me, or the express lane type signs.
Map based also eliminates school and construction zones, which is where you want this most,
As it stands today, covering or disconnecting the camera results in the car throwing a warning. The system will either partially disable only the directly related features, or will disable entirely. With the Camry I drove, you lose lane keep assist, sign detection, collision avoidance and automatic cruise control. All of the driver assistance features rely on the front camera. Some cars use a combination of radar and camera so not everything is lost.
That’s a perfectly valid reason for it cars to not do it today.
That’s not a valid reason for saying we shouldn’t legislate it as a requirement. “If a car can’t prevent itself from going 10mph over the speed limit on our roads, it’s not allowed to drive on our roads”. Done.
Nothing is fool proof. There will be failures, and that’s okay. We can handle them the exact same way we handle them today: speeding tickets.
Oh it is. Pretty much every automaker selling a mid and high level trim for any model has the feature. If it has the driver assistance features included, it can read signs. Base models are less likely to have it, but it’s not unheard of. A 2018 and later base model, 2wd, 2d Tacoma comes with lane keep assist, collision avoidance, automatic cruise control, and sign reading. It’s a $22k truck.
The car itself has GPS, knows it’s own speed, and can read speed limit signs. This can easily be done without the government needing to know the exact speed, position, and velocity of every vehicle on every section of road.
How do you determine the location of the car and the speed limit on that section of road? Sounds awfully close to tracking it.
Cars can already read speed limit signs without any form of tracking. What’s funny is it will read unofficial speed limit signs on private driveways. It’s anecdotal but a 2021 Camry I drove recognized a 10 mph sign that looked very similar to a DoT sign and displayed it on the dash.
Working in the industry on these technologies, this is a horrible idea. I’ve driven vehicles that already have it, and it’s nice when it’s optional, but would legitimately be a hazard if it was on all the time.
What happens when it’s dark and/or rainy, and it reads the 45MPH sign on the side road you were on, but misses the 70MPH sign when you’re actually on the highway? It limits your ability to actually accelerate to the flow of traffic as well, since it generally won’t change the speed until after you pass it. Or even better, you’re doing 70 and it catches a 35MPH on a side road adjacent to the highway? What happens if you just cover the camera and it can’t read anything? Does the car just go into limp mode and limit you to 25MPH?
This isn’t a hypothetical, I see it happen very, very regularly in even the best systems available. They also probably won’t work for the lighted school zone speed limit signs by me, or the express lane type signs.
Map based also eliminates school and construction zones, which is where you want this most,
As it stands today, covering or disconnecting the camera results in the car throwing a warning. The system will either partially disable only the directly related features, or will disable entirely. With the Camry I drove, you lose lane keep assist, sign detection, collision avoidance and automatic cruise control. All of the driver assistance features rely on the front camera. Some cars use a combination of radar and camera so not everything is lost.
That’s a perfectly valid reason for it cars to not do it today.
That’s not a valid reason for saying we shouldn’t legislate it as a requirement. “If a car can’t prevent itself from going 10mph over the speed limit on our roads, it’s not allowed to drive on our roads”. Done.
Nothing is fool proof. There will be failures, and that’s okay. We can handle them the exact same way we handle them today: speeding tickets.
Thanks. Now I could easily see the havoc one troll with a sign can do with over-regulating like this.
Yeah I’ve seen that technology. But it definitely isn’t widespread.
Oh it is. Pretty much every automaker selling a mid and high level trim for any model has the feature. If it has the driver assistance features included, it can read signs. Base models are less likely to have it, but it’s not unheard of. A 2018 and later base model, 2wd, 2d Tacoma comes with lane keep assist, collision avoidance, automatic cruise control, and sign reading. It’s a $22k truck.
Tracking is the action of a 3rd party.
The car itself has GPS, knows it’s own speed, and can read speed limit signs. This can easily be done without the government needing to know the exact speed, position, and velocity of every vehicle on every section of road.