Are cars getting too fast?

[bigmike20vt]

my 350z was the car i have owned which made me want to drive like a plonker the most. Whilst my fiat coupe had the kick in the pants turbo, and that was so much fun, generally it was at its best in under, lets say 70mph. 3rd gear was where i got the biggest grin iirc so fairly sensible speeds.

my 350z however was a bit of an animal, it sounded fantastic (I do miss the noise with my EV) , had a much nicer gearbox than any other manual car i have owned. On a big empty motorway It also "felt" really slow until you got to 3 figures..... all of which added up to a car which i constantly was fighting the urge to drive it like i stole it.

 

[Nasher]

there is a section where i live, it is just after coming off a roundabout after a duel carriageway heading into a villiage, and for a couple of hundred metres my car thinks it is a 70mph, even tho its a single carriageway road.

this is fine when its just a guide, but will have to be far more robust if cars ever go autonomous. i guess for speed limiting a manually driven car it is not so bad (albeit not ideal) because it is still the meat suit in control and you dont HAVE to do the speed suggested. what would be more annoying would be the otherway around if the car decided it was a 30mph speed when in actual fact it was much faster and it limited the car.
tech is great, it makes our cars so much safer, but as long as it is use who are driving and ultimately responsible, there has to be a way to over ride these things... after all, if the assumption is they are fail safe (which clearly they are not, but IF we cant over rule them then they need to be) then really we should not be driving the car at all at that point, it should do it for us!.

That said.......... the car thinking its 100mph is a proper balls up given no where in the uk allows that speed on a public road. that is something which should not be possible via core software in the car imo.

They will display what they think the sign says. The software is for global use so it needs to be able to read any sign.

You can paint a 100mph sign and it will read it, people managed to fool Tesla autopilot years ago doing that.

The big problem with automatic anything is it will just do exactly what it's told. It has no common sense or ability to question things which seem wrong. If someone told a self driving car to drive off a cliff it will do it.

 

[tom_e]

They will display what they think the sign says. The software is for global use so it needs to be able to read any sign.

Easy enough to set a max limit by region though which is what bigmike20vt was getting at.

 

[bigmike20vt]

They will display what they think the sign says. The software is for global use so it needs to be able to read any sign.

sure.... but i disagree that some logic cant be added into it, such that if in the UK the max speed anywhere is 70mph and therefore anything above that would automatically be rejected. ultimately however there will need to be something far more robust than just sign recognition before any car can self drive. People are idiots, either through stupidity or being nasty, so anything out of the control of the driver needs to be really robust to stop people deliberately trying to make the cars fail.

(the example in my mind are those self driving ipaces in...... America i think it is ...... where some people think it is ok to either damage or put cones on the hardware designed to track its surroundings.

 

[Nasher]

sure.... but i disagree that some logic cant be added into it, such that if in the UK the max speed anywhere is 70mph and therefore anything above that would automatically be rejected. ultimately however there will need to be something far more robust than just sign recognition before any car can self drive. People are idiots, either through stupidity or being nasty, so anything out of the control of the driver needs to be really robust to stop people deliberately trying to make the cars fail.

(the example in my mind are those self driving ipaces in...... America i think it is ...... where some people think it is ok to either damage or put cones on the hardware designed to track its surroundings.

There are bigger problems than sign recognition. They just don't work if the road isn't a simple grid layout. The cone thing is pretty funny tbh, but it highlights another major issue there is no solution to.

 

[Screeeech]

In 2005 I had a Nissan Skyline R33 GTR, it was like 400bhp and went like absolute hell, it was mental....

Compared to the average stuff on the road nowadays though, it would be mediocre - cars have gotten so so fast.

I keep having this urge to get a new M5, 0-60 in 3.3 seconds or something, but then I'm like 'why...?' there's just no point.

Speed cameras everywhere, roads choked up everywhere, there's just no point in that much power lol.

(I'll probably buy one anyway, because I'm an idiot when it comes to these sorts of purchases.... )

 

[bigmike20vt]

In 2005 I had a Nissan Skyline R33 GTR, it was like 400bhp and went like absolute hell, it was mental....

Compared to the average stuff on the road nowadays though, it would be mediocre - cars have gotten so so fast.

I keep having this urge to get a new M5, 0-60 in 3.3 seconds or something, but then I'm like 'why...?' there's just no point.

Speed cameras everywhere, roads choked up everywhere, there's just no point in that much power lol.

(I'll probably buy one anyway, because I'm an idiot when it comes to these sorts of purchases.... )

i suspect compared to the average stuff on the road now it would still be a very quick car....... but sure, some cars are quicker now. My mate has a BMW M2, that is a hell of a quick car as well, and it isnt a huge barge either.

but as i said earlier, modern cars do have a load more safety features going for them which were not on cars 20 years ago, such as emergency brakes, blind spot warning systems and what not which i wonder if they will negate at least some of the argument that modern cars are so fast they are dangerous and causing more road deaths.

 

[rG-tom]

There is a major difference between EV in ICE cars in how it "feels" to accelerate quickly (and is one of the key things petrolheads hate actually), and that's around the feeling of "stressing" the car.

When I'm driving my wife's model Y performance (which is the most often), if i accelerate quickly away from a set of lights or some such to beat a lane merge, she doesn't say anything. If i do the same in my m550i, which gives the game away that I've accelerated hard by the V8 soundtrack being much louder, she asks if that "was necessary". It's more obvious that you're "pushing" the car to drive quickly than in an EV.

However, a very large upside I see is for people accelerating up to speed limits at a far more reasonable pace once they start driving EVs. I live in the countryside and I'm surrounded by NSL roads. It's infuriating how often a car will pull out of one NSL road onto another at a T junction, and then take the next mile to accelerate up to about 50mph, changing at 2.5k rpm in their 1.2 hyundai. In even an eGolf or similar (which is not a fast EV), they could get up to that 40-50mph reasonable speed (60 would be great but let's not ask too much) in a few seconds without feeling like they're "breaking the car" by revving it too high.

Just a thought...

 

[Nasher]

People are always going to drive annoying slow. It's just that not enough people have EVs to see them holding up traffic much yet. You still don't see a huge amount of EVs in rural areas and small towns, it's mostly city folk who own them.

 

[Richie]

Regarding the acceleration of EV cars - it will just encourage some drivers to take more risks when pulling out of junctions, roundabouts etc or for overtaking towards oncoming traffic where they normally wouldn't in a slower car.

It's similar to all the safety and driver aid functions like stability control etc.... It makes people believe they are better drivers than they are and so therefore take bigger and bigger risks. They fail to realise that the only reason their driving has not ended up with them spun off the road and into a tree is the on-board computers doing dozens of corrections per second to prevent loss of control... "No, no, its coz of my legit rally driving skills"

Stick the same person in the same car with all aids turned off and see what happens

 

[bigmike20vt]

or glass half full.......... if you are going to overtake a tractor, or a cyclist / what ever on a country road anyway...... surely it is best to do it in a vehicle which spends as little time on the wrong side of the road as possible.

be it an EV or a decent performance ICE cars. imo acceleration if used how it should be used is a safe thing..... some people drive like idiots......... but they would do this regardless of the car they are in IME. its perfectly possible to drive incredibly dangerously even in a 1.0l ford KA.

 

[Richie]

or glass half full.......... if you are going to overtake a tractor, or a cyclist / what ever on a country road anyway...... surely it is best to do it in a vehicle which spends as little time on the wrong side of the road as possible.

be it an EV or a decent performance ICE cars. imo acceleration if used how it should be used is a safe thing..... some people drive like idiots......... but they would do this regardless of the car they are in IME. its perfectly possible to drive incredibly dangerously even in a 1.0l ford KA.

I agree, of course but I think people will take more risks than they otherwise would do and, given the vastly quicker acceleration and getting to higher speeds quicker, the end results could be vastly worse.

be it an EV or a decent performance ICE cars. .... its perfectly possible to drive incredibly dangerously even in a 1.0l ford KA.

EDIT: It is, but you're putting a higher quantity of people in EVs, which can accelerate like high performance ICE cars, that would otherwise be in "Ford Ka 1.0l"

 

[jaybee]

That 112mph limit is...interesting. Is that going to be on new ICE cars and motor bikes as well? That's 2nd gear on some sportsbikes.

 

[Nasher]

That 112mph limit is...interesting. Is that going to be on new ICE cars and motor bikes as well? That's 2nd gear on some sportsbikes.

Seems like all cars, some are already implementing it.

Most of the EVs can barely top 90mph anyway. They run out of puff due to only being single geared.

 

[tom_e]

That 112mph limit is...interesting. Is that going to be on new ICE cars and motor bikes as well? That's 2nd gear on some sportsbikes.

1st on the really fun ones.

 

[Hagar]

The weapon of choice amongst my biking mates at the time was the Yamaha RD250LC. Went like greased weasel dung off a chromed shovel. Whilst a great bike, it encouraged a certain riding style which frequently led to disaster.

I'm a few years older, for mine it was the DX 250 normally cooled. On the road if you or your dad had £250 to spare or signed up for HP.

Again often leading to disaster.

 

[TheVoice]

or glass half full.......... if you are going to overtake a tractor, or a cyclist / what ever on a country road anyway...... surely it is best to do it in a vehicle which spends as little time on the wrong side of the road as possible.

be it an EV or a decent performance ICE cars. imo acceleration if used how it should be used is a safe thing..... some people drive like idiots......... but they would do this regardless of the car they are in IME. its perfectly possible to drive incredibly dangerously even in a 1.0l ford KA.

I agree, but you can safely overtake a slow-moving vehicle or cyclist in practically anything; you don't need a 400HP EV to do it, and yet this is what family-orientated cars like the new Explorer EV can have.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

MEB doesnt offer up to 400bhp.

 

[inogen]

No need for him to do what he was totally allowed to do and within his rights to do?


Perhaps he floored it to make sure he wasn’t getting in anyone’s way. And he was in the correct lane

No, there was no need to do what he was totally allowed and within his rights to do. Racing people around roundabouts is dangerous. Especially one that crosses a dual carriageway where people enter at 40-50mph if they think it's clear. It was quite obvious what I was doing and for all he knew I was unaware of the lane directions as they're not clearly signed.

He floored it order to totally get in my way. Sticking his finger up at the BMW driver in his unexpectedly fast car. Correct lane or not.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Seems like all cars, some are already implementing it.

Most of the EVs can barely top 90mph anyway. They run out of puff due to only being single geared.

how would that work for hyper cars? i am guessing they will be exempt for some reason...... however then basically what that means is only rich people should be allowed to drive fast.