Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Speeding tickets

[Charles Perry (charles]

There is an article in this week's Autoweek about the test Jim mentioned
being run in London with GPS-based speed control. A dozen city Prius'
have been fitted with a GPS receiver tied to the car's throttle. The GPS
signal matches up to a speed limit database. The GPS then essentially
blocks the throttle once the vehicle has reached the set speed limit for
that area. Later they  plan to add a bus and a taxi to the test.

So far the extent of user acceptance has been some complaints about
lines of traffic queuing up behind the controlled vehicle. Duh.

They also mentioned that when the GPS signals are blocked by tall
buildings or whatever, the limiter just holds whatever the last seen
limit was until the signal recovers. I'm sure that could be exploited in
consumer cars to block the antenna...

-- charles


-----Original Message-----
From: ken rentiers [mailto:rentiers [at] mac.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:53 AM
To: Charles Perry
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Speeding tickets

I'm just sitting here watching the Tour de France. All the bikes have
little transponders on them the size of credit cards...here in the USA
there have been proposals recently to abandon the fuel tax and impose a
mileage tax using GPS technology. Why? Isn't a fuel tax better if your
goal is to encourage fuel efficiency? To lower CO2 emissions?

Or is there a hidden agenda to increase revenue by constantly monitoring
everyone's speed? Such has been proposed in the UK. Then, if you have a
revenue shortfall, it then becomes a simple matter of lower the speed
limits to even less realistic levels, while hiding behind the "safety"
curtain. Statists never rest.

They want us all on the bus

k