I'm honestly surprised they don't restrict that. Does anybody know why? I know different states have different speed limits, but I think a 85mph speed limit could cover them all.
Is it because Canada and Mexico? They have lower speed limits. Is it because the car could be exported to Germany and driven on the Autobahn? or what?
There were, until very recently, some roads in Montana that didn't have any speed limit during the day. They provided at least a legal justification that there was a legitimate on-road use case for going more than 85MPH.
I believe Montana gave that up in the last few years, so there wouldn't be much of a case against putting an 85MPH governor in cars, except I guess against the possibility that some state might at some point raise their limit.
Some states (e.g. Texas) have been raising their speed limits, seemingly in keeping with the safety enhancements in cars, which is an interesting example of "risk compensation".
Ah, the glory days. The speed limits returned quite some time ago (>12 years) in Montana after the stupid out of staters ruined it by killing themselves too frequently on their 'Montana autobahn experiences'.
Back when the national speed limit was forced to 55mph because of the energy crisis, Montana legislators thumbed their nose at it by making it a cash fine of $5 IIRC that did not go on your record.
> there wouldn't be much of a case against putting an 85MPH governor in cars
There are plenty of reasons not to do it. A lot of people take cars to the track, and not just those with high performance vehicles. I've seen people drag racing stock Camrys at a legit quarter mile track just because they wanted to see what it could do (not much).
Yes, but it also states that on a 2 lane road, you can exceed the speed limit for as long as necessary to pass on the left if the car you are passing is driving below the legal limit and you are at a point where it is legal to pass.
An example is that if the speed limit is 55mph, it would generally be allowable to speed up to 60 to pass a farm vehicle traveling at 45mph on a 2 lane road provided that you're at a location where passing is allowed (clear line of sight, and the center line would be dotted instead of solid, no oncoming vehicles that would have to brake, etc.).
The second paragraph of that act does note that some roads may have minimum speed limits posted which you're not allowed to go slower than provided the road conditions are normal.
Remember that footage of Japanese drivers fleeing from the tsunami floods? How many more would have died if their cars had been slower? How many more would have survived if their cars could have gone faster?
There are plenty of survival situations (e.g., tsunamis, volcanoes, tornadoes, gas explosions, etc.) in which it's desirable for your car to go a lot faster than one should drive under normal driving conditions.
Sure, but going higher than say 150 km/h for more than 10 seconds the car could phone that in and you'd have to justify it to the police or face a steep fine.
I would never pay a single unit of currency for such a car, even subsidized, and neither would most of humanity, including politicians.
I see plenty of very dangerous driving within speed limits, ie people unable to keep in their lane, playing with cellphone, randomly breaking in semi-empty roads and so on.
These are my experiences from highways from most weekends. In towns, speed limits make much more sense and could be enforced by speed bumps or stationary radars
You have to weight it against the gain at the other end. I'm nearly certain that more lives would be saved from inability to exceed speed limit, than would be lost by speeding away from something.
Simplest explanation - because a car can be taken on a private road(off road track, racing circuit) and driven as fast as you like. Yeah, you are not going to do that in a prius, but theoretically, you could.
All new cars in EU have to be limited to 155mph by law, but manufacturers are allowed to remove that restriction if you complete an advanced training course. So for example - mercedes will remove the speed limiter on your AMG vehicle, if you finish their advanced amg handling course.
> All new cars in EU have to be limited to 155mph by law
Can you give a source for that? To my knowledge the 155mph limit is just an informal agreement between BMW, Merc and Audi, and not law. The agreement also expired a decade ago.
I am fairly sure that you can just buy an RS6 or an AMG Mercedes with 190mph top speed, no courses required.
Well, I bought an new AMG vehicle 3 months ago, so I happen to know that the only way to remove the limiter is to attend one of the AMG training courses. I imagine if you greased enough elbows you would get the limiter removed without doing the course, but there's certainly nothing you can do to order one from factory without the limiter.
And yes, I've done a bit of digging at it appears you are correct - it's not actually the law, just an agreement between manufacturers.
Edit: Ok, I've looked through technical specs of all AMG vehicles, and it looks like every AMG model from A to S class is limited to 155mph unless you do the course, but the AMG GT isn't. So....yeah, I'm just completely wrong on this. My apologies.
The main reason car companies don't put (un-overridable) governors for 85mph in cars is that their sales would instantly plummet.
That said, all "fast" cars sold in the US do have governors at 140 mph if memory serves. The same car sold in Germany has no such governor.
As much as I remember there is a gentleman's agreement between the German car makers that they restrict the motor power after 300 km/h (about 190 mph). A teacher told me that this should be the velocity a normal untrained person is safe to drive on the German autobahn.
They circumvent this with their own car tuners which release the cars without this restrictions (AMG for Mercedes Benz as an example)
> 300 km/h [..] normal untrained person is safe to drive on the German autobahn
German here. No normal untrained person should be driving at those speeds. The general recommended speed for the autobahn is 130 km/h. Typical speeds on the middle and left lanes are up to 200 km/h though most days the typical "high" speed is probably closer to 170 or 180.
With good weather, no traffic and no roadworks (hah) you might be able to go over 200 km/h for a while but unless it's a long straight stretch you're probably way out of your comfort zone unless you're an experienced driver.
I would say a normal untrained person is safe to drive at speeds up to about 180 km/h. Most ordinary cars seem to handle noticeably worse with every 10 you go beyond 160 km/h or so.
And of course the entire discussion of typical speeds is philosphical when most of the Autobahn has speed limits (roadworks often limit the speed to 60 or even 40 km/h (or less) and even on normal parts the speed limit frequently is as low as 120, 100 or 80 km/h).
This depends on the car, the better the car, the more stable it feels at higher speeds, especially when maneuvering. In cheap weak ones 130 kmh feels like it's taking off, in great ones 200 kmh feels... adequate.
I got once 220 kmh with by older BMW 330d on unrestricted part of German highway, but it's quite stressful experience. You feel via your senses how fast everything is, you feel how long it takes for car to break to something more reasonable (ie 150) because of other drivers - this happens all the times, so it's almost never a smooth ride. And you know that any issue with the car like tire blowing means instant horrible death, and probably not only yourself.
Most normal tires have rating till only 220 (that is for new ones!), at speeds around 250 and more you will trash whole tires in 1 day (and you need good ones, not some cheap chinese crap with no grip), and whole car is just suffering much much more compared to regular driving.
Interesting one time experience, but even me I don't go over 150-160 on an empty road during day.
Even 250 km/h is a bit extreme for "normal" drivers. See your sibling comment -- even if the car can do 250 safely it can be very difficult to drive safely at those speeds.
It is because the car can’t judge on itself whether exceeding a speed limit is in fact illegal (heck, it can’t even detect the limit with 100% reliability).
How’s that? In some jurisdictions (I would imagine in most, but can only speak with certainty about Czech and Slovak ones), it’s legal to do anything that would otherwise be illegal if you do in the course of protecting a person from imminent danger to their life. There are nuances to it, but the gist is that.
So imagine your son was bitten by a snake. Ambulance won’t get there and back to the hospital (because they won’t have a serum with them) fast enough. The fastest, best way to save your son is to drive him to the hospital as fast as you can. Fuck speed limits, a life is at stake, and it’s perfectly legal for you to ignore them (or any other laws you have to break to save his life) while doing so.
The car wouldn’t be able to judge this. It would have prevented you from driving fast enough and your son would die, even though the car’s restrictions would not be preventing any illegal behavior at the time.
I've always been puzzled as to why cars don't come with speed governing as a (default off) option. I'd love to be able to lend my car to my child with the max speed set to 60mph or govern my speed to 65 on long freeway trips so I don't have to constantly check my speedometer (this is different from cruise control because I could easily slow down below 65, just never go above it).
Slightly fancy cars have been pushing this with per key controlled limits, so you can let your kid drive with a max speed limit, a max volume limit, etc.
Most cruise control systems come with a limiter as well though, so you can set a limit and then the car will never exceed it.
Also, no offence, but if you can't trust your kid with a car, then maybe you shouldn't be lending them it in the first place? Or get them a less powerful car for the start?
Depending on where you live and the sorts of roads you drive, accidents often come from corners/junctions/road conditions/acceleration etc rather than just MAX_SPEED.
A speed limiter is an incredibly one dimensional tool to try and modify accident chance.
i can imagine quite a few situations where any reasonably small limit on speed would end up in horrible crash (ie overtaking trucks in single lane mountain roads)
Some cars already have that, at least my 2008 Peugeot 607 has. While driving, push the button to select max speed and you're done. Controlling same way as cruise control. Although it leaves an option to go faster if you push the accelerator down to the floor.
Wouldn't work for controlling child, but on a freeway would work just as you expect.
My car has a speed limiter that I can turn on, but weirdly it can't be used in combination with cruise control. My use-case here would be cruising at one speed, then speeding up a bit to get around someone (think motorway/highway), but I don't want to go above the speed limit.
I wonder if it's perhaps because of industry lobbying. The incentive to buy a 400+ BHP BMW M3 (or whatever) would probably be somewhat stymied if it were limited to a mere 85mph.
And there are plenty of way less expensive cars out there with 300+ BHP. Again, not much point if you're limited to 85mph, which means the car industry has one less lever to pull to charge premium prices for premium models, and thus makes less money. And we're talking about an industry that's already, at least in some quarters, struggling.
It's the same reason that we could but won't lower all speed limits by 15mph or 30mph. It would save many thousands of lives per year, and it would decrease economic output a bit. But the only cries that would matter are those that say driving slow is annoying/not fun.
> It's the same reason that we could but won't lower all speed limits by 15mph or 30mph. It would save many thousands of lives per year
You make the erroneous assumption that drivers will suddenly obey the new speed limits. That isn't going to happen. Second the fatality rate and total number of motor vehicle crashes is lower now than it was when the NMSL (National Maximum Speed Limit) was in effect.
Is it because Canada and Mexico? They have lower speed limits. Is it because the car could be exported to Germany and driven on the Autobahn? or what?