EU's Proposal for Satellite-Based Speed Regulation Faces Criticism
The EU is considering a plan to connect vehicles with satellites to enforce speed limits, aiming to enhance road safety. However, the proposal has faced criticism over its reliability and potential issues.
Could cars soon autonomously adhere to speed limits? The European Union is exploring a plan to connect vehicles with satellites to enhance road safety. However, this proposal has sparked significant debate.
Speeding has become a major concern for the EU. According to the European Commission's website, the risk of accidents increases by two percent for every additional kilometer per hour above 120 kilometers per hour. At a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, the risk rises by four percent. Alarmingly, it's estimated that between 40 to 50 percent of drivers exceed speed limits, typically driving ten kilometers per hour over the legal limit. This trend may soon be addressed.
Satellites to Regulate Vehicle Speeds
As reported by The Telegraph, the European Commission is considering a new regulation requiring all new vehicles to be equipped with a device capable of connecting to satellites starting in 2030. This device would allow satellites to accurately track the car's location.
In addition to satellite connectivity, the system would utilize 5G signals to verify the vehicle's position on a digital map, complemented by cameras that can read traffic signs. For instance, if a vehicle traveling at 85 kilometers per hour enters a zone with a speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour, the system would detect this and automatically reduce the car's speed accordingly.
Drivers would have limited ability to override this system temporarily, allowing them to exceed the speed limit briefly for overtaking or avoiding hazards. However, the system would quickly revert to enforcing the speed limit afterward.
Concerns Surrounding the EU's Proposal
The Daily Mail notes that while the concept isn't entirely new—similar technology is already employed in Lime e-scooters, which automatically slow down when entering speed-restricted areas—there are still considerable concerns regarding its implementation for cars. Proponents of the regulation believe it could significantly decrease fatal accidents caused by excessive speeds.
However, critics have raised serious doubts about the reliability of such systems. Hugh Bladon from the Alliance of British Drivers expressed skepticism, stating, "The system must be absolutely infallible—and that will never be the case. I have a car that is a year old. Every time I drive a specific road outside my city, it thinks there's a 30-mile-per-hour limit when it's actually 50 miles per hour. If this wonderful technology suddenly slows me down to 30 miles per hour, what happens to the driver behind me?"
Thatcham Research, a research institute, has also cautioned against the implementation of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems. They pointed out that current testing only evaluates these systems over longer stretches of road, not on the accuracy of individual decisions made by the system. For example, the vehicle with the lowest ISA performance achieved 91.3 percent accuracy over a long distance, but this figure drops to 74.3 percent when each speed decision is assessed individually. This indicates that such a system could misjudge speed limits one out of every four times.
