Never let your guard down

2door said:

.... a prototype of a system that would read bar codes painted on highways. ... but it would register/record whenever the vehicle exceeded the posted speed limit. .... law enforcement person could ..... write speeding tickets based on any violations recorded. ....... I'm all for enforcing traffic laws but allowing technology to do it is just downright George Orwell stuff. .........leave the robots to space exploration.

Tom

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Actually, Tom, I can't bring myself to agree.

And it's not like I'm a fan of the police state, by any means.

But driver misbehavior is beyond out-of-control. It's reached the point of being downright contemptuous of civility. Those who have insisted on making our roads seem like a scene from "Rollerball' have become numerous enough that 20th century style law enforcement is not up to the task. Maybe it could have been done if they'd tried harder. But it's too late now.

But if the cars themselves become the stool pigeons, then we have hope. That is, if law enforcement doesn't look the other way. Again.

I'm ambivalent about collision avoidance technology. I'm afraid it'll give drivers more excuse to be negligent. And they'll happily take all the excuse that they can find. But this same technology might force the cars themselves to behave in spite of it's driver. That seems like a decent hope.

Before I start ranting, I'll just close by saying that I take a very dim view of the average auto owner/operator. I think they've been begging for some sort of come-uppance.

All my cars except for the 1977 Datsun which I inherited from Mum were 1950's vehicles. I really don't like driving modern vehicles and I don't like strange magic systems that try to supposedly make driving safer. Because i was a motorcyclist and because I ride bicycles I drive very aware of all road users and i drive according to the conditions. It's not rocket science, but I'm continually amazed at how poorly and impatiently most people drive their vehicles these days. Here in the country the new hi-intensity headlights are becoming a problem too. A very high percentage of drivers don't bother to dip their lights for approaching traffic and being literally blinded off the road is a very real danger.

i rarely drive now and when I do I absolutely refuse to go anywhere near a major city. My daughter drives in city traffic fairly regularly, but then she did a special expert level driving course equivalent to what the NZ Police do as a part of their training so she is very well equipt to handle insane city driving conditions. What I find disturbing though is how often she has had to draw on that training in order to avoid a serious collision situation.