Resistance Is Futile
Someday – and that day might be closer than you want to know – we’ll look back fondly on speed traps.
Because at least you could speed. Give the finger – via the accelerator pedal – to ridiculous, dumbed-down/one-size-fits-all velocity maximums laid down by bureaucrats whose prime directive always seems to be to suck the joy out of everything, especially driving.
Sometimes, of course, you’d get caught – and fined.
But most of the time you could “get away” with it. (Kind of like the way people used to be able to “get away” with not buying health insurance, if they decided it wasn’t something they needed.)
Tomorrow, you may not be able to “speed” even if you wanted to.
Because your car will not allow you to.
The uber governor – Ford’s Intelligent Speed Limiter – will see to that.
It uses cameras and GPS mapping technology to keep track of the speed limit in real time – that is, as you drive – on whatever road you happen to be on at any given moment and – by dialing back the throttle – prevents the vehicle from exceeding it. Mash the pedal all you like. Resistance is, indeed, futile.
Some of us saw this coming.
A few months back, I did an article (Heebie Jeebies) about what I suspected was on deck.
I began to notice that the new cars I was getting to test drive and review that had GPS (which these days is almost all of them) were aware of my speeding. The GPS map that shows the road you’re on also told you (oh-so-helpfully) the speed limit on that road. A little icon that looked exactly like a white with black numerals roadside speed limit sign popped up – and stayed up – as you drove. It changed as the speed limit changed. 55 to 45 to 35 – and so on.
Interesting.
Even more interesting was the next step.
I noticed one day that if I drove faster than the posted limit, the little icon immediately turned angry red. The car knew I was speeding. And almost certainly by exactly how much. Every new car – every car built since the mid-’90s – has wheel speed sensors (a component of the ABS, which virtually all modern cars have and have had for more than a decade at least) as well as OBD II – On Board Diagnostics – which knows pretty much everything about how the car is driven, including its speed at any given moment..
This data is also stored in the car’s Event Data Recorder, or “black box” (recently mandated by the government) and can be accessed without your consent by third parties – the coppers, the insurance mafia – and will be used against you.)
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