For safety’s sake – come on carmakers, give us ESC

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to communist russia.

Also I must disagree with the idea of speed limiters doing anything for private car safety. The EU have already mulled that one over and done studies, and whilst they haven’t outright dropped the idea, certainly don’t seem to be making a move on it any time soon. Those used on trucks are because LGVs take a loooooong time to stop when fully loaded, and it’s still decidedly in excess at 56 of what a car needs at 70… and that’s with decent modern braking systems, suspension and anti-jackknife towing-gear, let alone the rubbish outfitting of older models.

The ones fitted to vans are to save money, maintenance bills, improve the company’s image, discourage workers for taking the vehicles on jollies, and most of all prevent them from getting too many speeding fines addressed to the company. Hence why some are set at 68mph not 70 – it’s *just* slow enough to avoid triggering the majority of single carriageway fixed cameras (as well as conveniently being 110km/h, so they can use off-the-shelf systems).

Ever see how it gets when two limited drivers are vying for position, too?

Plus, it encourages drivers to switch off and disengage, much like cruise control does. Even with ISA (the EU’s GPS-based version which altered the limiter depending on location… presumably they were also going to commit to keeping the database absolutely up-to-date and infalliable somehow, and dealing with signal dropout?), this was a problem. People would just drive around with their foot on the floor and not adapt to changing road conditions as promptly as someone who was in full control – and had full responsibility. Because if you can’t go as fast as you want to go, when you’re able to (and, most of the time, can also do so safely), you’re likely going to instead try and go as fast as you’re *able* as much as possible… regardless of whether it’s entirely safe. Because every time you let off that throttle a bit, that’s a bit of speed, and a bit of time lost that you have no chance of sneakily making back up some other way when the opportunity presents itself. You can still cause a fair amount of damage at 20mph whacking something head-on without braking (… which is probably why auto-brake systems are also being introduced?) when you probably could have avoided it entirely having approached the danger area at 30, slowed right down to 15 or less for that short section, then accelerated again.

(For my part, I’ve driven a Smart ED, with an in-built 100~105km/h hard limiter. Around the city it was fine, perfectly punchy and all that. Get on a more open road, where over 60mph is possible and often legal – and with somewhere to get to with a suddenly reduced deadline that would be easily achievable in a safe, quasi legal (going by defacto rather than statutory limits) fashion without much stress… but now would be a close run thing… and it became an exercise in frustration. So instead of my usual fairly controlled, relaxed cruise, I had my foot buried in the carpet, not wanting to waste a single if I could help it, hunching over the wheel, cutting in and out of lanes and in some cases ending up with a dangerously short follow distance if the driver in front wasn’t entirely keeping up to speed, as I didn’t want to lift off and risk missing said deadline.)

It would be the same class of optional extra as ABS, airbags, side impact bars, an alarm, immobiliser, tracker or crooklock. Extras fitted in the name of safety or security generally DO have a beneficial effect on premiums. Unlike loud exhausts, a big stereo, aftermarket alloys, or a power-booster intake.