EU, the uninvited "conscious" of humanity, where 'laws' replace Darwin Award apprentices?

Unfortunately when 'Darwin Award apprentices' take to the road they inevitably endanger other road users / pedestrians.

I do get a bit tired of the knee-jerk reactions that any EU safety legislation gets. I usually find that when you dig a bit deeper beyond the Daily Mail type headline ("isn't this awful" format) the proposals are usually not as bad as portrayed.

I also appreciate that we should be able to choose to break speed limits and face the legal consequences should we wish to. However there is a difference between a calculated risk decision and a foolhardy 'Darwin Award apprentice' attitude to speed.

Gee I wonder what EU related family builds those systems....You can override the system by pressing on the accelerator? Ha Ha!....and this just in: you can cut emissions by shutting off the engine...

Well another cottage industry is born, disabling this system...morons

On this side of the pond there are a lot of small towns that depend on that speeding ticket revenue from "tourists" passing through..

That's the rumor anyhow.

Maybe people have to start paying a law abiding tax just like they have to pay an electric tax for getting rid of gasoline.

Well this is all well and good and makes sense for your standard on-the-road vehicle but what about special cases like Germanys Autobahn, track race days or other cases where it is legal to travel above the speed limit for extended periods of time?

Atleast they are now thinking about vehicle overtaking, but how do you stop excessive speeding using the manual override? A timer system perhaps. How do you prevent people from bypassing the system by disabling the GPS (and cameras)?

Sounds like more thought needs to go into an otherwise sound idea before it is implemented in a way that could be very expensive to fix in the future.

The answer lies in "on-the-road". The Autobahn system is public road where the regulations will also apply, race tracks are not. People who wish to use their road vehicles on tracks are going to expect more scrutiny.

Another coercion card in the deck is the insurance companies. It won't be long before if you don't consent to having one of their Big Brother driving trackers on board, your premiums will soar. Even if the laws have any flexibility, it will get very expensive to opt out of this crap. And very expensive to have an older car that doesn't inherently include the tracking capability, since the insurance companies' black boxes will be available. Use one, comrade, or pay 3x higher premiums.

jhammond

For a while, my insurance company offered a smartphone app which logged my driving. It was quite helpful in pointing out the junctions where accidents more frequently occurred, and after a few months I actually got some money back. Then they discontinued the scheme :(

Discontinued the money back?

Or the whole tracking business?

The whole tracking business.

Insurance companies forcing all citizens, through enactment of laws, to do something shouldn't bring out a reference to communism (comrade). It's actually more in line with the tenets of fascism.

I heard a news report this morning concerning EU and automobile black boxes. The story related to issues that car manufacturers don't want to share data from the black box with Google and Apple and privacy legislation being discussed. Where the story went is that the black box is potentially being considered by some of the EU governments to automatically report overspeeding if you connect to a phone or the cloud and allow the authorities to automatically issue you a speeding ticket.

Ah the good ole' days....

"He who knows best knows how little he knows."

- Thomas Jefferson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barchetta