Drivers are concerned that the use of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) will compromise safety, according to a poll conducted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM).
The IAM references an article in The Guardian which suggests that the EU is considering introducing a requirement for ISA technology to be installed in new vehicles. The technology would be capable of detecting limits through cameras or satellites and automatically applying the brakes. The Guardian piece also suggests that it could be mandatory for the technology to be retro-fitted to existing vehicles.
In an IAM poll of 690 drivers, 78% of respondents do not support the retro-fitting of ISA technology, while 57% feel that the technology will not have a positive impact on road safety in terms of reducing crashes and casualties.
However, the IAM says the survey shows “overwhelming support” for ISA when vehicle control remains with the driver. 67% of respondents said they would prefer ISA to operate with warning messages, but no control of the vehicle.
In terms of benefits of ISA, 52% of respondents thought it would reduce the likelihood of speeding convictions and would result in less money spent on traffic calming measures such as road humps.
31% of respondents feel that ISA should be restricted to younger drivers, newly qualified drivers and drivers with previous road-related convictions.
Simon Best, IAM chief executive, said: “ISA could help to save lives but it’s clear that drivers remain dubious about the benefits of the technology. More research into the benefits would help to reassure the public that this will improve road safety.
“Unfortunately, over a third of respondents see this as a way of controlling drivers. I believe if drivers are trained properly and have access to on-going learning, the Government would not need to enforce ISA.”
Click here to read the full IAM news release.
What “freedom” is Terry Hudson and the ABD of Kent looking for? The freedom to exceed the speed limit? To break the law? And how do these “freedoms” compare to the freedom from drivers exceeding the speeds which a community democratically decides is appropriate?
Rod King 20’s Plenty for Us
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Personal freedom, choice, to be treated as an individual, liberty, independence and many other similar meaning – words, you will not find in the pro ISA dictionary.
Terry Hudson
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please read http://www.fightbackwithfacts.com/intelligent-speed-adaptation/ for more detail and (crucially) the experience of an ISA volunteer delighted to hand back his ISA car, for all the reasons experienced drivers could predict including sudden braking due to invalid GPS data, just after overtaking a HGV!
Benefit calculations are absurd, assuming constant casualty levels ties (without ISA) for a few years then rising due to rising volume. In fact casualties have since fallen substantially and “peak traffic” is believed to have passed. Have they never needed to accelerate out of trouble? Or been at risk because they couldn’t? Don’t they know that decades ago airlines found that the more they automated pilots’ tasks the less well they responded in emergencies e.g. Air France pilots stalled into the Pacific from 30,000 feet because even in the 15 minutes it took they couldn’t remember what to do? Drivers have 1.5 seconds if lucky!
Idris Francis Fight Back with Facts Petersfield
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Rod: The incident I particularly remember was when a motorist was significantly over the 30 limit (downhill as well) and when stopped, was astonished that this had happened at all as ‘he had set the cruise control to 30’ which in his view absolved him from any responsibilty! As a consequence, he was not as involved in his driving as he might have been without this aid – not even enough to monitor his speedo. So it’s not so much the sudden braking and ‘foot-to-the-floor’ mentality that worries me, it’s this ‘detached’ mentality that ISA may generate.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Hugh: I guess you are suggesting that ISA that prevented someone exceeding the speed limit could lead to them keeping their “foot to the floor”.
That’s a fair point, but I would suggest that an appropriate ergonomic design of ISA could overcome this temptation. This could include a warning if one was pressing the accelerator more than that needed to maintain speed at or below the limit. That therefore is about the detail of the design rather than the principle of ISA.
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Rod: Having encountered motorists who thought it was okay to set their cruise control to 30 whilst driving through a built-up area and let the car do the rest, I shudder to think what bad driver attitudes ISA will cultivate.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Too much protesting I fear! Surely the whole point of the ISA being suggested is that by controlling the ability of the vehicle to travel “above the prevailing speed limit” then you would never need to apply the brakes suddenly to conform to the speed limit.
Society already endorses the control of the speed of motor vehicle speed in order to equitably share the roads with other users, to create an appropriate “envelope of time and distance” to maximise the avoidance of potential collisions, to reduce pollution, noise, etc. Using ISA to ensure smooth compliance with such limits seems practical and beneficial. As such it should be constructively considered.
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Did some work on this a couple of years ago for the Saferider scheme which proposed ISA and a raft of other technologies to be made mandatory on motorcycles. It was a lethal proposal then and it’s a lethal proposal now.
What they failed to realise is that when you restrict a control on a car or bike you immediately change the status of the vehicle from ‘well within the control envelope’ to ‘flat-out’ and when vehicles are flat-out they are a long way from being safe! When we pointed out that they had several years of data from the fleet of 50cc scooters and mopeds operating in the EU with a 30mph restriction which showed that they were just as lethal as unrestricted bikes they went rather quiet.
As with all things that emanate from the EU, nothing is really ever killed off, but lies dormant for a while before bursting forth again.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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Bearing in mind the number of rear end shunts that occur, a device that could compute a vehicle’s proximity to the vehicle in front in relation to its speed and then issue an audible warning that the driver simply couldn’t ignore, would be a good idea, but actually taking control of the vehicle to slow it could do more harm than good. Same with speed limits – an alert yes, but no direct interference with the vehicle. A bit like a VAS on the roadside – a good wake-up call is sometimes all that is needed to get an unattentive driver to re-focus.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Drivers are right to be concerned. Two or three years ago, I asked the advocates of ISA for their argument that the safety positives would outweigh the negatives. They did not have a safety case and evidently were not developing one. This item mentions “automatically applying the brakes”. Brakes applied suddenly when there may be no other cues to the driver behind will inevitably lead to more shunts. No collisions are caused by a driver exceeding a speed limit, and some could be triggered by, say, a speed limiter cutting in during an overtake. I work on high integrity systems but the indications are that the integrity of ISA would be no better than a satnav.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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Some organisations will not be happy if this was to come to fruition. The millions of speed courses offered would stop overnight.
Keith
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