Big Brother - Speed Restricted Car in London

Is nothing sacred anymore ? What's the point of splashing out on a KIA when it can only go as fast as a Mahindra ?????????????????????????

Speed-restricted car: a review
They said the speed-curbing technology would make it impossible to get a ticket.

What Transport for London did not warn me about, as I became the first journalist to test-drive the prototype car equipped with Intelligent Speed Adaptation, was the reaction of other drivers.

My attempts to exceed the speed limit on a trial run in central London were, as predicted, futile.

The Toyota Prius sprinted up to 30mph as I turned onto the Embankment by the former Labour party headquarters at Millbank and joined a fast-moving stream of traffic.

I floored the throttle and the car whined noisily, to keep pace. But as I approached a speed camera and the speedometer jumped to 30mph, an eerie silence descended on the cabin.

It was as though the car was being held back by an invisible hand. The engine stopped revving and other vehicles sailed past.

Suddenly I was the lone adherent to the limit and no matter how hard I prodded the accelerator, the car refused to let me break the law.

I was rewarded by the ISA screen's smiley face but a line of frustrated drivers behind, baffled by my stubborn compliance and bullying me to go faster by driving too close.

It was intimidating but I resisted the impulse to hit the override button and join the headlong rush.

As I continued towards Whitehall – surely the rule of law would apply here? – even a bus tooted at me; I was in his way and going too slowly.

Statistics from TfL show that 58 per cent of people exceed the 30 speed limit, which must mean that 42 per cent obey it. But it felt a lot lonelier than this in the rush hour.

I drove to Kennington, on the south side of the River Thames, where the council has installed 20mph zones to tame rat-run traffic.

As we entered Fentiman Road the ISA screen – which had been showing 30 – blinked, flickered, and displayed 20.

Again, that invisible hand embraced the car, slowing it to a speed more suited to this residential area dotted with pubs, gardens and schools. Who could fault the ISA's system's quiet, insistent logic here?

And that's the point.

Like most motorists I want to be law-abiding. Up until now I'd believed I was. But this clever car exposes such self-delusions. Normally I try to keep to 30mph in town but in reality I must have been doing nearer 40 as I never drive this slowly.

Does ISA work? Yes.

Will it catch on? That's far harder to answer.

We all want traffic to slow down in our own road but it seems we want to speed along other people's – and certainly out in the countryside or along motorways.

This experiment is less about the technology, more about whether the public will accept it. That is the real challenge.

Source : The Telegraph