Electric cars only? Howzabout<\/p>\n
New York Senator Pushes Bill Mandating Speed Limiters for All Cars.<\/a><\/p>\n Per capita roadway fatalities have seen dramatic increases over the last two years and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has suggested that 2022 might actually end up being the deadliest year it has ever recorded in regard to the total body count. So there are a lot of people in politics that have concerned themselves with getting those numbers down. Unfortunately, the solutions are often to leverage more of the technology that data is starting to show might have gotten us into this predicament in the first place.<\/p>\n Manhattan State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-NY) introduced just such a bill on August 12th, one that would effectively require all new vehicles to incorporate some form of speed-limiting technology by 2024 and direct the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish new rules for all transportation over 3,000 pounds. Considering that even teensy hatchbacks like the Mini Cooper already clock in dangerously close to that threshold, such a law would impact just about everything with four wheels that\u2019s bigger than a Mazda MX-5 or Nissan Kicks.<\/p>\n The bill (\u00a0S9528<\/a>) stipulates that modern vehicles provide \u201cdirect visibility of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users from the drivers [sic] position.\u201d This is being done in an effort to curb pedestrian fatalities that have been on the rise in most major cities. But there\u2019s a lack of clarity in terms of how that would be implemented. Studies have shown that full-sized, flat-faced pickups and SUVs often have a blind spot just ahead of the front bumper \u2013 meaning they\u2019d either have to be redesigned or implement some kind of camera system that would display the area to the driver. But the same could be said of the zones directly beside and behind almost every vehicle, presumably requiring an array of cameras and screens.<\/p>\n Vehicles sold in New York State would also need to have the latest advanced driving aids \u2013 things like lane keeping, automatic emergency braking, and blind spot monitoring \u2013 to pass muster after 2024. That\u2019s in addition to the speed-limiting technologies that are at the forefront of the bill. New York City has actually been piloting an \u201cIntelligent Speed Assistance\u201d (ISA) program that uses a vehicle\u2019s GPS and software capable of reading road signs to electronically limit its speed based on its present location. It sounds like a novel concept but it\u2019s actually not.\u00a0The European Union is actually requiring all new vehicles to have some form of ISA after July 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Hoylman\u2019s proposals have some strong headwinds to confront. Americans generally don\u2019t like anything that curtails their freedoms and New York doesn\u2019t actually have any formal jurisdiction over what everyone else drives. However, Hoylman has suggested that NY could become a trendsetter similar to how Californian legislation has fundamentally influenced national emission laws. Hell, it wasn\u2019t more than a few years ago when select automakers were lining up to proclaim that they would be shunning federal standards set by the Trump administration\u00a0in favor of whatever limits the California Air Resources Board (CARB) said would be permissible<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think that, if New York goes first, we could push the marketplace and have an effect across the country,\u201d he told\u00a0Streetsblog<\/i><\/a>\u00a0in an interview, adding that the present \u201cpatchwork\u201d where only some cars have the latest technology was unacceptable.<\/p>\n But adding such systems could add thousands to the base price of many automobiles during a period where vehicles have already grown prohibitively expensive. Your author is also unconvinced this will move the needle on pedestrian fatalities when there\u2019s mounting evidence that a lot of the technology that\u2019s in modern cars actually encourages distracted driving. That, combined with the fact that cars have been getting heavier, certainly hasn\u2019t given foot traffic the edge at intersections. Meanwhile, I have my own theory that accident rates frequently seem to track with economic strife in a manner that mimics crime rates. Substance abuse is also way up in the United States and has undoubtedly played a factor in the elevated fatalities witnessed since 2020.<\/p>\n Blindly regulating more tech in cars could end up being counterproductive if those systems rely on a distracting interface or consumers decide it\u2019s just too invasive to live with \u2013 which it probably will be. A lot of these urban initiatives designed to fundamentally change how we travel have backfired already, frankly. Senator Hoylman even seemed conscious that NYC had failed with Vision Zero \u2013 an earlier safety program brimming with buzz terms like sustainability, equity, mobility, and stakeholders \u2013 that lowered the citywide speed limit while adding more bike lanes, traffic cameras, and automated tolls.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impetus of the bill is the failure of the promise of Vision Zero,\u201d Hoylman said, adding that NYC endured 273 traffic deaths last year. That represents a noteworthy increase since Vision Zero was introduced in 2014, despite reduced fatalities being the program\u2019s main goal.<\/p>\n Hoylman\u2019s staff said that they are presently seeking an Assembly sponsor for the bill and would be holding hearings on it when the legislature comes back into session in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Electric cars only? Howzabout New York Senator Pushes Bill Mandating Speed Limiters for All Cars. Per capita roadway fatalities have seen dramatic increases over the last two years and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has suggested that 2022 might actually end up being the deadliest year it has ever recorded in regard to … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,50,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-goobermint","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-tyrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85033,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85032\/revisions\/85033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}