Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge My poor British brothers

I read this article at motorcycledaily.com.

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the latest news from across the pond is that the British government's transportation department has supported the development of an anti-speeding system that uses GPS technology to determine if a rider is speeding, and will actually force the motorcycle to slow to the legal limit.

The system is currently being trialed on a small test track which has speed limits that have been mapped by satellite and then programmed into the control unit. Apparently a map of every road in the UK (with appropriate speed limits for each) is currently in the works.

When the speed control unit detects that the bike is speeding, it reduces speed by cutting fuel delivery to the engine - independent of rider input.
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So when are you going to throw the tea in the harbor and enjoy the same freedoms we do?

Post deleted by Grump

Sal(Derek)-I had heard this also and hope it never makes it to law for precicely Grumps reasons. Speed is a double edged sword- it is a lack of skills by all road users that is the problem.

On an alternative synical note- a large revenue comes from speed cameras. one camera I heard is expected to draw in a revenue of $14million per year. When cameras are no longer a source of viable revenue, then perhaps...



oh by the way, I could not get your link to http://www.motorcycledaily.com/17march06_speed.htm to work;
hopefully this one will?

Ya see Derek....That's the problem with not having EMPIRE anymore!!! All that energy eventually turns inward and becomes a burden upon it's own homelanders. Once those "poor Brits" over there lost India back in '47, stuff like this was BOUND TO HAPPEN!!!

Cheers,
Dwight

They should invest their tax dollars on a nation wide dental plan instead.

That is nuts! Amazing how it seems like they are singling out motorcycles. It would also seem that it may be next to impossible to implement because of so many varying speedzones. For example, you are going 35 and come up to a school zone that for a couple hundred yards is 25. Then if you have Micky Moron tailing you in his 2 ton pick-up truck... OUCH!

Soren

Sounds like something out of "V for Vendetta."

So, how many are currently working on ways to block GPS signals? Or, better yet, emulate the signals needed for a low speed indication?
What happens to this system when you go through a tunnel?
How many lawsuits will be filed if it doesn't disable itself when you go to a different country?
What provision is there to update the system if speedlimits are changed?
How many people are able to hack into the system and set all your speed limits to 10000 MPH?
Sonce the plod are not usually smart enough to know about hacking, will they assume it is working and ignore people who are speeding?
Will it be possible to hack the system on the MP's lemo and make it think there is a minimum 200KPH speed limit?

IF this came to be

who would pay for the GPS systems to be put on our bikes?

also

opps I accidently pulled the power wire out when I was washing the bike....

As much as I have an affinity for our Limey bros, I have to say that the Uk is the most "Big Brother" country of any "Democratic" nation that I know of. They have more surveillance cameras per capita than anyone else, and I think the UK is an example of creeping "for our own goodedness" that we in the US should be mindful of.

Which JB, brings us right back to this here "Empire Theory" o' mine!!!

You see without some expanding energy spent to gain influence over others outside of your own present territory, all those effort are usually turned inward to influence the lives of the host subject(s).

HEY! Come to think of it, maybe I should re-think my opposition to Dubya's master plans, huh?

I mean....which of the following would I want to have to put up with, anyway???

I guess it's either we expend billions upon billion of our bucks, all that time, and the lives of our brave soldiers(like yourself) in efforts to teach those idiots over there in the Middle East how reasonably well a modern democracy can work without the influences of some crackpot religious order(all the while gaining access to their oil fields)...OR...take all those resources to make sure I don't "open her up" on some lonely stretch o' highway HERE in the STATES!!!(like those TOO FAR left-leaning brit politicians will evidently try to do)

Hey! Is it TOO LATE to repeal that 22nd Amendment so we can all enjoy yet another 4 years of G.W.Bush's leadership?

NAW! On second thought...Never mind!!

I don't think I could stand ANOTHER 4 years o' that guy insulting my intelligence whenever he opens those crooked little thin lips o' his!!!

Cheers,
Dwight
(why, oh why, does the world have to be a constant choice between the "devil and the deep blue sea". HUH???)

(in other words....ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE FREAKIN' MIDDLE ROAD)

Hey Derek
I mentioned / bleated before on here of a system the goverment (Department of Knee-Jerk Reactions) plan to introduce.

The plan is for every vehicle to have a 'black box' fitted to their cars.
The idea being we pay for every mile we use the roads.

More expensive in rush hour and on main roads, less expensive during non-rush hour and on side roads.

1. From your position and distance travelled, they can work out your speed - tickets in the mail.
2. Rush hour will spread over a longer period of time as people try to avoid this time of day.
3. Quiet country roads and side roads will be awash with people avoiding main roads.

The government puppet that was talking about it said it would be persued when the technologoy is available.
How thick are these people - it's already here!!
What's satnav??
Nobody let on though, eh?

People use to say that G.O. was out of his mind when he wrote 1984. The only thing he was out of his mind about was the year 1984. Everything is getting closer to what he wrote about, even the bits about re-writing the dictionary and history books.

Soren

As an ex-Brit living in Canada, let me put in a plug for my adopted homeland. Canada is just too big and has too small a tax base to afford a camera on every street corner. And in the province of Ontario where I live, the provincial government that started putting speed cams on the road was turfed out in favour of the party that promised to remove them. The promise was duly kept and no speed cams for years now.

Some freedoms are eroding though: citizens of both Canada and the US have been happily traveling across the border using just a drivers license for ID for eons, but the US Border folks are working hard to kill that. Clearly drunken teenagers on road trips to Spring Break in Miami and the steady flow of French Canadian strippers and TV news readers are posing major security risks that were somehow unnoticed in days gone by.

And I'm glad to say that Canadians are being active at trying to extend their freedoms to made adult decisions. Regular Canadians, not drugcrazed hippies, have been trying to get their politicians to decriminalize the use of marijuana and we seemed to be edging closer under our last government. Unfortunately the fairly minor freedom to get a good buzz every now and again has been aggressively attacked by US lawmakers who are busy waging a colosally ineffective "war on drugs" and don't seem to want us to have any fun.

In my view it's a bloody shame that the governments who are spearheading freedom drives on the other side of the world are steadily eroding the hard won freedoms of their own citizens and subjects at home.

Maybe Canada will be the future land of the free. It will still be bloody cold though!

Just my $0.02.

Chris

I guess they need all that camera revenue to repair the sewer under the still-inder-construction Wembley Stadium. Just heard the pipes collapsed and it might take 8 months to repair them.

Dwight,

I don't think an ignition source is wise around that problem. Could be a big methane gas explosion from all those pints washing down all that bubble & squeak.

And you'll love this quote from a local Wembley politician:

This is a shocking setback,'' said Bob Blackman, a city assembly member representing the Wembley area, in an e-mailed statement today. ``We need to know what on earth is going on.''

The problem isn't ON the earth, it's UNDER the earth.

And speaking of igniter boxes....I just called Palm Beach Triumph, and they said they shipped the igniter on Wednesday( I hope they didn't send it FedEx or I'll have to canvas the neighborhood like a vaccuum salesman). So by Monday or Tuesday I should be riding again. Can't wait! The weather just turned nice too. It's supposed to be around 80 degrees everyday for the next week.

ANPR is alive and kicking - I passed an unmarked white van with lots of aerials parked just off J23A of the M1, near my head office, the other day. 3(!) police cars were pulling lots of people for no obvious reasons. I can only assume it was ANPR in action

It has to be said that the number of CCTV cameras is getting out of hand as well. I hate the feeling that you're always being watched. The standard response is "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to worry about", but it does't feel right somehow.

This post might explain my new post about the Brits using the Telephone while naked. You are in deep doodoo over there. TR