Re: OT: Converting miles/km

Le 21/09/2024 à 16:10, Aidan Kehoe a écrit :

Hibou hat am 21.09.2024 um 09:20 geschrieben:

>
Our recent hire cars have displayed the speed limit, as read from limit
signs via their cameras. It is often wrong, displaying a recent speed
limit, not the current one - unsurprisingly, since in France there are a
variety of signs that set the speed (a crossed-out place name, for
instance), the camera lens may be dirty, a lorry may mask a sign, and so
on.
>
Apparently, the crazy EU has made this flawed system the basis for
mandatory speed limiters (and the crazy UK has followed suit). If you
run into someone stuck at 30 kph on a 130 kph autoroute, that's probably
the reason.

 A mandatory warning is part of the law, but actual restriction is not,

Do you have a source for that, a link?

so
should you be in those occasional situations where breaking the speed limit is
safer than following it, you can (usually, depending on your manufacturer) just
keep the foot on the accelerator despite the alarm.

I think such situations are routine, not occasional.

"However, our experience of such systems suggests they can get it wrong.
In one instance, a car's traffic sign recognition system picked up a
30mph sign on a turning off a dual carriage and dramatically slowed
down, despite the fact the car was actually travelling along the outside
lane" -
<https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-advice/speed-limiters-what-they-mean-for-you/>
>
God preserve us from government!

 Apart from things like seatbelt laws, high taxes on tobacco, enforced rules on
food safety, regulation of medication? Or are you completely fine with easily
avoidable death and major disability, shorter and worse-quality lives, mass
poisonings, more mass poisonings? The middle option saves on taxes given if you
die at 63 from lung cancer you won’t draw much in the way of state pension, so
there is a financial but not humanitarian argument for it. There’s no argument
for the rest.

I think you've missed my point, which was that the system for determining the speed limit is thoroughly unreliable, and not a suitable basis for restrictors, or even alarms sounding in drivers' ears.
Let's explore a bit. To what extent should the state - or in the EU's case the superstate - constrain people in order to make them safe?
A thought experiment. A parallel to inappropriate speed might be inappropriate eating (I expect you know more about this than I).
"In the long-term, eating junk food can lead to: type 2 diabetes / heart-related problems (such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and cholesterol) / overweight and obesity / osteoporosis / certain cancers / depression /eating disorders / These complications are all associated with a diet high in sugar, salt, trans- and saturated fats and with a lack of essential nutrients like fibre, vitamins and minerals" -
<https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/junk-food-and-your-health#complications>
Now, suppose it were possible to make an electronic implant that monitored blood constituents, could detect when someone was digesting junk food, and give that person a stomach ache.
Should the state force people to have that implant to save a proportion of them from illness and premature death?
What if the implants' sensors were unreliable, and they often gave people stomach aches even when they were eating healthily? Should the state still make them mandatory?