Alternate To Loosing Your License

[Teiresias]

Well we just saw an extreme example in another thread with the gent doing 180Km in the S15 on the way to Bulla, but l'll use it anyway.

We all know he has lost his license. Full stop. But what do people thing about perhaps approaching driver punishment differently? In a manner that allows him to keep his car?

I mean, we allow drink drivers to continue after several offenses, we just chuck an immobilizer on their cars, so why can't we approach 'hoons' in the same way?

I'm designing a device to monitor driver behavior for my thesis at uni. Only at the proposal stage at the moment but it's most likely going to use a 3 axis accelerometer and a GPS tracker. IT won't immobilize but record and report driving behaviors.

Already talking to Vic Roads about it too, might get some sort of sponsorship, we'll see what happens.

Anywho, any thoughts? Ideas? Anything you guys as drivers would like to see in such a device?

Discuss!

Thanks,

Teir.

[kaitoukid]

*Losing, for starters .

I'm meant to be doing an assignment myself; so not looking into it too deeply, I'll just ask one thing for now ; are you proposing this is implemented into every car (and eventually into some real-time feedback, with a devoted police unit or something of the like) - or rather as a disciplinary measure, such as the interlock, where you'd only have to have this provided you had an offense requiring this as a consequence? Or purely as a method of study for driver behaviour?

Would there not be a lot of grey area? I would imagine the lack of context would perhaps make it difficult to establish things such as the cause and effect of behaviour (correlation vs. causation).

Sounds pretty big brother to me also, jus' sayin'

/12:30am $0.02

/backtostudy

[Birds]

Drink drivers still lose their licence for a set period too; the immobiliser only comes after the person has got their licence to drive back afaik.

I do agree that something similar should be put in the cars of people coming off suspensions for ridiculous offenses, like 40km/h+ over.

Really though, if the government wanted to stamp out excessive speeding, we would have cars from factory/import fitted with speed governors that maxed the vehicle speed out at the highest post speed on Victorian roads (110).

Want to stamp out speeding altogether? Then you have a system of speed signs that transmit a signal to governors, altering the maximum speed the vehicle can do on that section of road and thereby making speeding impossible. Or you could make the fines ridiculous, like $1000 for 0-10km/h over...then watch everyone stay at least 5 under the speed limit at all times. Bit like littering fines in Singapore. Will it ever happen? No. Because governments, particularly Victorian, want you to speed. Revenue projections are made based on estimations of issuing fines. Budgets depend on people breaking the law. It would be shooting a big hole in the proverbial foot for a government to spend money on losing money.

[Odium]

Some points to think about...

Want to stamp out speeding altogether? Then you have a system of speed signs that transmit a signal to governors, altering the maximum speed the vehicle can do on that section of road and thereby making speeding impossible.

Cost to implement this would be extreme... Also if its broadcasting a signal saying "Speed Limit is xxx here" it would need to do it at the start of the street... So close to the corner of a 50km and 80km road for example. You've just turned from one road onto the other, which is the correct speed limit if you're receiving 2 signals?

GPS is another solution, I've got software on my phone which tells me the current speed limit for the road I'm travelling on (Trapster) as well as my current speed. Within 10 meters or so of a changed speed limit sign, it alerts me.
However GPS isn't always great quality in all locations... Really cloudy or rainy days lowers accuracy, as does driving through the CBD with lots of tall buildings around.

Sometimes when I'm on a 110km freeway, GPS spears me off to a sidestreet 50m to my left and yells at me that I'm doing 110km/h in a 40km/h school zone...

In this situation, would it send an alert to my "speeding probation officer" telling him to lock me up and throw away the key? How would I prove I wasn't speeding, if the 'evidence' shows that I was.

If this is linked to speed limiting the vehicles, would it slam on the brakes for me? down to 40 in a 110 zone?

Now though... Next Gen GPS Technologies are being tested to replace the current GPS system which is prone to "hacking" from localised transmissions. So one day the GPS issues I've just mentioned could be null and void. Until then though, I don't think we possess the tech / money to make this work effectively.

[Steve37]

Most trucks are speed limited.

most new GPS systems show you the current speed of the road you're on(mine works really well)

Design a little black box that gets put in after X offenses that uses the GPS systems speed zones, and the trucks speed limiter.

[Odium]

Truck speed limiters are a bit different, they don't need to think about the current road speed limit, they just kick in at 110km/h as most of the occasions that truckies would speed is on the long straights where they trying to save time (Melbourne -> Sydney etc)

If I turn from a 60km/h road onto a 110km/h highway onramp, I want to be able to accelerate to 110 right away... if GPS data is erroneous (it does happen) then it may think I'm still in the 60 zone and not allow me to accelerate up to the speed that traffic around me is doing. Horribly dangerous.

[Steve37]

yea but hes designing a whole new system?

That could be something that they could work on, just an idea

[Teiresias]

Most trucks are speed limited.

most new GPS systems show you the current speed of the road you're on(mine works really well)

Design a little black box that gets put in after X offenses that uses the GPS systems speed zones, and the trucks speed limiter.

I don't want the device to have any control full stop. I believe that's far too dangerous, it will be making real time readings but won't be able to make safety judgments. So no.

There's also a technical issue with that - connecting with the ecu to limit speed. On a newer car ~ older than 2001 it's fine, most of them have OBDII so you can connect using its CAN bus or other means. Any car older (and there's still plenty of them around) won't work with that system, so you'd have to individually design interfaces for each and every electronic management system. Even the R34 doesn't use OBDII, it uses consort, same with the s15 I think.

*Losing, for starters .

I'm meant to be doing an assignment myself; so not looking into it too deeply, I'll just ask one thing for now ; are you proposing this is implemented into every car (and eventually into some real-time feedback, with a devoted police unit or something of the like) - or rather as a disciplinary measure, such as the interlock, where you'd only have to have this provided you had an offense requiring this as a consequence? Or purely as a method of study for driver behaviour?

Would there not be a lot of grey area? I would imagine the lack of context would perhaps make it difficult to establish things such as the cause and effect of behaviour (correlation vs. causation).

Sounds pretty big brother to me also, jus' sayin'

/12:30am $0.02

/backtostudy

I'm applying the idea in a manner that compliments the existing breathalyser immobilizer done in drink driving cases.

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At the moment the idea is to use GPS tracking to get the traveling speed and the current speed zone. This will be backed up by an accelerometer. So in cases where the GPS has gone awry on speed calculations you can pull a rough idea off the accelerometer and compare the two.

You can also use the accelerometer to measure other things such as sideways movement, vibration, etc. So for example if someone is doing a burn out you MIGHT (and I do have to do testing obviously) be able to use the z axis on the accelerometer to identify it via the vibrations. I'm trying to consider other sensors as well that might help create a good picture of behaviors.

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As for speed zone accuracy I'll have to look at that during testing and see how I can implement restraints or cool downs around it. Taking the example above - moving into a 100 zone from a 60, I might have to add a 15 second hold time either side of a speed zone change (so before the change and after), so that the system doesn't flag based on GPS stuff ups.

Please, keep the conversation going! This is all very valuable for my implementation research. I'm especially keep on opinions on it all and may even ask people if I can quote them, as I'll have to talk about stakeholders in my reports and you guys (motorists) are obviously a major stakeholder.

[Jack-]

How about some simple video footage? "Hoons" have mandatory camera(s) installed dash/rear whatever, with a live feed to a central hub. The hub would be scare tactic if its disabled/blocked as someone may be viewing the feed in real time.

[Odium]

People would be in uproar about something like that... Our government overloads going all Big Brother and watching our movements, locations, etc

[Jack-]

What's different about that compared to GPS? If it's real time "they" will still know where person X is at all times... GPS and sensors report back data in numbers and letters, video does the same thing except with images...

the downside is the amount of data that needs to be stored via a video live feed..

[Teiresias]

What's different about that compared to GPS? If it's real time "they" will still know where person X is at all times... GPS and sensors report back data in numbers and letters, video does the same thing except with images...

the downside is the amount of data that needs to be stored via a video live feed..

The video data size really isn't that bad, you wouldn't need a massive resolution but for the reason stated - privacy, I don't think I would.

Concerning the GPS, it won't be tracking. Just because it can take position readings doesn't mean I have to record them. No, I'll be recording the speed zone they're in, and the speed they're doing, but likely not the physical position they're in. If that's possible anyway. I'd have to ask Vic Roads when I talk to them next.

TD;DL

I'd prefer not to record their position via GPS.

[XGTRX]

Why don't you do your thesis to reduce the road toll. 98% of accidents are due to driver error and not speed related at all. It's just speed makes more money.

It's funny, I remember a German expert coming over as an advisor for the government to help in reducing our road toll...he recommended that we fix our roads, lift our speed limits and train our drivers. Well that was a waste of our money wasn't it.

[Teiresias]

Why don't you do your thesis to reduce the road toll. 98% of accidents are due to driver error and not speed related at all. It's just speed makes more money.

It's funny, I remember a German expert coming over as an advisor for the government to help in reducing our road toll...he recommended that we fix our roads, lift our speed limits and train our drivers. Well that was a waste of our money wasn't it.

Besides for it unfortunately already being a bit late for that as the projects are fixed, It's an electrical engineering degree, so the thesis is more about designing and creating a device rather than fixing a social issue. My major is computer system and network engineering, this project fits in more to the computer systems side of things.

[AGE]

Easy way to lower the road toll for younger drivers....

Ban all Commondoors and Falcons for anyone under 25. Thesis the shit out of that.

(sorry i'm drunk atm )

[kaitoukid]

Can we ban them from everyone 25 and over?

[drunkn snail]

sounds pretty good, although i dont think it could always work ie 4x4s could slide, do burnouts etc and just claim they were doing some 4wding

[Teiresias]

sounds pretty good, although i dont think it could always work ie 4x4s could slide, do burnouts etc and just claim they were doing some 4wding

Nice one, I didn't think of that.

Well, in theory, via the accelerometer you should be able to tell that someone has gone off road in the first place, and adjust expectations accordingly.

[Odium]

An accelerometer isn't going to know the difference between a burnout or a slide compared to cruising along at 60 on a rough road... or turning a corner. Unless you combine it with GPS which adds in the speed factor to the equation... but its still not reliable enough...

Pulling Data from the front and rear wheel abs sensors and ecu's speed would be able to accurately detect a burnout or powerslide. The only time that the rears should be turning faster than the fronts is during a burnout or emergency braking...

[Teiresias]

An accelerometer isn't going to know the difference between a burnout or a slide compared to cruising along at 60 on a rough road... or turning a corner. Unless you combine it with GPS which adds in the speed factor to the equation... but its still not reliable enough...

Pulling Data from the front and rear wheel abs sensors and ecu's speed would be able to accurately detect a burnout or powerslide. The only time that the rears should be turning faster than the fronts is during a burnout or emergency braking...

An accelerometer with a high enough resolution and 3 axis shouldn't have an issue with that at all... A GPS won't detect sideways movement.

As mentioned above, pulling data off the ECU is practically impossible to do across all car models. They all use different electronic management systems before ~2001.

Whilst I have to do testing, I'm confident that yes, the accelerometer will produce data that allows differentiation. It's a matter of analyzing that data and flagging it as such when recognized.