MEPs bid to ban 102mph

[henk4]

So then this legislation makes even less sense.

well it would prevent people from loosing their license at least...

[The_Canuck]

well it would prevent people from loosing their license at least...

I'd rather have dangerous drivers lose their license.

[Ferrer]

There are other issues that are more important to cutting down emissions but as far as i can tell electronically limiting cars to 160km/h isn't really that bad of an idea. It's better than doing nothing and it wont cost a lot of money and it will still make a change. We gotta take every chance that we can; it's gonna be a war of fractions of a percent to get emissions down.

As I said previously I think it's better to work on making more efficient engines and cars not limiting their speed.

Dude- the penalty for going above 100mph here is the loss of your license. I don't think you can really get a heftier fine than that!

You lose your licence for going over 100mph? Here you don't lose your licence unitl you do over 180km/h (112mph). I feel sorry for you...

while i dislike the idea of all cars limited to some lower speed, that kind of idea makes cars like the smart and other small ultra efficient cars make more sense. if you arent having a power/top speed war, you can focus on making your cars more efficient. although, as henk said earlier in these pages, then you woudl just have a 0-limiter war.

I'd call the Smart hardly efficient. The Lupo 3L and the A2 3L are (were) much better, and most other superminins too.

[Cotterik]

roll in the mini-mclarens

[cmcpokey]

I'd call the Smart hardly efficient. The Lupo 3L and the A2 3L are (were) much better, and most other superminins too.

ehh, it was just what i pulled out

[digitalcraft]

*sigh* You know, the real issue is people are making BANK off of oil, and they like making bank. So they fund lobbying groups to influence policy so they keep making bank off of oil and no progress is *actually* made to change fuel types. How fast did we go from record to 8-track to tape to CD to DVD? How fast did we go from vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits? How fast have we gone from oil to... anything else? Its going to continue until powerful people are no longer making bank off of oil. Pollution/Poverty/Violence caused by it will have no effect.

On the other hand, you can't ask us americans to solve it. Apparently a guy you can sit down and have a beer with makes a better president than a scholar or military hero, and conservative television pundits know more about the environment and should be trusted for policy over environmental scientists.

[Coventrysucks]

As for the whole, speed doesn't kill argument, I would have to say that none of us know for a fact that this is true or not true

Fact: speed cannot kill anything.

For example, the surface of the Earth is rotating with an equivalent straight line speed of 320mph at the equator, whilst the Earth itself is moving through space at 67,000mph.

Life goes on, unhindered by the velocity of it all.

The problem arises when two objects with different speeds come into contact with one another - even then, their ultimate speed is irrelevant, merely the size of the difference in speeds, and the mass of the objects involved.

If a car travelling at 101mph runs into the back of a car travelling at 100mph, no one is going to immediately drop dead.

If a car travelling at 101mph hits a car travelling at 100mph head-on, someone is going to be hosing down tarmac.

Furthermore, photons travel at the speed of light (well, they would, wouldn't they!) - 670 million mph, yet you feel nothing of their constant bombardment of your retinas because they lack sufficient mass to cause harm.

[cmcpokey]

thank you for putting things so nicely into perspective.

[Quiggs]

Speed doesn't kill; sudden stops do.

[Kitdy]

Fact: speed cannot kill anything.

You are mincing my words. You know what I mean by speed and you know how that can be dangerous.

[Sledgehammer]

Speed doesn't kill; sudden stops do.

Reminds me of something my dad used to say.
" you know E.C., its not the 3000 ft. fall that hurts, its the sudden stop at the bottom."

[Ingolstadt]

Once again, common sense dictates that at higher speeds, there is a higher likelihood of a fatal accident simply as there is more energy / momentum involved in the crash. Regardless, people are going to die form driving cars at pretty much any speed whatsoever - I would say that it is likely that in an urban environment, higher speed limits would result in more accidents and therefore, more deaths.

Does Germany had a higher accident per capita ratio than China or US ?

On the contrary, what's so wrong with people dying in crashes? I can't imagine a day when there are no longer people who dies from accidents, the world will be filled with idiots and bandits i guess. Of course, i might lost my love ones, but that doesn't mean my love ones won't get their heart puntured by stingrays or choke themselfs with some chowmein right?

[clutch-monkey]

Of course, i might lost my love ones, but that doesn't mean my love ones won't get their heart puntured by stingrays or choke themselfs with some chowmein right?

i lol'ed
we're all gonna die from super-AIDS or something anyway.

[P4g4nite]

A lot of people have missed the point, a big engine with lots of power is needed to push heavy modern cars to excessive speeds. If excessive speed was not allowed the big powerful engine would not be required. Smaller, less powerful engines can then be used in place which presumably are less producing of CO2.

1.6 liter 170hp engines can easily go beyond 200kmh. so? who needs big V8s?

Small Engine, Timid, Slow =/= Environmental Friendly

Don't be a pratt Ingol. I said that smaller, less powerful engines will be sufficient if the limit is capped at 102Mph, not smaller engines of equal power.

[2ndclasscitizen]

I also think that governments, if they were really concerned with emissions, instead of simply taking what looks like the popular position, is crack down on large trucks, 18-Wheelers etc simply SPEW black smog into the air, and I have yet to hear greenies mention them, mostly because it's easier and more popular to attack SUV's.

Trucks = Necessary. They carry goods that people use in everyday life.

SUVs = Not Necessary.

Oh, and even if you can't ever use the top speed, a powerful, torquey engine is still useful and relevant in the real world. Ever been stuck in a lane going very slowly whilst the next one is going fast but you couldn't move over because you couldn't get up to speed quick enough? With a powerful engine, foot down, and you've got the gap. When I had my dad's Calais I got everywhere much quicker, not by going faster, but because I could change lanes more often and move off the lights quicker, WITHOUT having to shift down 2 or 3 gears and floor it too the redline.