Joseph Anton Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Why not limit car's top speed? Yey again we have the same old simplistic bleating about cars/speed etc. from the usual protaganists, rehashing the same nonsense, and getting all sanctimonious when rational people disagree. My God it's tiresome. Well just to move the debate on.. I would happily have my car chipped to restrict its' top speed to say 95 mph. I would expect in return to get a reduction in my insurance premium, and the ability to fit winter tyres without infringing the terms of my policy. Hopefully if the car were ever stolen the police would not be required to break off the chase because it was traveling too fast for safe pursuit. I could further see that if a learner driver or new driver could have a car chipped to a 60 mph max speed they would have considerably less problems getting insurance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frededwards Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Why don't you just buy a car with a small engine, one that will only do 95 MPH? That would also reduce your insurance, you could fit winter tyres and the bobbies will be able to catch it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Why not use a balsawood chip? Stick a one inch chip of balsawood under the throttle pedal and I bet that'll slow it down. If you even mention 're-chipping' to an insurance company I suspect you might get a 30% addition to your premium just for knowing the words! Your mileage may vary ... so may the bloody premiums! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 'ranting' is disagreeing with the opinions of certain others. Actually it isn't if you want to be pedantic Ranting is: To speak or write in an angry or violent manner; rave. Disagreeing is what has been going on here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Anton Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Why not use a balsawood chip? Stick a one inch chip of balsawood under the throttle pedal and I bet that'll slow it down. If you even mention 're-chipping' to an insurance company I suspect you might get a 30% addition to your premium just for knowing the words! Well actually it won't. Ford will already provide sets of keys for their cars which reduce its top speed to 80 mph. It is useful for when young drivers use the car. The AA have a black box policy which requires the fitting of a driver monitoring device which records how the vehicle has been driven. Cars fitted with these devices attract a premium typically 40% off provided the driver has stuck to the agreed driving code. I suspect having speed restricted by a chip would go a long way to ensuring those terms were adhered to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodmally Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Assuming it was technically possible, why don't we fit all cars with automatic speed limiters, to make it impossible to exceed the speed limit and then make it an offence to disable one or drive without one? It would probably be possible to raise the limits slightly, if you knew that no one could exceed that upper limit. Say 80 on the Motorway. Anyone found exceeding it or with a faulty limiter it banned, car destroyed. Why not? The reason why you cant is that some roads in the world do not have a speed limit. Others have a higher speed limit. I'm thinking the Autoban in Germany. So there needs to be that flexibility. Also why do car makers need to restrict. Surely it should be the owner that is sensible with the speed limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L00b Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Stick a one inch chip of balsawood under the throttle pedal and I bet that'll slow it down.This won't necessarily work at all: it will just take longer to get to such speeds As I had the misfortune of experiencing some time earlier with the electronically-controlled 'limp mode' (which does not let the car rev past 2k rpm or so...caused by a failing -you guessed it- electronic sensor). Pretty much same effect as your wood stick (pointless flooring it, ECU won't let you anyway). With careful and diligent use of gear ratios, 70 is eventually do-able...depending on the road resistance/gradient For the little story, that same car had cut all power to the wheels last winter, supposedly because the brake system had a critical failure (there wasn't any failure whatsoever, it was just a low battery inducing gremlins in the onboard computer)...in the middle of commuting traffic at 50 mph, on the A57, at night, in pouring rain. I was lucky to have just enough momentum (free-wheeling) to find a clear spot off the main road, or I would have created a major obstruction - at rush hour! That was eventually sold, and I'm shopping for a replacement: needless to say, any car having 'brains' apt to affect handling under power is off the shortlist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Not so! - If you can't open the throttle - if the maximum is limited, you can't develop anywhere near full power. (I do appreciate what you're talking about with electronic throttles, but try it. remember - I did talk about a ONE INCH block of wood. That's about one third of your throttle throw! (Have you got rid of that V50 POC yet?) (We bought an XC60. We both like it better - more stable at (very) high speeds, pretty good performance (but it'll cost yer if you've a 'heavy foot') Brilliant as a towing vehicle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Unfortunately that will probably be every modern car L00b. My OH had a panic when the Fiesta cut the power (due to thinking there was a faulty reading from the accelerator). Not understanding what was happening and being in the 3rd lane of the M1, she changed down to try to make it go faster and nearly blew the engine/gearbox to bits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frededwards Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Unfortunately that will probably be every modern car L00b. My OH had a panic when the Fiesta cut the power (due to thinking there was a faulty reading from the accelerator). Not understanding what was happening and being in the 3rd lane of the M1, she changed down to try to make it go faster and nearly blew the engine/gearbox to bits. In that case she's clearly not sufficiently competent to be driving on a motorway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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