By Eric Peters, NMA Member and Syndicated Columnist
The country saying goes, Let’s you and him fight. The government deploys a variation of the logic underlying this saying when someone else does something stupid or criminal to impose restrictions and punishments . . . on you and me.
Who didn’t do it.
A drug-addled maniac in Nevada blows a red light at more than 100 MPH and ends up killing several people. The government’s response is that every new car must be rendered incapable of “speeding” — which is not the same thing as driving in a drug addled stupor at 100 MPH through a red light. Just the same as “impairment” isn’t — per the Princess Bride — what you think they think it means, either. The latter is conflated with being drunk or addled by drugs when in fact all it means — to the government — is that you aren’t driving exactly the way the government demands you drive. Anything else being . . .”impaired.” And that of course must be prevented, by requiring all new cars (come 2026) to pull themselves over if their programming determines that you are “impaired.”
What the federal government is “calling” for (interesting terminology, as if it were just some people making a suggestion) in the wake of the drug-addled maniac’s deadly crash is that “speeding” be prevented by similar measures. You probably don’t snort coke or take PCP and would never drive 100 MPH through a red light — as the Nevada driver did. But you probably do drive 50 in a 35 — because it’s absurd to drive that slow (35) and no one else does, either. Including, naturally, the cops who pull people over and hand them tickets for doing the same thing they just did (and often, more — as it is necessary to “speed” even faster to catch up to the “speeder”).
Well, if the government’s “call” comes to pass — which is entirely up to the whim of the government, which determines the extent of its own power these days — you won’t be able to “speed” like that anymore.
The car won’t allow it.
Intelligent Speed Limit Assist will be used to . . . assist you. You push down on the gas, the gas pedal pushes back. Or it just doesn’t matter how hard you push as the computer is already in charge of how fast you can drive anyhow. Most modern cars are already speed limited by their programming to go no faster than however fast the tires they came with from the factory are rated to go — even if the car is mechanically capable of going much faster. The maximum speed can easily be adjusted much lower.
And the maximum allowable speed can also be adjusted in real time.
This latter is what Intelligent Speed Limit Assist does. Or — rather — will do, once the government’s suggestion becomes a requirement.
Practically every vehicle made since roughly 2020 (some before then) is already equipped with Intelligent Speed Limit Assist. It’s almost as if the government — and the car companies — knew this was coming. That it is part of a plan.
The “assistance” that already exists — that is already embedded in most cars made since roughly 2020 — is passive, for now. By which is meant all it does for now is ever-so-helpfully let the driver know he is “speeding” — that is, driving even a little bit faster than whatever the speed limit is on whatever road it is he happens to be driving on, by comparing the speed of the car with the speed limit on the road, which the car knows via cameras and GPS mapping data and then flashing a dashboard icon, usually designed to look like a speed limit sign.
But the technology can be adjusted to provide the kind of “assistance” the government is “calling” for. It is merely a matter of sending an update — which all cars made since 2020 can (and likely will) receive, over-the-air.
Whether you want the update or not.
Once updated, “assistance” will become much-more helpful. You won’t have to worry about “speeding” anymore because the car won’t let you do it. Push down as hard as you like. So much for ludicrous speed, too. Elon Musk will lose the one thing that sells Teslas — other than pretended virtue. Imagine trying to sell a $50,000 EV that can’t be driven any faster than a $25,000 Prius.
Possibly, a Yugo.
The interesting thing about Speed Limit Assist — like all the other forms of “assistance” that are now commonplace — is that car buyers didn’t ask for any of it. It just kind of became part of the package, as it were. If you bought the car, you bought the “assistance,” even if you didn’t feel the need for any. Odd. It’s like buying a new home and finding it comes standard with one of those wheelchair lifts to enable handicapped people to get up to the second floor.
But you’re not handicapped. And you didn’t ask for the “assistance.”
So, why has all of this “assistance” stuff become so ubiquitous? Obviously, the plan is to so corral driving as to render the person behind the wheel nothing more than a passenger in a device that is controlled by someone other than himself. In order to render the pretense of driving as silly as the pretense that you are piloting an airplane when you’re seated in coach.
The key point being the passenger in the plane understands he doesn’t own or control what’s transporting him.
It’s not “conspiracy.”
It’s their plan.
Eric Peters lives in Virginia and enjoys driving cars and motorcycles. In the past, Eric worked as a car journalist for many prominent mainstream media outlets. Currently, he focuses his time writing auto history books, reviewing cars, and blogging about cars+ for his website EricPetersAutos.com.
Editor’s Note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the National Motorists Association.
