The first bit comes from a report in UK's The Telegraph about Intelligent Speed Adaptation being proposed by the European Commission’s Mobility and Transport Department:
All cars could be fitted with devices that stop them going over 70mph, under new EU road safety measures which aim to cut deaths from road accidents by a third.
Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded.
Next there's active disacussion in Australia abut the value of black boxes.
If every driver complied with the letter of the road law, the streets would be far safer places. One way to do that would be to make a ‘black box’ recorder mandatory in every vehicle.
If it were mandatory for every vehicle to be fitted with a ‘black box’, a range of key vehicle behaviours like speed, acceleration and location could be measured and either stored in-vehicle or transmitted to a central repository. (1)
Data could be gathered by sensors connected to the car’s key mechanical and electronic points and by cameras recording the external environment. In turn, vehicles could receive data from local or centralised transmitters.
This isn’t complex stuff in a technological sense. Cars have been operating with on-board computers fed by an array of sensors for decades and an increasing number of new vehicles come with cameras. Transponder and GPS technologies are well developed and some trucks already carry rudimentary black boxes.
At its simplest, the black box would record how well a vehicle conforms to the road rules and provide the driver with real-time feedback. It would be a considerably more powerful however if that information were uploaded to a central database.
It could then be used to enforce compliance with straightforward road rules like speed limits and traffic signals. In the event of a serious incident, data from the vehicle’s cameras and other sensors could be used to investigate the event and possibly provide the basis for police or legal action.
The near-certainty of detection would give drivers a powerful incentive to conform to the law at all times. This in turn should make roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. It should improve the amenity of roadside uses by reducing negatives such as (measurable) vehicle noise.
Since data on a vehicle’s travel behaviour would be recorded, it’s certain there’d be concerns about loss of privacy. That would likely be exacerbated if fingerprint or facial recognition technology were mandatory for drivers.
Then there's sailaholic talking about the presence of systems like this already in operation in Australia.
Not directly by my company, but our client. Semi Industry wide though and yes they will know all vehicles are GPS monitored (including individual keys per driver) with live reporting via 3G or satellite with geo-fenced areas controlling allowable speed zones.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/10278702/EU-plans-to-fit-all-cars-with-speed-limiters.html
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2013/09/04/would-a-black-box-make-the-streets-safer/
http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=59427&hilit=duty
