Angry in the Great White North
Smart Government, Smart Car, Dumb Driver
Monday, November 28, 2005 at 12:01 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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Of course, the nanny state that is Canada loves this idea:

Transport Canada is road-testing cutting-edge devices that use global positioning satellite technology and a digital speed-limit map to know when a driver is speeding, and to try to make them stop.

When a driver hits a certain percentage above the posted speed limit, the device kicks in and makes it difficult to press the accelerator.

[Dr. Peter Burns, chief of ergonomics and crash avoidance with Transport Canada's road safety directorate,] said proponents of such devices are enthusiastic about the potential to reduce deaths and injuries from car crashes, as well as reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which are greater at higher speeds.

So who makes this equivalent of a backseat driver? A company in Sweden. No surprises there.

Two things come to mind.

Since the system is GPS-based, and requires knowledge of where you are, this is essentially a citizen tracking system. Just one more way for the government to know what you're doing.

The second thing is that this will, of course, generate a whole new black market for devices or modifications to defeat the system. Some will focus on foiling the internal feedback system tied to the accelerator. Others will target the GPS itself, since if the system doesn't know where you are, it won't know that you're speeding.

Then there will be the GPS-jammers. Some will be frauds, doing nothing but filling the pockets of scam artists. Others might work, even partly, and will create havoc wherever they are turned on.

And then the constitutional challenges, perhaps launched by provinces fighting what they see as another federal intrusion on a provincial responsibility.

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