Big Brother Car

Ford is releasing a new car that actually throttles its max speed based on the speed limit. The way it accomplishes this is by actually scanning road signs and recognizing what they mean. Furthermore the car doesn't even move the physical brake but rather programmatically limits the engine’s outputted torque by adjusting the amount of fuel it receives. For the safety of the driver, in circumstances that may require temporary speeding such as dangers encountered by other drives, this restriction can be temporarily overridden by pressing firmly on the accelerator. The idea is that if speedy drivers can’t speed then the roads will be safer. The technology behind the cars ability while fascinating, in that the car is able to actually take a simple video input and derive meaningful data from it, its implementation sounds like a terrible idea. While I do completely acknowledge that speeding can be dangerous I don’t agree that you shouldn't be given the option. There are times when speeding is incredibly useful such as when traveling to and from work every day. The 65 mile per hour limit of the highways is usually broken by most drivers and statistically speaking most people are able to travel daily without getting into an accident. It’s my opinion that an issue only arises when a person goes significantly faster than those around them, i.e. 30+ mph faster, or drive aggressively. I do agree that it’s important to stay close to the speed limit but going 75 is pretty typical provided the people around you are going about the same speed. More importantly than the actual physical limitation is the increasingly large opinion that technology should be doing everything for us. It seems the technological industry has begun to rapidly adopt the idea that people prefer computers to think for them. There is very little trust in the population to monitor themselves furthermore it is diverting responsibility. People should be trusted to take care of themselves as well as be able to be held accountable for their mistakes. Moreover, if people aren't given the opportunity to decide they can’t learn the weight of their decisions. For example, say a teacher decides to require all students to put their cellphone into a bin at the beginning of class; thus guaranteeing that none of the students are texting during class. First let’s assume that without their phone they will actually pay attention. Those who are easily distracted would never encounter experience the situation where they fail a test because they had been texting the entire time. At a first glance this seems like a good thing but this also means they won’t have ever learned the importance of paying attention in the first place; which in turn increases the chances that when given the opportunity to slack off they will. Second in reality collecting the phones would by no means guarantees that students would actually pay attention; if they don’t want to pay attention they won’t. In the same way just because you take speeding away doesn't mean that people will become any safer drivers. Instead they’ll just be more annoyed at their inability to speed and probably become more aggressive drivers. This can be extrapolated to essentially any situation in which you allow someone or something else to think for you. If not expected to think for themselves people won’t and they become far too complacent and even more reckless. I understand the desire to improve overall safety but restrictions are not the way to accomplish it. The right way is to actually inform people of the danger of their actions or inactions; then to let them decide for themselves.