California Passes Bill Requiring New Cars To Beep At You When You're Speeding
If you want to do more than 10 mph over the speed limit, prepare to be annoyed.
When I read the headline I briefly imagined a world where people who bought new cars were statutorily required to honk at other drivers for their driving.
I was SO torn on posting this to the Not The Onion community for that reason. I find the headline hilarious (as evidenced by me commenting "HONK" throughout this comment section)
I was picturing the same thing, but I imagined it was automated and I was dying laughing.
Never change
What I’m reading is that every car will have to be equipped with functioning GPS that’s going to check against a database of speed limits.
—Speed limits that can change and be out of date. —GPS data that could be stored and extracted from the dealership and sold or given to the government, insurance companies, and law enforcement. —GPS data that could be sent in real time if the car has a cellular connection or hijacks the cellular connection in your phone when you connect it to the car.
This is bad. Really really bad.
…GPS data that
couldwill be stored and extracted…
GPS data that
couldwill be sent in real time
FTFY!
I agree with your first point, but the latter two:
—GPS data that could be stored and extracted from the dealership and sold or given to the government, insurance companies, and law enforcement. —GPS data that could be sent in real time if the car has a cellular connection or hijacks the cellular connection in your phone when you connect it to the car.
Why do you think this is more likely to happen with this new regulation, when most modern cars already have a functioning GPS module for navigation and cellular connection for software updates?
It's the standardizing that worries me. When it's required, people probably aren't going to be able to truly turn off their GPS (maybe this is already a thing, I don't know).
Edit: And when it's classified as a safety feature, it will [most likely] be illegal to disable, making car owners criminals if they refuse to be tracked.
-hijacks the cellular connection in your phone when you connect it to the car.
How would it do this without the user triggering it? I don't own a newer car, is this a real thing some of them can do?
I know in my phone I have to turn on sharing the mobile connection via USB, it's not something that just happens.
To be clear, I do not think this is currently happening, but with an update to Android Auto or Apple Carplay, it could happen when you connect, say, your iphone to your car via usb, or possibility even bluetooth.
Tech companies are plowing forward with making your own devices work against you, so I consider it a very real possibility.
This will get people to pay for and/or disable this. Let’s just give you more distractions!
The GPS data can't be out of date if it becomes the authoritative source of speed limit data.
Not sure if you're kidding, but that is false.
There are definitely areas of California where going less than 10 miles over the speed limit will put you well under the flow of traffic in every lane. If you're not going 80 on 80, you're gonna have a bad time.
Nevermind the long stretches in Nevada where the slowest guy pulling a trailer is doing 95.
Carpool minimum is 85 and everything else 80 minimum.
Ford delivers fleet vehicles governed to 70Mph. Colorado’s interstate limit is 75 outside of cities … we have to reprogram every one we get so our drivers don’t cause accidents.
Hopefully this change will alleviate that problem.
Maybe in a decade when the majority of cars have them.
Plenty of spots on the 80 I cruise the speed limit in the 2nd slowest lane without any troubles. Just because a few people need to fly doesn't mean the rest of the world does.
I don't really care about the honking so much as I do the fact that this mandates that the car track its position.
“[an] integrated vehicle system that uses, at minimum, the GPS location of the vehicle compared with a database of posted speed limits, to determine the speed limit, and utilizes a brief, one-time visual and audio signal to alert the driver each time they exceed the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour.”
Honestly the only part of this that is unreasonable is that it isn't immediately followed with "the database updates will be maintained and provided in an open, unencrypted format for free for the life of the vehicle, and the tracking data cannot be used for any other purpose". GPS is a one-way, triangulation-based signal. It doesn't inherently track or leak anything. I think we would be a lot safer if we all could agree what speed to go.
I think we would all be safer if we recognized individual competence and attention as the key ingredient in safety, and stopped trying to replace human attention with an ever-expanding set of sensors and woefully inadequate algorithms for determining whether the driver is being safe.
Like, if they have to model the driver as someone who’s not paying attention, then the whole design philosophy of the car is fucked, and we’re designing for failure.
the database updates will be maintained and provided in an open, unencrypted format for free
the tracking data cannot be used for any other purpose
These are mutually exclusive. If the data is open, unencrypted and freely accessible, it will be used for other purposes, by anyone who wants to.
Also, tracking every vehicle location and storing that in a centralized database is a privacy nightmare, no matter how well it's secured.
GPS itself doesn't transfer data about the location to the outside world, but it means that the car has to constantly determine its location, and that this is now a legal mandate.
Someone in the statehouse has never experienced for each loops.
It already does, and auto manufacturers already share or sell this data.
Heck, because there’s a massive loophole in consumer privacy around the government buying data, any government agency can just go directly to a vehicle manufacturer and ask to buy the data.
There was a big flap about this regarding car insurance recently, but as pointed out by the EFF (How to Figure Out What Your Car Knows About You), industry folks have been looking at monetizing this data for a while for all sorts of purposes, including advertising, consumer data sales, and even behavior analysis to understand how to better force consumers to pay for vehicle-based subscriptions.
We own nothing, not even our privacy.
It already does,
Yes, but they weren't legally required to do this prior to this point.
no honking at any point is involved.
Wouldn't that mean you would also have to pay someone to be tracked on a subscription based system?
Headline is misleading. This only passed the state Senate. It has not passed the state assembly yet. It also would need to be signed by the governor if it does pass in the assembly.
Welcome to lemmy, where every proposal and chamber vote is now law.
headline /op is also misleading since people keep thinking it means cars will be blasting their horn.
What will it use to determine where you are and what the speed limit is?
Google maps? Apple maps? Is there some government mapping service with speed limits that are updated based on construction?
Can I turn it off when it is constantly wrong on rural roads?
HONK
I think a lot of modern cars recognise the speed signs with cameras
Can I turn it off when it is constantly wrong on rural roads?
Oh you sweet summer child.
I drive a 2024 Kia Niro and it always knows what the speed limit is.
Sometimes however it will tell me that I’ve just entered a one way going the wrong way, and it’s always wrong when it says that.
Someone driving at an unsafe speed? How about some distractions, that should work out great!
Beep beep!
Car, I'm on the highway! I know GPS drifted a bit, but I'm not on the residential road next to the highway that has a 25 mph speed limit, I'm on the highway with a speed minimum of 45 mph!
Beep beep!
Frontage roads are definitely going to be a problem. This is NOT well thought out.
Is there a minimum speed limit in the US for some roads?
What do you do in a traffic jam? Break the law by driving slower?
Mostly just freeways. I don't think it's heavily enforced. The idea is that cars traveling at drastically different speeds on the same road are more likely to cause an accident. It's best to drive "the speed of traffic" because that's what is predictable. Roads should be designed in such a way to make the target speed limit the fastest speed at which most people feel comfortable anyways, rather than just obeying a sign. So a 20mph road should be skinny and not straight. A 70mph highway should be wide and straight. Back to the point, though, in a traffic jam, all the cars are slow and therefore the speed differential is small already and therefore no reason to ticket anyone.
It not the job of citizens to enforce the law but I guess cops are too busy murdering citizens.
Wrong type of beeping, though I mistook it for that too. They mean an alert similar to the seat belt or door audible alerts. People who have some sort of device from their insurance ro monitor their driving get some types of beeps like this already (stuff like decelerating to hard).
Ah, thank you for clarification.
Haha this will make using car alerts completely meaningless
Welcome to Bangkok
It means 'hey I'm here' in SE Asia and it works effectively for that. Loud, annoying...but it does accomplish something.
article isn't talking about sounding the horn.
My car beeps at me if j go the wrong way down a 1 way street. Of course it hasn't updated the maps of the area where i live in at least 10 years so it just beeps constantly.
Are you serious?! I would set it on fire and launch it at the manufacturer’s headquarters, then plead “temporary insanity by incessant beeping” to the court.
How about tailgating?
My friend drives a big rig and every time someone cuts him off there is an annoying alarm.
Its not just that, it's measuring their speed and distance and if they cut in and start braking it can send the lorry into an auto hard breaking moment where the hazards come on. Give lorries space.
Is this about speeding?
Or is this about getting every car to broadcast it's location data?
Good thought, but that's happening anyway unfortunately
The car has to track your location and regularly download the local speed limits so it knows when you are speeding? Bet it's uploading your location too. This is way invasive and not just annoying.
Enshittification is hitting every part of society...
That's sort of the point. Make driving a shitter experience to promote public transport or just stay off the roads all together. You'll enjoy what's socially popular or your independence will cost a premium.
We already prohibit collecting data on road enshittification so it can never be bad.
Hang on to your old cars.
Mine does this, but it's a user configurable speed limit.
Like, based on the road (eg: if you’re 5/10/15 MPH over) or just a flat number you can’t exceed?
Flat number. I set it for 65 and it beeps at me if I go over.
Fuck that.
The light repeating ding of the AE86 after it screeches around every corner
I expect this law to be struck down for the same reason as the Japanese one. It's annoying.
I'm surprised California dealerships aren't on top of this as a huge threat to their industry. Everyone will want to buy a car out of state.
California is a massive market and has huge impacts on car manufacturing across the US. Put it simply, if a car can’t pass inspection in CA then it is almost not worth selling it. A car bought in Pennsylvania will have additional parts and components to pass CA smog standards. Not only would it hurt their brand loyalty to have a car incapable of being sold in CA, but it may simply be cheaper and simpler to build the capacity in for all cars instead of having two slightly different trims.
Except they’d probably all just add the beep feature
this is hilarious, and i support this just for the absolute chaos it will create
It will be hilarious!
I live in Washington State and this morning as most mornings I drive near a school so there's always some asshole cop looking for ticket opportunities. Always 1 or 2 cars behind. Maybe just because my car is a shade of red or something.
So this turns every car on the road into a speed sensor yes? And then the cops use that aggregate data to feed cops info to inform speed traps and collect ticket quotas
Or people stop speeding.
Or maybe people just pull over and lick boots?
Literally impossible unless the cars have some kind of tracking software to monitor location.
and you know if its doing that, its not doing it without leaking your data to law enforcement and advertisers.
So, yeah, no thanks. Train cops to do their actual, legitimate jobs instead of letting them waste their time with actual fucking inhuman torture, and the issue would also be solved. and in the right way, instead of the invasive privacy destroying way.
Modern cars read the speed limit signs. Like my 2021 rav4 does it so it's not just the techy cars.
I love that you got downvoted even though you’re correct.
My Mazda uses GPS and the camera also reads road signs to display the speed limit on our HUD and instrument panel. The speedometer shows the limit as well and if you go over it shows a red line (which is useful honestly). Doesn’t beep thank god, I’d burn it.
It's quite unreliable though. Ours works probably ~90-95% of the time. The other 5-10% it missed the sign or reads the sign on a neighbouring road. That doesn't sound too bad, but if it's going to beep at you (for a mistake it made itself nonetheless) it would quickly get really annoying.
Maybe it uses the road signs? I think most modern cars already read the road signs and display the limit on the dash.
Only issue with this system, at least from my car is that it can sometimes get it wrong, so it would be super annoying if the car beeped when I was doing more than 10mph that what it thinks the limit is.
You think they make cars without GPS now?
You think GPS can be trusted? Its still sending people into lakes and dead ends.
How does the car know the speed limit?
I literally am laughing out loud picturing one car going over the speed limit and all the other cars within a 100 foot radius being forced to honk in response. That’s literally what the headline makes it sound like
Teslas now need a frowny face and honking, while the 1994 Suzuki Jimmy fucking blazes past you, middle finger waving in the wind. ;)
Edit: And the Teslas now blare "The State of California makes me tell you that I may cause you cancer."
Almost feels like this law will segue into some form of subscription based nonsense…
“Subscribe to legal updates for only $2.99 per month! Or risk getting arrested!!!”
Why would you spend such a large amount of money for a new car? I don’t get it. If you are middle class it is like 50% or more of a whole year of income. If you are wealthy it’s still stupid to waste so much money on a thing that generally will depreciate in value. I don’t understand why so many of my co workers keep buying cars so they can go to work and buy more cars.
I share your frustration. Cars are dumb. New cars are shit and dumb. It's also super bad for the environment - the manufacturing is a huge part of the total carbon emission of a car.
Seems pretty clear to me that it's a status thing - you're displaying your access to resources by showing that you can waste them. That's why I think it's legitimately useful to insult people's new or expensive cars. Deny them the social reward they seek and it puts pressure to find a new status token. Maybe instead they can waste money on carbon fibre bikes or the latest overpriced micro-transportation.
Nobody should ever buy new cars!
Wait a second….
Not trying to say we should never buy new cars, but I do have a feeling making tens of millions of new cars has a worse environmental impact than driving and repairing and old car,
But I do see in places like big cities how smog can become an issue…. But we are ignoring the whole mountaintops and other environmental impacts from making the new metal and batteries in my opinion…
We only leased a new car because it was literally cheaper to lease than to buy used last fall. The market was absolutely upside down. Plan on buying it at the end of the 33 mo lease.
In the states I can see how having a car is a practical necessity, I just don’t have faith that buying new cars is the environmental answer we are told it is by car manufacturers
So glad i don't live in California. Peddle to.the metal for me all the way. You apes in California just have some fun on the 5 and the 10 driving slowly anyway.
Someone speeding like crazy, you honk at them, they turn around, stalk you until you stop and they smash your windows. It's called road rage. DON'T honk at speeders. People are psycho.
Other cars aren't honking at you. Your car beeps an internal beep at you.
You forgot about the incessant annoying sound emitted for virtually every second of the drive, you know...if I'm the one driving.
fortunately, only you can hear the annoying sound, no-one else.
Sounds like a great way to track people and further moderate their lives instead of doing things that actually matter and make an impact. No thanks.
This is a measure designed specifically to reduce the amount of things that make an impact
I blame the takeover kids
Yet another reason I don't live in California.
This thread is yet more proof that Lemmy is full of paranoid Luddites who think everything is a slippery slope.
The luddites were right tho.
Well, yes, but generally not for the reasons people think they were