My GPS tells me when my speed exceeds a given number. I have it set at 70 -- so that feature is only useful on the highway.
It would be great if the GPS map database included the speed limit for each road, so my GPS could warn me if I'm doing 40 in a 30 zone. Even better would be if it could tell me that this locale is a famous speed trap, and would therefore reign in my speed even more.
As the father of soon-to-be teenagers, it would be great if the GPS could save and I could retrieve, data about the car exceeding the speed limit by some fixed amount or percentage. So someone was doing 50 in a 30 mph zone, at 9:00 PM Friday night? That would be the teenager; time for a talk. It would be necessary to have an ignition lock requiring that GPS is operational -- or simply remove the off-switch, maybe -- so the teenager can't just turn it off.
Conceivably, it could provide useful evidence when the police accuse you of exceeding the speed limit by more than the actual number. They tend to err on the low side, I think, however.
- Hoytster
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I'd like to be the company responsible for gathering and maintaining these speed limits which are subject to the following:
1- Vehicle class (class 8 truck might have a different speed than a passenger car over the same stretch of road)2- Whims of local authorities- someone complains to their local city councilperson about the speed on their block and it is all of a sudden changed from 45 to 35- how is such a change tracked3. Speed zones where the speed is dictated by external activities - school zone speed limit is 15 when children are present. So now you need a database containing the school bell schedule for every school in the country along with their operating dates.4. construction zones- your teen drives 65 down a 40 MPH highway construction zone- who collects construction zone data and updates the database.
I don't see any of this as being practical. But, a suggestion is to simply monitor any speed of over 75 MPH. I am not aware of any circumstances in the US where it is legal to drive over 75 MPH. Should a parent detect such usage of their auto- they have the offender red-handed. There are OTS plug and play solutions that connect to the OBD II port on autos that do this.
Apparently unicorn123, you're not aware that law enforcement officers drive over 75 mph legally. Also, pasted from wikipedia, "For example, some two-lane rural roads in Texas have 75 mph (120 km/h) speed limits, and there are two stretches of Interstate in West Texas with a daytime 80 mph (130 km/h) speed limit for passenger vehicles."
Factually, the connection between speeding and accidents is only tenuous. As a parent of two driving teens, I find it much more rewarding and useful to train them right and let them make their own decision, rather than try to baby-sit 24/7. They're going to make mistakes, but it's sort of like the drinking-age--if we treat them like babies, they'll just make the mistakes later when they are allowed.
Finally, this whole bit about handing the police evidence that testifies against me seems really dumb and unconstitutional. I don't trust government, especially where revenue generation is present. I'll cover my 'mandatory GPS' with foil.