At 12:10 PM 1/28/01 -0500, Greg Burch wrote:
>What I wouldn't at all mind seeing and something I've thought about before is
>employing technology to allow multiple classes of driver's licenses and to
>regulate speed in proportion to a machine's capabilities and the road
>conditions it encounters. I would gladly pay more for, take a test to get
>and tolerate some slight intrusion into my road-going privacy to be able to
>legally drive faster than current law allows.
I have seen this idea in other places. I like it!
>How about this: One can take a test for one's self, submit one's car to
>periodic inspection and testing and pay more for a "High Performance Driver's
>License". Certified training at something like the Skip Barber driving
>schools might be a pre-requisite. In it's full-blown "smart' form, such a
>system would allow one to activate the "high-performance" feature of one's
>car/license on open roads, which would then initiate a special session of
>two-way communication to the road system. The road network would sense the
>traffic and weather conditions and then allow you to drive up to some
>fraction of the limits of your combined car and driver rating under the
>existing conditions. The car reports real-time data on its operations to the
>road system, such as tire pressure and temperature, lateral acceleration,
>excessive yaw, vibration and aerodynamic downforce. Exceeding the car's
>"rating" on any of these parameters would change the limit at which the car
>would be able to operate.
So you could tear down a road with blind curves, and not have to worry
about obstructions just out of sight, perhaps..
>Under the such a system, there are lots of places
>here in Texas where I could run my 'vette up to the drag limit (~160-180 mph
>- a nice safe margin, since Car and Driver magazine determined that the side
>windows on my car tend to blow out from Bornoulli Effect above c. 200 mph;
>something you can fix with duct tape, but which doesn't look so hot).
Are you serious? What holds the windows in there in the first place?
Chuck Kuecker
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:26 MDT