Speed governors on rental cars

[Tim May]

At 2:16 AM -0400 7/5/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 09:42:48PM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>>  If the auto vendor was really concerned about their vehicle they'd install
>>  a govenor (like they did on the '64 1/2 Mustand for example) that would
>>  limit the RPM's of the engine. Quick, easy, simple. A lot(!!!) less
>>  expensive (about $20) and more reliable than a GPS receiver.
>
>Then you'd risk spurious lawsuits from someone who can't accelerate
>to get out of an accident situation, and you'd also lose the source of
>income you might get from all these speeding tickets you as the
>renter would levy.

It apparently already happens, the installation of governors on rental cars.

I rented a car at the Baltimore-Washington airport last summer and 
merrily got on the freeway (er, "parkway") connecting it with the 
Beltway. It was late at night, traffic was light, so I stepped on the 
gas.

It just ran out of speed at about 65. Couldn't get it to go any 
faster, even with the pedal to the floor.

Now it _could_ be that it was just a late American model, 
heavily-pollution-control-entangled econobox, but I've driven el 
cheapo Korean and Japanese models which had no problem reaching high 
speeds on straightaways.

I figured at the time that the rental cars had indeed been equipped 
with RPM governors.

I was only mildly annoyed and I didn't feel my safety was threatened, 
pace the above point about accelerating. Most traffic acceleration 
risks are at lower speeds, so a top-end speed governor isn't likely 
to pose a safety risk.


--Tim May




-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
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