The country saying goes, Let’s you and him fight. The government deploys a variation of the logic underling this saying when someone else does something stupid or criminal to impose restrictions and punishments . . . on you and me.
Who didn’t do it.
A drug-addled maniac in Nevada blows a red light at more than 100 MPH and ends up killing several people. The government’s response is that every new car must be rendered incapable of “speeding” – which is not the same thing as driving in a drug addled stupor at 100 MPH through a red light. Just the same as “impairment” isn’t – per the Princess Bride – what you think they think it means, either. The latter is conflated with being drunk or addled by drugs when in fact all it means – to the government – is that you aren’t driving exactly the way the government demands you drive. Anything else being . . .”impaired.” And that of course must be prevented, by requiring all new cars (come 2026) to pull themselves over if their programming determines that you are “impaired.”
What the federal government is “calling” for (interesting terminology, as if it were just some people making a suggestion) in the wake of the drug-addled maniac’s deadly crash is that “speeding” be prevented by similar measures. You probably don’t snort coke or take PCP and would never drive 100 MPH through a red light – as the Nevada driver did. But you probably do drive 50 in a 35 – because it’s absurd to drive that slow (35) and no one else does, either. Including, naturally, the cops who pull people over and hand them tickets for doing the same thing they just did (and often, more – as it is necessary to “speed” even faster to catch up to the “speeder”).
Well, if the government’s “call” comes to pass – which is entirely up to the whim of the government, which determines the extent of its own power these days – you won’t be able to “speed” like that anymore.
The car won’t allow it.
Intelligent Speed Limit Assist will be used to . . . assist you. You push down on the gas, the gas pedal pushes back. Or it just doesn’t matter how hard you push as the computer is already in charge of how fast you can drive anyhow. Most modern cars are already speed limited by their programming to go no faster than however fast the tires they came with from the factory are rated to go – even if the car is mechanically capable of going much faster. The maximum speed can easily be adjusted much lower.
And the maximum allowable speed can also be adjusted in real time.
This latter is what Intelligent Speed Limit Assist does. Or – rather – will do, once the government’s suggestion becomes a requirement.
The punchline is, it already is – in that practically every vehicle made since roughly 2020 (some before then) is already equipped with Intelligent Speed Limit Assist. It’s almost as if the government – and the car companies – knew this was coming. That it is part of a plan. Not unlike the way the “pandemic” seems to have been planned for before it arrived.
The “assistance” that already exists – that is already embedded in most cars made since roughly 2020 – is passive, for now. By which is meant all it does for now is ever-so-helpfully let the driver know he is “speeding” – that is, driving even a little bit faster than whatever the speed limit is on whatever road it is he happens to be driving on, by comparing the speed of the car with the speed limit on the road, which the car knows via cameras and GPS mapping data and then flashing a dashboard icon, usually designed to look like a speed limit sign.
But the technology can be adjusted to provide the kind of “assistance” the government is “calling” for. It is merely a matter of sending an update – which all cars made since 2020 can (and likely will) receive, over-the-air.
Whether you want the update or not.
Once updated, “assistance” will become much-more helpful. You won’t have to worry about “speeding” anymore because the car won’t let you do it. Push down as hard as you like. So much for ludicrous speed, too. Elon Musk will lose the one thing that sells Teslas – other than pretended virtue. Imagine trying to sell a $50,000 EV that can’t be driven any faster than a $25,000 Prius.
Possibly, a Yugo.
The interesting thing about Speed Limit Assist – like all the other forms of “assistance” that are now commonplace – is that car buyers didn’t ask for any of it. It just kind of became part of the package, as it were. If you bought the car, you bought the “assistance,” even if you didn’t feel the need for any. Odd. It’s like buying a new home and finding it comes standard with one of those wheelchair lifts to enable handicapped people to get up to the second floor.
But you’re not handicapped. And you didn’t ask for the “assistance.”
So, why has all of this “assistance” stuff become so ubiquitous? Obviously, the plan is to so corral driving as to render the person behind the wheel nothing more than a passenger in a device that is controlled by someone other than himself. In order to render the pretense of driving as silly as the pretense that you are piloting an airplane when you’re seated in coach.
The key point being the passenger in the plane understands he doesn’t own or control what’s transporting him.
It’s not “conspiracy.”
It’s their plan.
. . .
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Before roads, the Oregon Trail was deep cut into the western American landscape. The ruts still exist way out west to this day in Wyoming. Iowa was tall grass prairie riddled with thousands if not millions of American bison. Before settlers got there, the land was not so heavily plowed and farmed. The natives did farm and did grow sweet corn, sunflowers, traded from coast to coast. Not always happy campers, but life goes on, no matter where you are.
“Overlanders on the Oregon Trail, in contrast, quickly learned that Conestoga wagons were too big for their needs: the huge, heavy wagons killed even the sturdiest oxen before the journey was two-thirds complete. Their answer to the problem was dubbed the “Prairie Schooner,” a half-sized version of the Conestoga that typically measured 4′ wide and 10′ to 12′ in length. With its tongue and neck yoke attached, its length doubled to about 23 feet. With the bonnet, a Prairie Schooner stood about 10′ tall, and its wheelbase was over 5′ wide. It weighed around 1300 pounds empty and could be easily dismantled for repairs en route. Teams of 4 to 6 oxen or 6 to 10 mules were sufficient to get the sturdy little wagons to Oregon. Manufactured by the Studebaker brothers or any of a dozen other wainwrights specializing in building wagons for the overland emigrants, a Prairie Schooner in good repair offered shelter almost as good as a house.”
Prairie Schooner
Mules will be a monetary cost, tack, the wagon, you’ll end up spending plenty of dough to feed a team of mules and have the wagon to move some cargo.
Buy a pickup truck, buy a truck, the cost of fuels and lubricants, basic maintenance of internal combustion engines, far outweighs maintaining animal driven mobility.
Your choice, horses or mules or oxen or pigs flying, internal combustion trumps them all.
No wonder as to why petroleum rules the game, supply and demand, what else is there?
The wounded Gazans left stranded by the side of the road need a helping hand from some Good Samaritan. Dangerous business these days and always has been.
For God’s sake, have a heart.
The Stupid Old Adams, and you know who they are, need to do some soul searching. It can’t hurt that much.
‘The wounded Gazans left stranded by the side of the road need a helping hand from some Good Samaritan.’ — drumphish
Doubtless you saw the photos a couple of weeks ago, of penniless Gazans fleeing southward in donkey carts, as Israel’s air-dropped leaflets urged.
Now the place they fled to — Khan Younis — is being obliterated by bombs, as Israelis drop new leaflets demanding their civilian victims retreat farther south to Rafah, hard by the locked-down Egyptian border.
I am fucking done with Samaritans, and Judeans, and alien west Asian tribal religions. Civilized westerners need to repudiate this sadistic shit, root and branch, starting with the satanic Old Testicles, the Torah, and the Tanakh. Goodbye to all that.
I think the current system (cash tickets) is totally ineffective at promoting safety.
I propose that we replace it with a new system. If you get caught speeding, you have to park it in the “penalty box” for a specified period of time. Let’s say 1 minute in the penalty box for every mile per hour over the limit. Then you’re free to go. We could build penalty boxes just off the shoulder every couple miles. If you get clocked, the cop puts on the cherries and escorts you to the next penalty box. No one has to get out of the car, even.
It’ll be great!
The possibilities are ENDLESS of the “offenses” that would likely, the way things are going, get your car “grounded” or even confiscated, your home electricity, gas, and especially Internet cut off, your bank account frozen and or SEIZED, your firearms seized, any minor children removed from the home, and, finally, if your “attitude ” doesn’t “improve” alityle “Nacht und Nebel”, where you DISAPPEAR.
Such “offenses” including but not limited to:
1. Recommending ways to circumvent Uncle’s “Fatwas”.
2. Sharing information on self-sufficient living, like home gardening
3. Pulling your children out of Government schools (home schooling)
4. Being a registered LIBERTARIAN.
5. Criticizing ISRAEL
6. Questioning validity of election results
The state is going to face some interesting conflicts of interest once cars are no longer capable of “speeding,” given the fact that the function of speed limits everywhere outside the most congested residential and commercial areas is to steal your money and pay off insurance companies.
The conga lines of autos unable to pass the “Lead Clover” on two lane roads because their nanny-ized “modern” auto will not allow them to briefly exceed the “mandated” speed limit should be verrry interesting.
“Up-to-date”? That sounds like when the FDA & CDC started subtly referring to humans as COMPUTERS when they put out tweets imploring people to “Recharge your immunity” and be “Up-to-date on your COVID vaccinations”. They’ll likely do the same thing with flu & RSV jabs this winter.
Much of this control tech needs sensors and antennas right?
Would it be that complicated to unplug or cover them, so the cameras and such won’t know what big daddy wants us to do?
No, it doesn’t. It’s going to monitor your inputs to the pedals and steering wheel, probably the way you sit in the seat (there’s already a weight sensor in seats for airbag control), and lots of cars have infrared cameras looking at you from the instrument cluster. You may notice that some car review videos have these flashing lights in the dashboard. Humans can’t see them, but what they’re doing is looking for reflection off the back of your eyeballs to figure out exactly where you look. If you don’t look straight ahead enough, they’ll know.
It’s pretty totalitarian, but you can make these things so tightly integrated with the car, that they’re nigh impossible to defeat. The car could refuse to drive with occluded sensors.
>looking for reflection off the back of your eyeballs
What happens if you are wearing sunglasses?
Not uncommon behavior.
Why do car companies go along with this? Why are they so AFRAID of the kontrol phreaks up there DRUNK on power? Companies and people so SCARED of mentally ill or unstable people up there with so much power and go along.
What a stewpid world we live in and will eventually bring about the tribulation.
Oh, they’re afraid of everything, especially the lawyers feeding in the communist’s courts. It’s easy enough to tell the government to go pound sand, for a while, in a lot of circumstances. But when you set up a corrupt client with a corrupt lawyer in a corrupt court, you will learn the lesson of Alex Jones and President in exile Donald J Trump.
Until all that corruption is purged from our society, and a man can stand up for human virtues and not be stabbed in the back by his fellow man and his women, the tyranny, the genocide, the slavery will continue.
As someone who is capable of hacking into car control modules, or even better, making my own, I vow to disable these nannies in whatever car I buy in the future, and share my code, schematics, STL files, whatever it takes, so that others can do the same.
I’ve bought my “final” cars already, not willing to have anything newer.
I was going to buy a new vehicle but since changed my mind and saved me a bundle. Still driving my old mechanical diesel ever since COVID. What helped me was so many people approaching me and asking if I was selling it. I said there must be something to it. The more I read what’s going on I’m glad I didn’t buy a new car.
Thanks, OpposteLock, and it will be appreciated. 🙂 I’ll do the same if I have an opportunity.
Ford trucks prior to 2004 have cable to the throttle. Looks like I will have to buy one of those. My 2005 Subaru has no throttle cable. Have to rebuy it, but buy a prior year.
I wonder if they will make an exception for government vehicles? Cops have to speed, right? LOL Right? Well, I would think if these vehicles are created on the same platform and the “assists” are disabled electronically on these special vehicles, it proves that it can be disabled on other cars as well, with the proper tools and know-how. These new cars just need to be hacked. I believe there will be a market for this.
Hi Philo,
I would have expected an override system already on most of these newer vehicles. It doesn’t seem to exist and most people seem to have no interest in it.
New cars with the integrated technology will be pretty hard to disconnect from. My concern is if this does happen and say every vehicle bought after 2020 has this technology in it and it is implemented that one cannot exceed the posted speed limit “because the WiFi won’t let you” there is a significant danger to car and human.
If someone is driving a 2024 Silverado and they cannot exceed the posted speed limit of 60 mph on Interstate 66 (outside of Washington DC) what happens if someone else comes flying by in a 1988 Corvette that has the ability to go 150 mph (let’s say they are traveling at 80 mph, well, because they can). The older vehicles do not have Wi-Fi. Doesn’t this make road conditions even more dangerous because sometimes one has to put the pedal to the metal just to merge from the acceleration ramp depending on traffic conditions?
What happens if it is a medical emergency, a road rage incident that one is trying to remove themselves from, a tornado, a wildfire, etc? Will ambulances and firetrucks also have speed limitations?
Just another reason that I think my next car will be built somewhere between 1964 and 1995. It is too dangerous otherwise.
Indeed RG, the danger lies in the difference in speed between cars, not the speed itself.
It’s absolutely insane how the government regularly uses deaths caused by someone who used a gun to kill innocent people as an excuse to call for draconian gun control laws. It’s also insane how they’re using those deaths caused by that driver in Nevada who was on drugs and speeding to propose MANDATES for ALL new cars to have “Speed limiting” technology, while at the same time blatantly IGNORING the permanent injuries and deaths caused by the COVID “vaccines” that they continue pushing.
Hi John,
Yes, but it’s only insane if you assume a sane standard. The Left’s standard is – that which enhances the power of the Left. Anything that does so is a boon and pushed/pursued. Anything that isn’t is ignored. Thus, the Left gives no shits about the harms caused by the “vaccines.” But it pretends to give a shit about “speeding.”
Hi Eric,
These Lefties who are in power are certainly acting like “The Man” that hippies railed against in the 1960s. Have the hippies from back then become “The Man” themselves? Sure looks like it, considering that most politicians in Congress, in addition to Resident Biden, are over 70 years old. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the “Counter culture” types of the 2020s are LIBERTARIANS?
Yes, that’s why I call them Hippie-Crites.
These self-righteous political hacks pontificate about being “green” and “saving precious carbon”…while being whisked about in Executive Jets or USAF-crewed luxury airliners, and being driven around with ARMORED Chevy Suburbans or other “Konigstigers” with chrome, hubcaps, and those annoying “bubblegum” machines, brought by a USAF C-5 or C-17, no doubt, thank drank how much “Jet-A” to deliver those rides? All while being escorted by AGWs riding Harleys or Kawasakis, yelling over their bullhorn, “our of the way, PEASANTS!”
‘blatantly IGNORING the permanent injuries and deaths caused by the COVID “vaccines”’ — John B
Justice is coming … and not from the co-opted fedgov:
‘Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is suing Pfizer for misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company’s Covid-19 “vaccine” and for conspiring to censor those who questioned its claims.
‘The suit, filed Thursday, alleges that Pfizer violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by engaging in false, deceptive and misleading acts as it promoted the drug.
“The facts are clear. Pfizer did not tell the truth about their COVID-19 vaccines,” said Paxton in a statement revealing the suit.
“We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies.”
https://tinyurl.com/8xk5mrym
Paxton’s suit is filed in the District Court of Lubbock County, Texas. So there’s not a damned thing the corrupt US fedgov can do about it. Hang ’em high!
You cannot expect justice from the same system that dealt out injustice.
I would agree with you, but the lawsuits should be brought in addition to other pushbacks. The bastards need to be fought on all fronts.
Right on. Win or lose, Paxton’s lawsuit will turn up highly damaging documents during discovery.
Vaccine victims can’t sue Pfizer, due to federal immunity legislation. Paxton’s suit based on state deceptive trade practices law is a clever workaround to put the hurt on Pfizer.
Hi Jim,
I heard about that. I also read elsewhere a few months ago that the reason the Texas Legislature tried to impeach AG Ken Paxton was because he dared to go after Big Pharma, which as we’ve seen the past few years has tremendous influence over governments.
Suing Pfizer for misrepresentation is a slam dunk as far as lawsuits go. Any state with a budget shortfall should take the easy open court lay up, and level up their state coffers.
Meanwhile, Arizonas AG, Kris Mayes is worrying herself with the environmental hazards of lead coated overhead electric cables, She’s also busying herself looking for insurrectionists, stomping her little feet about abortion, and kvetching against school choice, while not a peep about enforcing our immigration laws or tightening our border.
When I was a kid the cream always rose to the top. In a state with 8 million people, how is it all we get is filthy pond scum?
Hi Norman,
Now Pfizer is suing Poland for undelivered and unwanted COVID jabs. Any court that isn’t bought off by Big Pharma should laugh Pfizer right out of the courtroom for filing such a lawsuit…
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/pfizer-sues-poland-demanding-money?publication_id=441185&post_id=139134202&isFreemail=true&r=1ggdo
I saw that John,
Seems Poland and Hungary have more or less been stalwarts against the Covid tyranny. I hope US states jump in and gut big Pharma, like a fish, making their stinking entrails unrecognizable to their own (Satan) father. Sadly Arizona wont be participating. We are now run by a trifecta of thieves. Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. All of which were in on the CCP drop box fraud.
Hi Norman,
I doubt Oregon will be part of any state lawsuit against Big Pharma either. During COVID, then Governor Kate Brown declared a “Public Health Emergency” that she kept unilaterally extending for 2 years despite the fact that the Oregon Constitution required the governor to consult with the state legislature if she wanted to extend it beyond 30 days. NOBODY in the Democrat controlled legislature stood up and demanded input into whether Brown extended her “Emergency Declaration”. Instead, they effectively let her rule the WHOLE state like a Petty Tyrant, and the state AG & Secretary of State didn’t do squat about Brown’s abuse of power either.
And after the rollout of the COVID jabs, Brown announced a “Vaccine lottery” for Oregonians to get vaxxed. A few months later, she imposed COVID jab mandates for employees in certain sectors. The State’s “Health Authority” even wanted to implement vaccine passports and a PERMANENT indoor mask mandate until public pushback resulted in those insane ideas being dropped. Oregon got a new governor this year, but with talk of another virus coming with pandemic potential, will the governor, the state, and the state’s “Health Authority” try to impose face diaper & jab mandates AGAIN? Will the Biden Thing also decree draconian COVID measures like what we saw in 2020? That remains to be seen, but after seeing that the last round of draconian measures did little more than cause MASSIVE DAMAGE to society, people who comply this time are chumps.
Reminds me of the old bumper sticker “Ted Kennedy’s car killed more people than my gun”.
Even today that fat asstard wouldn’t have faced any repercussions. I’m sure the “technology” has all kinds of exceptions written into its software e.g.
enum YouAreAMoreEqualAnimal
{
Local Police //includes local, county, other state level enforcing da gd law ossifers
State Police
FBI
Department of Education
Deputy Assistant to the Undersecretary of Charge d’Affairs of the Redundant Operations
Department and Departments of Operational Redundancy
Ted Kennedy
}
Here’s an article from our friends at Slate, asking why cars are capable of high speeds in the first place. They’re talking mostly about the Bentley in Niagara Falls. To give you an idea of the idiotic drivel, at one point they cite the Bentley’s transmission as an area of grave concern. It has nine speeds. NINE!! Who in gawds name needs a car that that goes so fast it needs nine speeds! Real geniuses they are, but unfortunately this is probably a good indication of where things are headed.
https://slate.com/business/2023/11/bentley-speeding-niagara-rainbow-road-villani.html
Holy shit! Why is it 25 out as far as the gas station there? That’s some programming bull shit right there. You must be driving that fuck-tarded Volvo or BMW again. I had a 2020 Alfa Romeo Stilletto, or some idiotic crap like that here yesterday, with the same asinine crap.
Just wait, amigo!
If I can get done here in time, I’ll be heading to your shop in a new EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeeeee!
Colorado DOT is running a test of variable speed limits in Glenwood Canyon, to control speed in bad weather. The “dry pavement” speed was increased to 60 MPH from 50, and they can ratchet it down to 30 if there’s ice.
https://www.postindependent.com/news/speed-limit-in-glenwood-canyon-to-range-from-30-60-mph-depending-on-conditions/
Problem is, 60 is too fast for many drivers. And although commercial trucks continue to be limited to 50 MPH (and restricted to the right lane), few pay attention to that. So commercial vehicles are crashing more often, which lead to complete closures and complicated clean up.
But I would assume the highway manager could pick whatever speed he wishes to set for the day, and have a pretty easy justification if questioned. At least if the speed is below 60 MPH, anyway. If the PSL is set too fast and someone ends up down in the river will the courts hold CDOT accountable? Will the governor throw the highway mangers to the wolves?
The problem is that regulators believe there’s an ideal speed. Traffic engineers and highway architects claim to design for a given speed, but they can’t really know until it’s built if it is safe or not. Yes, they have a lot of reference material, but again, is there an ideal speed for any road? Every vehicle? Every weather condition? We assume there’s a speed limit “expert” somewhere whose big brain is able to calculate the perfect speed. But at best that’s based on a snapshot in time, or assumptions that are nothing more than an estimate. When that assumption is wrong, do we hold them accountable?
Oh, maybe the “ambulance chasers” will try to sue the state, and get a big payout too. But when will the state legislators haul an engineer into the hearing room to grill them over their assumptions? Will they even attempt to do a little research before grandstanding for the camera? Will the press even bother to cover the hearing? Probably not, because it isn’t sexy like abortion or gun rights. But every one of us has to deal with highway design every day of our lives, and no one ever gives a thought to bad design decisions.
‘no one ever gives a thought to bad design decisions.’ — ReadyKilowatt
Even as an 8-year-old punk kid, I was dumbstruck by the condition of US Hwy 59 about 30 miles north of Houston, near Splendora. For some reason — maybe a surveyor’s error — two straight sections of the highway were misaligned by about a hundred feet. Before reaching the right-angled dogleg connecting the two, the speed limit suddenly dropped from 65 to 15.
It was obviously, stupid dangerous, and probably the site of many fatal wrecks. Yet I recall it persisting for several years.
These days, insidious errors are embedded invisibly in maps and algorithms. I can’t count the number of lost souls I’ve encountered, led astray by Google Maps. Yet we’re going to let these doofuses design the parameters of our digital nannies? No thanks …
The speed limit is supposed to be set at the 85th percentile speed, which reflects the maximum and the safest speed for travel. A properly posted speed limit should and will feel too fast for at least 50 percent of motorists (the bottom 50 percent). A small percentage will violate the speed limit and at 5 above that, the speed limit is enforceable.
We have been conditioned to improperly set speed limits where prevailing speeds are 5-15 mph above the posted limits. So, 60 mph would appear too fast if there are some that want to travel 10 over. But, really, if you adhere to a 60 mph limit, you will make it out alive.
When people drive at speeds they are safe and comfortable driving, not too fast or too slow, the roads are safer.
This has never been challenged in a “court of ‘law'” so it would be interesting.
> the highway manager could pick whatever speed
Oh, great. Just what “we” need.
More “essential” gummint bureaucrats with eyes affixed to computer monitors, pecking away at keyboards to control our lives.
The main problem we face is that the commoners are never allowed to vote on these policies yet have to put up with them. Third party time? Do you really think the oligarchs will have to put up with these devises in what they own? I doubt it. At least the Yugo didn’t restrict how you drove.
Actually, in most areas in Virginia, it IS the commoners that set speed limits. And they vary from district to district, or even intersection to intersection in some areas. US 460 E/W has no fewer 55 speed limit changes from one end in WVA to the other in Newport News. Some areas drop speed from 65 to 50, or less, for 1/8 of a mile for a single, rural, uncontrolled (no lights or signs) intersections that can be seen for 2 miles. Speed limits are so arbitrary and political it’s insanely obnoxious.
I’ve been down roads where the speed limit goes up and down for no apparent reason also. Other than speed limits in most areas of Virginia what else can you control? Elections for officials that then do whatever they want no longer fills me with confidence.
Perhaps I should have said “seldom allowed” a say on such things as everything from the lack of border enforcement, lock downs, coercive jabbing, green energy etc.
Eric,
Years ago, back in the late 1980s, Airbus had designed the then new A320 airliner. It was the first passenger plane to have fly by wire technology. FBW had been in military aircraft since the 1970s, having been pioneered in the F-16. I’m going to post a video that shows how FBW overrode the pilots of the A320 on a 1988 demo flight. They were doing a low pass flyby. They increased the power in order to clear the trees. However, they had the nose pitched up, and it was pitched up too far for the computer’s liking. The computer overrode the pilots’ inputs, and the plane crashed into the trees. Here’s a video of that crash, and how FBW and DBW (drive by wire) can override the operator’s inputs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAg-WauGrLU
That computer glitch has long since been corrected, and the A320 has gone on to be a ubiquitous single aisle airliner. If you’re flying a medium range trip, the odds are you’ll be on a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320. Nevertheless, the above video shows that, when a computer is ultimately controlling the vehicle, the operator’s control of said vehicle is just an illusion; it’s wishful thinking on his part.
Hi Mark,
Yup; I remember that. Ceding control to a computer means ceding control to programming. If an event arises that is outside of the programming’s parameters, you – the human – can’t countermand it. And regardless, you have no real control.
PS: On a lighter note, there’s this… Captain Sum Tin Wong!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDQcHXfEkPs
Comedy gold! I remember when that first made the rounds several years ago. The intern who worked at that station deserves accolades!
‘The computer overrode the pilots’ inputs, and the plane crashed into the trees.’ — MarkyMark
Then it all happened again with Boeing’s 737MAX. After Lion Air Flight 610 crashed, ‘The aircraft flight manual (AFM) was revised “to provide the flight crew with runaway horizontal stabilizer trim procedures” when “repeated nose-down trim commands” are caused by “an erroneously high single AoA sensor.” The FAA directive warned that the problem was an “unsafe condition” that could result in “impact with terrain.”
Four months later, another fatal crash occurred, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. Its cause, the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), was a kludge to mimic the pitching behavior of previous 737 models. The computer override, which defeated pilots’ attempts to pull back on the stick, ended up killing hundreds.
I despise algorithms that override control inputs. An important reason for driving vintage vehicles is that they do not ignore, refuse or cancel driver inputs — such as the inability in new cars to back up with the drivers door open, after the algorithm has already muted the sound system. F*ck that noise.
Analog cars are gifts from God.
That’s the difference between philosophies…allowing the pilot in command to exceed parameters when necessary (Boeing) and not allowing the parameters to be exceeded under any circumstances (Airbus).
I remember watching a video showing a Boeing 707 doing a barrel roll ( which must have been fun) which would be impossible for an Airbus aircraft to do, but with Boeing, it is probably still possible.
IMHO the “pilot in command” should be able to exceed any parameter when he deems it necessary.
That was the “Dash 80” 707 prototype, he was supposed to do a flyover at the Seafair hydro races showing off the new plane. Oh he showed off alright, thus that barrel roll. Got chewed out by the CEO after, the companies future rested in that prototype and a mishap would have been a big hit to the company. Tex Johnston was interviewed years later, turns out he’d practiced that once before – a zero G roll so as to not tear the engines off.
I recall the story of a B-57 pilot , coming in at Ton Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, about to finish his last mission before retirement, and get his “hose down” upon landing, buzzed the airfield…at 100 feet…INVERTED!
We watched that video during development of the 777, a good “lessons learned” from that mishap. So, 777 flight controls has a disconnect switch that kicks the flight control computer out if the pilot doesn’t like what’s going on. You lose “envelope control” but the pilot has direct command of flight control surfaces. One more feature that was finally included, mechanical connection to two spoilers and the stab trim control so if elec power was lost you can safely maintain level flight till it’s sorted out. If you try running electronic flight controls on the battery you have only a few minutes till it’s spent.
Sure would be great if we had a one switch disconnect for the electronic Nannies in these new cars!
How far from that to using your social credit score to determine whether you can drive at all? They want full control of everything you do. Cars and electrical power are just the easiest places to start.