[landcruiser123]

A friend went on a road trip to Mysore on his new Ciaz AT. Needless to say, he was irritated while and after driving.

Knowing the sedate driver he is, I know he would never exceed 100 kmph. But he tells he was so irritated after his trip as he had to continuously hear 2 beeps a minute while cruising at 80-90 kmph. He is now considering going to his local accessory shop to disable this.

I feel sorry for owners who have to put up with this system. I'm not against regulation to control speeding. I wouldn't be complaining if the system was:
1. One beep after 80kmph. (Just one beep, absolutely no repeating)
2. Continuous beeping at >130kmph. (Give drivers a bit of margin)

Originally Posted by Holyghost

I too find 80-90 kmph a stress free speed on the highway...

I learned this from personal experience. Dad and I used to push our Innova (old one) really hard on highways. We used to Bangalore-Chennai in about 6 hours. The Innova was really noisy at >110kmph (~3000 rpm.) When my dad was told not to drive on highways for a few months, I drove a complete trip from Bangalore-Chennai at 90kmph. Rarely went to 100 kmph during a few overtakes.

The result:
1. Significantly relaxing drive at 90kmph. The diesel engine was quieter at ~2500 rpm. Also, you don't feel as worn out at the end of the day
2. Increased fuel economy. 12.5 kmpl vs 10.5 kmpl with three rows of AC running.
3. Only 15 minutes of extra drive time in similar traffic conditions.

[Axe77]

In the coming year I guess reviews and comparos of cars will also have to mention how loud each car's beep is so you can factor into purchase decisions.

@Landcruiser123 - please do post an update on whether your friend succeeded in disabling this and how. Also, is it possible to reduce the sound to a much lower decibel will also be useful to know.

Cheers.

[GTO]

Have driven about 5 cars in the last two months with this speed buzzer (including the Santro) and here are my thoughts:

- The one at 80 kmph is TERRIBLE. Heck, some parts of Mumbai city have an 80 kmph limit. 80 kmph is NOT fast by current standards. Imagine hearing that from Mumbai to Goa which is a 10 hour journey, 70% of which is on the expressway.

- The one at 120 kmph is continuous and even more annoying. However, I won't argue with this implementation. We don't have any road in the country with speed limits higher than that. Plus, if we take the skill level of the average driver on Indian roads, 120 kmph is the maximum he can handle (if not lesser).

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by GTO

Have driven about 5 cars in the last two months with this speed buzzer (including the Santro) and here are my thoughts:

- The one at 80 kmph is TERRIBLE. Heck, some parts of Mumbai city have an 80 kmph limit. 80 kmph is NOT fast by current standards. Imagine hearing that from Mumbai to Goa which is a 10 hour journey, 70% of which is on the expressway.

- The one at 120 kmph is continuous and even more annoying. However, I won't argue with this implementation. We don't have any road in the country with speed limits higher than that. Plus, if we take the skill level of the average driver on Indian roads, 120 kmph is the maximum he can handle (if not lesser).

Haha. I have been waiting forever to hear your view on this. Frankly, I know it is hard to justify but I am SO disappointed with both beeps. Personally I cannot imagine being curtailed to 120 kmph even though I consider myself a very safe and compliant driver at all speeds from bumper to bumper snarls to highway drives. This is going to definitely motivate me to keep my existing cars as long as possible.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by GTO

The one at 80 kmph is TERRIBLE. Heck, some parts of Mumbai city have an 80 kmph limit. 80 kmph is NOT fast by current standards. Imagine hearing that from Mumbai to Goa which is a 10 hour journey, 70% of which is on the expressway.

One more reason why the 80 kmph buzzer will drive you up the wall.

It comes on EVERY TIME that you touch 80 kmph. So, if you are driving on a road with varying speeds between 75 - 85 kmph, be prepared to hear it non-stop. I took the Santro to Lonavla yesterday and heard the 80 kmph beep at least 50 times from the New Bombay bridge to the start of the expressway .

My late Dad would have loved this feature though. He was a backseat driver and didn't like speeding. Whenever the speedometer went over 100 kmph, he'd ask me to slow down. The 120 kmph warning would've made him very happy.

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by GTO

One more reason why the 80 kmph buzzer will drive you up the wall.

It comes on EVERY TIME that you touch 80 kmph. So, if you are driving on a road with varying speeds between 75 - 85 kmph, be prepared to hear it non-stop. I took the Santro to Lonavla yesterday and heard the 80 kmph beep at least 50 times from the New Bombay bridge to the start of the expressway .

I agree that it is annoying, but considering the average driver skills and our road infra, I'd rather have this in all cars. I was driving the Ciaz yesterday and on the way back, had the cruse control set to 85 km/h in the middle lane. Just after the downhill section on the way back to Mumbai (after Lonavala), I saw cops with speed cams merrily taking pics. At the toll booth, another set of cops were flagging all the cars found speeding. And this time it was not just a 'hunch' but a proper speeding ticket with the challan awaiting the offenders.

I'm happy to note the cops taking proactive steps. This buzzer would definitely keep the speeds in check. That said, we also need some sort of minimum speed limits and strict action on trucks hogging the fast lane. I'm pretty sure that if our average speeds improve, most of the drivers would never need to overspeed.

My late Dad would have loved this feature though. He was a backseat driver and didn't like speeding. Whenever the speedometer went over 100 kmph, he'd ask me to slow down. The 120 kmph warning would've made him very happy.

Dad returned from a drive last night and we were discussing this. He too was generally happy with the move, especially as the buzzer alerts not just the driver but the other occupants in the car as well.

That said, I'm sure glad it's not there in the Abarth.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by GTO

- The one at 80 kmph is TERRIBLE. Heck, some parts of Mumbai city have an 80 kmph limit. 80 kmph is NOT fast by current standards. Imagine hearing that from Mumbai to Goa which is a 10 hour journey, 70% of which is on the expressway.

- The one at 120 kmph is continuous and even more annoying.

Has 120kph been implemented or are we still on 100kph. On the Agra Lucknow Expressway and Yamuna Expressway all signage is still 100kph! What gives.

[sagarpadaki]

I think people will come up with a way to mute it via OBD or some mechanism to mute the speaker or disable it altogether. This will be very annoying on a peaceful night drive with family or friends.

[humyum]

While on a trip to Junagadh during Diwali, the Baroda-Ahmedabad highway had a speed limit sign of 100 kmph, so does that mean the government who instructs manufacturers to implement such buzzers and the people who build roads are not working with each others? What a sad state of affair eh? These are the same people who are proposing the speed limits on the Mumbai-Pune expressway will be increased to 100-120, when the world is moving forward, these lot are making us move backword.

Having a buzzer at 80 or 120 is just foolish IMO, set up stringent speed checks if you are so hell bent upon implementing speed limits, not harass the population in every way possible.

Tomorrow they will feel Pav Bhaji is bad cholesterol, hence not good for health, so instead of advising people to not eat it, they will ban Pav Bhaji

Gadkari is not Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible, he is the Joker from Batman.

[ajmat]

I would be interested to know what will be done if the speed limits get revised. I hope that it will be easy to reconfigure these alarms

[lambodara]

Mod Note: There are several grammatical & formatting errors in your posts. This negatively affects the forum experience for other readers. Kindly ensure that you proof-read your posts & compose them properly prior to submission.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by ajmat

I would be interested to know what will be done if the speed limits get revised. I hope that it will be easy to reconfigure these alarms

Good point. I hear on the Yamuna Expressway and Agra-Lucknow expressway the limit is still 100kph. So even the 'done' changes are not done.

[giri1.8]

Considering the fact that the speedo has generous error of 10%, this seems quiet silly! Its like doing 70ish in a 110km/hr zone and still get to hear the buzzer! Whats worse is people who cruise close to 80 will hear it often after they slow-down a bit and pick up speed again

I never liked the idea of moving to a developed country with lot of rules controlled by the government, guess this is part of negative effects of being well developed (we still have a long way to go).

[agambhandari]

G63 AMG now has a speed alarm. Take a look at the review by Autocar India, it is shown at the 5:40 mark in the video

https://youtu.be/uo56UWuAtJc

[pganapathy]

Originally Posted by ajmat

I would be interested to know what will be done if the speed limits get revised. I hope that it will be easy to reconfigure these alarms

That would defeat the whole purpose of these alarms actually. The whole point (absolute insanity in my opinion, but still) is that they are supposed to be difficult to reconfigure or switch off, because otherwise everybody will just connect to the OBD and switch it off or raise the speed limit so it doesn't bug them,

As far as I can figure out, these buzzers will only irritate people. Yes, back seat drivers and passengers in a taxi would probably like it because it easily tells them the approximate speed the driver is doing, but the risk is it bugs the driver and thus makes him irritable, leading to a greater risk of an accident.

I am going to avoid buying a new car with this stupid contraption if at all possible. A used car will do fine for me.