[locusjag]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

I haven't voted for or against this.

Why I didn't vote? The primary reason is that the overall traffic sense and conditions are not conducive enough to drive so fast.

Thank you for voicing what I had on my mind too. I haven't exceeded 110 Kmph in India and my typical speed would hover around 90 Kmph. Like yourself, I'm acutely aware of the unknowns that lurk on our roads. An autorickshaw loitering by the left extreme of the highway is an invitation for me to drop it down to 70 Kmph and observe him.

The 120 Kmph speed alert doesn't apply to this category of watchful drivers. And the 80 Kmph alert wouldn't dissuade me either, since driving too slow and not keeping up with traffic is an equal invitation for disaster; almost everyone does 80 or 90 kmph on our highways. The outliers do more than 120 or amble along at 40 Kmph and the twain do meet, and how!

[Vikki@Hyderabad]

While I'm for a continuous buzzer at 120 kmph, I think periodic beeps at 80 kmph is overkill. Most of my highway drives are on four-lane divided highways and I maintain a speed range of 90-100 kmph.

Driving anything below this range is highly dangerous on these roads, with the private buses terrorizing you at nights. Trust me, you wouldn't like these behemoths lighting up your rearview mirrors every minute. I shudder to think of a scenario where you're driving uphill weaving through slow-moving trucks at 65 kmph and suddenly a Volvo weaves from behind a truck to find you in its lane. But as people have mentioned above, these situations are specific to geographies.

As the highways get crowded, I believe this is going to bring down the average travel speeds by a huge margin, and probably causing more accidents than reducing them. Slowing average travel times doesn't reflect well on a nation that's on the path of development, does it? (My opinion only).

I vaguely remember a story of Ratan Tata visiting the Daewoo plant in South Korea years ago. He said the only vehicles on the highways that were going faster than the cars were trucks. That's where we'd want to get to, but it's a long ways away.

[Dsan]

I have voted yes for the alerts introduced.
We enthusiasts would know how to handle a vehicle in our countries dynamic driving conditions. But at the same time, we have worlds most dangerous roads(number of fatalities per year). Therefore any system, which can try to restrict the number of fatalities is a welcome change.
Also, if the number of fatalities doesn’t decrease with time , SIAM may propose removal of this rule.

[shashankrt]

Have voted No. Many of my drives are on Mumbai Pune expressway and driving on it at 80 kmph appears slow and often unsafe as others try to cut across or overtake from wrong side. Add to this hopeless trucks loitering in 1st lane.

Additionally not sure how loud the alerts are in new cars (my Tiago has loud alert). This can potentially annoy babies and young kids especially if they cannot sleep.

[landcruiser123]

Luckily, the Ciaz at my house doesn't have that. I think the 80 kmph buzzer is too conservative. My friend actually got irritated driving his Ciaz from Bangalore to Mysore. Anyone who drives that road will know that speeds continuously vary from 70-90 kmph. And in most highways, we do end up hitting a truck doing 60 kmph and we need to adjust our speed before overtaking them.

I don't mind the 120 kmph buzzer though. That is the speed limit in most of the world.

[Sankar]

Those who want to speed will speed, and if the intention was to warn the driver a speed warning lamp on the console plus a single beep or a series of beeps for some 5 secs would have been enough. The hair brained idea here is to irritate the driver enough to try and make him reduce the speed. The guys who thought up of this don't understand that keeping the buzzer on at high speeds is distracting on its own if the driver were to continue to speed.

When this overspeed jingle is going on there is a good chance that the driver would miss any other warning beep that may go off - like for example a tpms warning, abs warning, a low oil pressure warning etc etc.. I remember that in the Vento abs sensor error went off with a sound while I was driving on the highway, braking efficiency reduced and I slowed down. In the current scenario I could have missed it. In the midst of constant speed beeps.

I think these beeps can be disabled using the oem diagnostics software.

[ajmat]

We've had too much freedom, too many accidents, too little enforcement or respect for the law.

A speed limit is necessary, we will see rigid enforcement get phased in, hence the warnings should be treated as an aid. Last week, I had a Porsche for a few days in the UK. I found most of my attention went into checking the speed. A quick beep to tell me when I touched the limit would have helped. Driving between cities and around London, I found speed limits were used to tackle congestion and reduce jams by ensuring mergers into motorways and junctions in a controlled manner.

However I would execute this in another way.

80km/h - A quick beep on crossing and a visual indicator to remind you of this
120km/h - I would prefer 140km/h - A continuous beep that comes on after 5-10 seconds to permit quick overtaking.

Yes, the speed warnings do feel like a impediment to freedom but they are necessary as the general public disrespect laws and enforcement is weak.

[Ranabegins]

The speed warning system is great in my view, specially at 120Km/hr. I generally try to stay within that limit but on good 4 laned roads I have seen myself crossing that limit and only realizing that I'm going too fast when i saw the speedometer. I will admit that the warning on 80Km/hr is an overkill but looking at the positive side most of cars will give their best fuel economy at that speed.

[Sankar]

Speed warning beeps is a good idea to alert drivers who often cross the limits unawares, but not like how they have implemented it now.

I don't know how many is aware of another harebrained idea to curb speeding which was implemented in 'Murica during late 70's or early 80's. They made all vehicle speedometer top out at 85MpH and the national speed limit of 55mpH was highlighted on the speedometer. Idea was that the speeds after 85MpH were strictly off the limits and so the needle should be kept within that limit. That didn't stop public from doing "unknown" speeds beyond what was marked on the speedometer and it didn't work out.

Stricter enforcement is the better idea, alongwith a short audible and visible warning. Current speeding fines in India are chump change for most who like to speed but the new revised fines should hurt. Get caught in two traps between a 200km stretch and one is out of Rs2000 instead of Rs.800. With the new central database it should be possible to fine all vehicles irrespective of the state of registration all over India.

Now if one were to complain of vehicle problem like; vibration, braking, some noise etc which manifests at higher speeds at the service center they will tell the ignorant motorist that he shouldn't cross 120kPh and that is why the speed limit beeps are set there

I am all for limiting the top speed of each and every vehicle in India to 120KpH max! The minority who feel the need to go faster will have no problem finding ways to lift the limiter and the beeps, the rest of the folks should be happy that they get more mileage, tyre life and brake life out of their vehicles and don't have to put up with the constant beeping.

[humyum]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

If this rule means a few precious lives are saved across the length and breadth of India then I am happy to cope with a small auditory inconvenience occasionally. Given the complexity of implementing any law in the jungle that is India this is a sensible way to do it. If you don't plan on driving above 120 why the fuss.

I don't plan to read many news papers in India too, but I will be pissed if they were censored by the government for writing against them, because it tramples on their freedom to express their opinion, this is somewhat in that line.

If Government wants to come up with ideas, they should know how to enforce them, they are just passing on the buck to the poor manufacturer and irritating the consumer in the bargain. The same thing happened with the tints too, some rapes happened in cars with tints so any kind of tints even the super light ones are banned, who suffers because of this? The consumers who live in cities which burn to 40+ degrees during summers. This is exactly in this direction.

Tomorrow Government will think drinking a certain soft drink above 2 bottles is harmful for your health, they will start having ration card submission for that too, what is this? A country or a military academy?

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Given that our population, inclined to breaking rules, is greater than the entire Western hemisphere we need creative solutions to prevent the rule breaking at source. It is not possible to have cops or cameras and radars across every road. Easy to say 'let them enforce the speed limit' - explain how it will be done in a land as complex, large and unruly as ours.

Folks, over speeding is a problem in our country especially while overtaking on highways. Before we get up in arms against the Govt lets pause and reflect exactly how many minutes or hours do we spend in a month driving at above 80 or driving at above 120.

Its possible to connect India with National highways all over, but not possible to install cameras and challan errant drivers? USA is 3 times larger than India, how are rules enforced there? India plans to become a 5 trillion economy soon and we are stuck with 'how should we enforce rules'?

Everyone started from somewhere, we conducted the largest election in any democratic country some months back, we have CCTV camera's in smaller cities and towns too now (Visit Junagadh for example, there are camera's there in areas which have mud houses, near farms and where not).

We can't hide behind India is a big country, India is an unruly country all the time. Just to make my stand clear on this issue and this is just my opinon, I am against beeps at 80 and 120 or any kind of beeps, enforce the rule if you want to bring out anything new.

[kumaranurag]

As I'm quite young, I've set the speed limit warning in my car at 80kmph so that I can keep my adrenaline rush down & don't kill myself or others.

[KrisTvpm]

My Dec2015 Ecosport has this feature -- only a single speed setting at which system warns me with audible chimes (relatively audible with music system on) + blinking indication in the MID.

While driving in the city, I set it upto 60/80 depending on the speed legally allowed on these roads and religiously follow these (provided the crazy traffic allows me to go above crawling speeds).

While on highways I set it to 100 and bypass it when overtaking manoeuvres need higher speeds (ofcourse within safe speed limits and favourable traffic conditions).

I gather that Ford Aspire - some models (and ofcourse some other makes must have it) have a MAX speed setting above which you can't accelerate. Would've loved that feature on my car!

[Holyghost]

I am all in for 120KM/h buzzer. Speeds above 120 is too dangerous on Indian highways irrespective of the vehicle you are driving. If this buzzer can annoy the idiots who overspeed on the highways to an extend for them to stop overspeeding or to give up driving all together I will be really happy.
But my concern is the 80KM/h buzzer. I genuinely feel that was an overkill. They could have kept it at 100 since few highways allow 100KM/h speed limit. I always keep my cruise control set to 90KM/h while driving on empty highways and reduce it to 70-80 when there is traffic. From my experience, 80-90 is the sweet spot to cruise on our highways.

[Ranabegins]

Originally Posted by humyum

I don't plan to read many news papers in India too, but I will be pissed if they were censored by the government for writing against them, because it tramples on their freedom to express their opinion, this is somewhat in that line.

I don't agree with you here. When you are drinking a particular soda you are only harming yourself but when you are driving on 150km/hr and making dangerous moves on road you don't only put yourself in danger but also others around you. Most of accidents I have seen are because someone tried to play smart on roads.

[bharatbits]

I have the option of setting the speed limit buzzer and it's volume on my Linea. I set it at 105kmph and seldom I cross it. That ensures even on open stretches on highways I don't exceed 100 kmph. The buzzer is quite irritating both for the driver and the passengers.

On a lighter note, with internet and intelligence coming into cars i think future cars will self impose Challans on themselves if they exceed 120kmph.