swill453 wrote:It got me wondering that there must be a disclaimer somewhere that the manufacturer isn't responsible if you rely on the display and get a speeding ticket. But what's the mechanism for the driver supposedly being aware of it?
Is it in the small print when you buy the car? In that case there surely must be an ongoing responsibility to pass that on if you sell it or let someone else drive it.
My default assumption has always been that a driver's speed is the sole responsibility of the driver, who is supposed to be awake and concentrating on what he's doing.
Complaining that my speedo must have been on the blink, or that my satnav had told me something wrong, is unlikely to cut much ice with the magistrates. I might as well try to explain myself to the schoolchild who I've just injured because I didn't see the 20 limit sign.
So far, so simple, but I suppose that technology will eventually cut into my autonomy. If my car has programmed itself to follow the car in front at a distance of 11 metres, and if it then brakes and accelerates accordingly, then I might have half a case to plead in court?
It sometimes got it wrong, either by mistakenly reading a [speed limit] sign on a slip road rather than the main carriageway, or by missing one completely.
Ah yes, I remember those sorts of slip road ambiguities in France, where a road sign tilted at 5 degrees toward the left sometimes means "not you, somebody else" and a sign tilted at 5 degrees toward the right means "not you, and not him either". Unless of course it means "you, but somebody hit the signpost last week"
BJ