From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Sun Jan 28 2001 - 12:24:14 MST
At 12:10 PM 1/28/01 -0500, Greg Burch wrote:
>What I wouldn't at all mind seeing and something I've thought about before is
>employing technology to allow multiple classes of driver's licenses and to
>regulate speed in proportion to a machine's capabilities and the road
>conditions it encounters. I would gladly pay more for, take a test to get
>and tolerate some slight intrusion into my road-going privacy to be able to
>legally drive faster than current law allows.
I have seen this idea in other places. I like it!
>How about this: One can take a test for one's self, submit one's car to
>periodic inspection and testing and pay more for a "High Performance Driver's
>License". Certified training at something like the Skip Barber driving
>schools might be a pre-requisite. In it's full-blown "smart' form, such a
>system would allow one to activate the "high-performance" feature of one's
>car/license on open roads, which would then initiate a special session of
>two-way communication to the road system. The road network would sense the
>traffic and weather conditions and then allow you to drive up to some
>fraction of the limits of your combined car and driver rating under the
>existing conditions. The car reports real-time data on its operations to the
>road system, such as tire pressure and temperature, lateral acceleration,
>excessive yaw, vibration and aerodynamic downforce. Exceeding the car's
>"rating" on any of these parameters would change the limit at which the car
>would be able to operate.
So you could tear down a road with blind curves, and not have to worry
about obstructions just out of sight, perhaps..
>Under the such a system, there are lots of places
>here in Texas where I could run my 'vette up to the drag limit (~160-180 mph
>- a nice safe margin, since Car and Driver magazine determined that the side
>windows on my car tend to blow out from Bornoulli Effect above c. 200 mph;
>something you can fix with duct tape, but which doesn't look so hot).
Are you serious? What holds the windows in there in the first place?
Chuck Kuecker
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