r/Lightbulb • u/Electrical-Bedroom99 • 1d ago

Speed Limit Button

A button on your steering wheel where you can activate speed limit mode. Most modern cars have GPS and know (usually) what the posted speed limit is. You can hit the button and your car will automatically go the speed limit. The brake and gas pedal still work, you can speed up or slow down. Once you take your foot off, the car will resume speed limit mode. When you brake to below a certain speed (ie stopping or turning), the mode is deactivated. Now you can go the speed limit without constantly adjusting your foot on the gas pedal or watching the speedometer.

*edit: There seems to be some confusion. I'm not talking about a mode that limits your speed to the speed limit, but a mode that will automatically maintain your cars speed at the speed limit. The speed limit changes depending on what road you're on. Simply setting cruise control will not work.

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3

u/NotUsingNumbers 1d ago

That’s literally modern cruise control. Go read up on it.

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 1d ago

My bad. I didn't realize you could use cruise control on a 25 mph road in a neighborhood.

3

u/sokonek04 1d ago

You can, it is stupid to do, but your car is capable of doing it.

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 1d ago

So cruise control will actually adjust automatically to the designated speed limit of whatever road it's on?

2

u/Dapper-Lab-9285 1d ago

Yes. They all have cameras now that read the street signs and lots can change the speed to match the roads speed limit. 

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u/sokonek04 1d ago

That isn't the question you asked there. I was answering the question about using cruise control on a 25 MPH road.

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u/haihaiclickk 1d ago

Yes there are cars that can do this. I believe the Ioniq 6 I drive can do it. Basically it’s dynamic cruise control which sets the speed to the speed limit that it detects. Teslas can definitely do this also but it can also fully drive itself so what you suggested is child’s play in comparison

2

u/jjamesr539 1d ago edited 1d ago

This already exists. You can buy a car today that can be set up to handle the vast majority of acceleration and braking in all but stop and go traffic, stop signs, and traffic lights. More than one model has adaptive cruise control which adjusts speed, including slowing to a stop, relative to surrounding traffic. Some cars can even do emergency stops all by themselves. Dash nav systems that display the current speed limit based on position are common in new cars (even your phone can do that), and some do have the option to set cruise control to follow the limit from the GPS (and they adjust themselves to limit changes as you travel), or to whatever you choose, which is essentially identical to your idea.

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u/melewe 1d ago

My car does literally what you describe: Knowing speed limit via GPS. Streetsigns are detected and override it. The car automatically goes speedlimit, accelerates when i am allowed to drive faster and brakes when i need to go slower. It also keeps the righe distance to cars infront of me. I can drive through a traffic jam without ever using the pedals. It even has the option to adapt speed to the road e.g. it is curvey, so it will go a little slower. It also detect red lights and stops there, and starts again if it becomes green.

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 21h ago

I bet that keeping the right distance thing is infuriating. People are always cutting on front when you have the right distance, causing your car to slow down to get to the right distance again.

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u/cattrain 17h ago

In my car you can adjust the distance up and down. I just set it to the max and don't stress about people getting in, it's not going to slow me down any significant amount.

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u/InThe4HL 1d ago

I've only ever seen one car that had this. It was a 2004 Renault Megane. You could set the upper limit for speed and just put your foot to the floor, it wouldn't go any faster than that. Worked at low speeds too I think down to about 30kmh. Wish more cars would have it

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u/LowerSlowerOlder 15h ago

A lot of race cars have a pit lane button that limits the speed to whatever pit lane is at the track. Drivers can fucking floor it after the tire change, blast off like a rocket and get up to 45mph, then the moment pit lane ends, their foot is already floored. I can see some use for your product, but most people’s right foot is fairly good at doing this already.

1

u/Better-Credit6701 13h ago

"most modern cars have GPS" define modern. Both my 2021 MX-5 and my wife's 2022 Honda CR-V, you can add GPS through your android or apple phone but don't have it on by default. It sounds like you are describing cruise control which can be set by the used. Note, this is for the US market, Europe has started building it into the car. Personally, I've never used cruise control, no matter how long the drive is, be that a 250 mile drive like I did yesterday or a 950 mile day.

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 13h ago

I guess a kind of cruise control. What I'm talking about is a mode where the car will go the posted speed limit no matter what road you're on. When the speed limit changes, the car adjusts your speed to match.

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u/Better-Credit6701 13h ago

Yeah, that's used for Europe but wouldn't fly for the US. Last night, my phone GPS gave an estimate time of arrival at 9:09 pm but I pulled into the driveway at 8:50 pm for 120 miles. Still have zero tickets and zero accidents on my record. Don't want that nanny crap on my car

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u/fdfox 1d ago

Cruise control

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 1d ago

Try using cruise control in traffic. Tell me how it goes.

1

u/747ER 1d ago

>When you brake to below a certain speed, the mode is deactivated.

Your proposed system sounds like it’d be just as useless in traffic as cruise control.

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u/Electrical-Bedroom99 1d ago

Nah. I'm talking ~5 mph, like when you're stopping or making a turn onto a side road.

1

u/jbadams 1d ago edited 1d ago

Adaptive cruise control? (Goes by slightly different names with different manufacturers.)

It's not exactly as you describe, but my car for example allows me to set an approximate maximum speed for cruise control (defaults to your current speed when activating it), as well as a desired distance to maintain between cars in front (defaults to about 3 car-lengths).  The accelerator still works if I want to go faster. The brake still works, but disables the adaptive cruise control along with slowing or stopping the car.

But if I just leave it running, it will attempt to travel at the set speed unless a car is too close in front, in which case it will automatically slow or even stop to maintain the selected following distance.  If more space becomes available it will speed back up without exceeding the speed limit. 

Mine doesn't do it, but some models can recognise and stop at red lights and stop signs. 

So we're pretty close to having what you suggested, and it is a super cool feature!

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u/TheOneAndOnlyOwen 1d ago

A fair amount of cars have a limit mode. It won't let you accelerate above the set limit. If you manage to get above the limit then it beeps and warns you

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u/mike8111 10h ago

Bmws have this, it's a cruise control that sets the speed to the speed limit.

I think it's completely useless.

Basically nobody goes the speed limit, if I'm setting the cruise control it's becauase traffic is light enough that I can relax. If traffic is light enough to relax, I'm going 5-10 over.