Speed cameras "old hat"

[D-Rider]

However, handing over control to the (theoretical) technology

Now you come to mention it http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/isa/index.htm
This has also been trailed on a bike.
It gives you warning signals, the seat vibrates and lights flash if you are going over the speed limit and if you don't slow down it can cut your ignition (part way round a bend! We know how that turns out).
No doubt they will combine the road pricing with this technology.
No more fun for you and me (unless vibrating seats floats your boat?)

Yeah - the bike work was done at MIRA.
I saw the bike at the ITS world congress earlier this year and talked to someone involved in the project (in this case ITS being Intelligent Transport Systems - not the Institute of Transport Studies at Leeds).
I'm not a fan of control being taken away from the rider but the hype surrounding this bike was out of all proportion.

Basically, with the vibrating seat and flashing display, it would first warn you that you were going too fast (I guess some may find added enjoyment in going just that little bit "too fast"). Eventually power would be cut.
BUT in normal situations this is not going to be a surprise and you are not going to find that the bike needs to slow down as you will be capped at the speed that you are beginning to reach. I guess the only situations that may cause a problem are where a lower speed limit appears half way round a corner. How often does that happen ??? .... and, in any case, the system could easily be developed not to kick-in in such circumstances.
As for the concerns of stopping you accelerating out of danger, well, just as a car's cruise control will let you accellerate from the regulated speed, this system was designed to let you accelerate away when necessary.

Now please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend the attempted introduction of this system but it was surrounded in good old MCN hype and scaremongering.

Indeed, to have a cruise control on the bike that I could set in speed limited areas to stop me going faster than I wanted is something that I could see as helpful .... as long as I could set it rather than it be controlled by some speed-limit database.

[XJR Jason]

The inflated price of the traking device, the inflated price of the usage cost etc etc are just scare mongering tactics.

We've all seen this before, ridiculous pricing on road tax, then they come down to what would appear a reasonable price (still over the cost that we're used to)

Petrol priced in litres instead of gallons, 1p a litre increase equating to a 4.5p a gallon increase. 1p increase doesn't seem so bad does it.

I can't see them going down the route of a tracking device, but if they turn around and put aditional tax on petrol and the charge tolls on motorways etc, everyone is going to say what a much better idea.

[Falcoholic]

So why not just rip the fecker out and brooooooooommmmm away you go. If they can't track you how they gonna stop you

I personally don't think it'll happen but how do they know (or catch you) if you ain't tracked or limited?

Mad Max anyone??

We'd just have to revert to type.....mad bad ass lawless bikers