What is the purpose of the speedometer in your car? Is it to help yo manage your speeds according to the laws, rules and regulations of the road? Or is it to fulfill your sense of how fast you might go, can go and would go one day?
Because I looked at the speedometer on my car and realized that half of it is wasted - I will not be driving that fast unless I was escaping a tsunami, earthquake, etc. And I certainly won't be looking at the speedometer in that situation.
So isn't it time to change the speedometer to something that fulfills the first purpose and not the second?Yesterday's inventions got me thinking about this.
There were speed limits before motorized vehicles so this isn't about cars. A normal trotting horse-drawn carriage will go around 8-10 mph, and a speeding/galloping horse-drawn carried goes 18-24 MPH. The speed limits in the 1600s was 12 mph for horses.
The motorized vehicle speed limit of 10 mph was introduced in the UK in 1861.
And how far have we travelled today? The highest posted speed limit in the world today is 160 km/h (or 99 mph) on two motorways int he UAE. So there's never been an intention for people to drive over 100 MPH. (There are places with no speed limits).
What if the speedometer had more detail at the lower end and left off that high end. Knowing your car speed in the 40 to 60 kph range seems critical on urban streets. You drive them every day. How often might you check your speed in the 140 - 160 kph range. Not any day ever for the significant majority of the car drivers on the entire planet.
Such high speeds are present because of the marketing pitch- inclined towards a sportier seeming car. Is there a possibility that we have young people vs old people speedometers - the higher speedometer numbers sell to young men - they could pay a premium to get that special "dial". There must be a cheap technology for this right now.
Here's Gerry's sporty car in 2020 at the Hidden Bench barn. The manufacturer has a setting for the driver to set a kph where it beeps when the driver reaches that speed. A "note to self" to not get a catastrophic speeding ticket.
