Sweet! I’m going to affix a fake “25 mph” sign on the back of my car and drive around on highways!
I don’t think it would apply the brakes. More likely it’d prevent the engine from accellerating once the speed limit has been reached, which is how most current governers work. Applying the brakes could cause all sorts of safety problems, and would be a really, really bad idea.
Because there’s never a situation in which you need to increase your speed to avoid a collision or other dangerous situation. Yup. Unthinkable.
EDIT- Thanks for the edit to the main post, Mark.
Don’t let facts mess with a good narrative; what’s wrong with you?
I will add that the 55 limit (that’s mph, a mysterious unit of measure to Europeans) was instituted under President Carter as an energy-saving measure, not a safety measure, and I don’t think Europe has ever paid it any attention at all.
HAHAHA!!! Not gonna happen, ever. The French and the Italians will never ever let this happen. Ever. Never.
Looks like it’s not a real story, just a rumor.
For The Win
You beat me to it. I think someone made up this story just to try to make Jeremy Clarkson’s head explode.
A quote from Purplecats link:
Reports in the press over the last day or two have suggested that the EU intends to bring forward “formal proposals this autumn” to introduce automatic speed controls -known as “Intelligent Speed Adaptation” or ISA, into cars. This is quite simply not true and the Commission had made this very clear to the journalists concerned prior to publication.
I love the phrase, “Quite simply not true.” I wish all prose was so clear.
Isn’t “quite simply” British for “literally?”
The Brake Pad Manufacturer’s Lobby missed a fantastic opportunity here 
“The Commission has not tabled – and does not have in the pipeline – even a non-binding Recommendation, let alone anything more.”
Yeah… no.
Since we are not letting facts interfere with a good narrative, I will not point out that it was under the Nixon Administration that the national 55 mph speed limit was instituted. Nor will I provide a link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
Thanks! What do I know, I was a tyke.
Wow. BoingBoing is the last site I would have expected to accept such a story from the Telegraph (which is basically the Daily Mail in a nicer suit) at face value.
Poor form guys.
What a pity. I wish it was true! It’d be good for everyone, no doubt about it. Seriously!
The alternative would be the old compulsory 50cm long steel spike in the middle of the driving-wheel instead of an airbag - watch the punks impale themselves! And laugh!
And there will be no security or safety problems at all with this scheme. So all over Europe there is the same widely distributed private key for broadcasting authenticated speed limit signals to cars? Assuming they even bother to authenticate and encrypt the signal? No, that should work out just fine…
