New cars in California could alert drivers to speeding

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California could eventually join the European Union and require all new cars to warn drivers when they exceed the speed limit. This proposal aims to reduce traffic fatalities, which would likely impact motorists across the country if it becomes law.

The federal government sets safety standards for vehicles nationwide, which is why most cars now beep at the driver if they are not wearing a seatbelt. A bill in the California Legislature — which passed its first vote in the state Senate on Tuesday — would go further and require all new cars sold in the state by 2032 to beep to drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph (16) exceed km/h).

“Research has shown that this has an impact on people driving slower, particularly because some people don’t know how fast their car is going,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and the bill’s author.

The bill narrowly passed Tuesday, an indication of how difficult the road ahead could be. Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle said he voted against it in part because he said people sometimes need to drive faster than the speed limit in an emergency.

“It’s just a nanny state we’re causing here,” he said.

While the goal is to reduce traffic fatalities, the legislation would likely impact all new car sales in the United States. That’s because California’s auto market is so large that automakers would probably just make all of their vehicles comply with the state’s laws.

California often throws its weight into influencing national – and international – politics. California has set its own Emissions standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would finally ban the sale of new petrol carsMajor automakers soon followed suit with their own announcement that they would phase out fossil fuel vehicles.

The technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS technology to compare a vehicle’s speed to a data set of applicable speed limits. Once the car is at least 10 mph (16 km/h) over the speed limit, the system would “emit a short, one-time visual and audible signal to alert the driver.”

California would not be required to maintain a list of posted speed limits. This would be left to the manufacturers. It is likely that these maps would not include local streets or recent changes in speed limits, which would lead to conflicts.

The bill provides that if the system receives conflicting information about the speed limit, it must use the higher speed limit.

The technology is not new and has been used in Europe for years. Starting later this year, the European Union will require all new cars sold there to be equipped with the technology – but drivers would be able to turn it off.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car accidents reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding – including an 8% increase in speeding-related deaths. This was particularly a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were due to speeding – the second highest rate in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.

Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended federal regulators require this on all new cars Warn drivers if they are speeding. Your recommendation came after a Crash in January 2022 When a man with a history of speeding ran a red light at more than 100 miles per hour and struck a minivan, killing himself and eight other people.

The NTSB has no authority and can only make recommendations.