Yahoo Autos California Gov. Shoots Down Mandatory Anti-Speeding Tech for New Cars
Score one for those who can't drive 55. On Saturday, September 28, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required new cars sold in the Golden State to audibly alert drivers that they were speeding.
Specifically, the bill would have mandated the vehicles produce a beeping noise inside the cabin, directed at drivers who the speed limit by 10 miles per hour or more.
California would have been the first U.S. state to implement such technology. It would have followed in the footsteps of the European Union, which passed laws mandating a variety of anti-speeding technology in 2022 and is set to implement them this year. While European regulations allow for haptic feedback technology (meaning the car can vibrate to alert drivers, or even push back against the driver's input on the gas pedal), California's proposed regulations were not as extreme.
If passed, California's anti-speeding technology would have required all new cars, trucks, and buses sold in the state starting in 2030 to abide by the law. Emergency vehicles, motorcycles, and motorized scooters would have been exempt.
Newsom validated his veto by citing the presence of overarching federal standards, giving deference to lawmakers in Washington D.C. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, is currently looking into intelligent speed assistance systems, while the National Transportation Safety Board made an official recommendation that vehicles should alert drivers of speeding last year. The Governor also stated that implementing California-specific requirements would require a web of state-specific legislation, making it complicated for automakers and state regulators alike.
California already sets and follows its own emissions standards, and even has had automakers produce state-specific emissions systems for new vehicles that are more strict than federal standards under the authority of the California Air Resources Board, or CARB. However, this authority predates the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government's own organization for enforcing pollution laws. The California speeding law vetoed by Newsom would have come into conflict with existing federal guidelines set up by NHTSA.
Automotive lobbyist groups and the state chamber of commerce were both in opposition to the proposed bill, citing the need for federal standards to simplify the implementation of such technology and to maintain market consistency. Democratic state senator Scott Weiner, who sponsored the bill, expressed disappointment about the veto and its implications for the future of safe streets.
"California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality."
Proponents of the technology say that alerting drivers to speeding and deterring the behavior is essential to lowering the death toll on American roads. Around 10 percent of car crashes in 2021 across the U.S. were related to speeding, according to data from NHTSA; however, California's legislative analysis of the proposal showing that around 35 percent of traffic fatalities in the state are linked to exceeding the speed limit.
Implementing the law, had it come into effect, could have presented logistical problems, as well. The bill would have required the state to keep a constant catalog of all speed limits in the state for vehicles to check their speeds against — process that would take significant organization and could be prone to errors.
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