Yahoo Autos How California plans to stop you from speeding 10 MPH over the limit
Could this new tech alter your driving habits?
Introduced in January this year and passed through both state legislative chambers earlier this month, California Senate Bill “SB-961 Vehicles: Safety Equipment” is now law, though it won’t start coming into effect until 2030.
Safety activists and cyclist advocacy organizations are hailing its passing as a big win for everyone, while the National Motorists’ Association has been actively running a petition to prevent the bill from passing.
Unlike many laws, the bill is quite short if you actually want to read it yourself, but many who do are left wondering, is this bill really the safety victory being touted? Will it actually affect the average driver’s day-to-day experience?
What is California trying to do?
Behind the legalese and minor exemptions, which effectively won’t apply to many drivers, the bill’s provisions are clear. Any vehicle sold from 2030 onwards that has a front-facing camera or GPS guidance system will be required to provide a warning whenever drivers exceed 10 miles over the speed limit.
Chevrolet
While nothing in the bill prevents more aggressive measures, such as the car automatically reducing speed once this overclocked limit is detected, or additional warnings related to speeds, it also makes it clear that this system must be able to be disengaged by the manufacturer or a ‘franchisee’—essentially the driver themselves.
Why it (probably) won’t change much
Much like adjusting the rearview mirror and driver’s seat when one first gets into their car, many drivers will likely opt to turn off this ‘reminder’ style warning about speeding, especially if they tend to speed as part of their normal driving style.
Even if a driver doesn’t turn off this feature, the bill only calls for a one-time warning, with audio and/or haptics. But the fact that it is not sustained will make this required minimum safety feature fairly easy to ignore or forget, even by well-meaning drivers with a bit of a lead foot.
Added hassle for little gain
While manufacturers are expressly permitted to go above and beyond these regulations, it’s likely they won’t unless drivers demand it.
There may be some drivers who speed without realizing it infrequently enough to benefit from this system, but most will either disable the warnings or grow irritated by the constant reminders.
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Every intention has an equal and opposite subversion
One potential solution these hypothetical drivers might come to is that, since the warning only triggers when they first exceed 10 mph over the speed limit, why not simply keep driving over the limit once they cross that threshold?
Instead of lowering the average speed of vehicles on the road in California, this new law may, though it is hard to know exactly for how many and by how much, increase the average speed of vehicles on the road.
What are some alternatives?
Safety is obviously a critical part of using the automobiles we love so much, so even if the execution of this specific piece of legislation is a dud, are there ways to make the road safer for everyone? Yes, and for the most part, these have been private sector innovations and/or classics already widely in use.
Existing safety technology already does a lot of the heavy lifting
There are also less autonomously intelligent but still useful innovations like cameras front, rear, and sometimes even side, lane assist, lane merger warning, collision warning, and a host of other technologies that are matured and often come standard. Perhaps unlike a speed warning, drivers want these, and carmakers followed the market to include them.
Woop woop that’s the sound of the police
Lastly, there’s also nothing quite like officers out on the beat to catch the worst offenders. While speed traps and ticket quotas might make traffic cops an irritation for those on the road, they are still the best way to catch someone truly driving in an unsafe manner. And unlike a little chime or light shake of the steering wheel, when bad actors act out, someone to stop and ticket them might just be the best way to save lives.
Final Thoughts
In short, SB-961 is an extra hurdle for carmakers to tick off when making their products street legal in only one of the 50 United States, and it is a feature most drivers will either turn off or ignore. The law might even encourage worse driving habits, and it doesn’t seem like it will measure up to the effectiveness of existing safety features already in use.
As long as it can be turned off, however, perhaps most drivers won’t even care or notice.
