NTSB again urges car speed-limiter tech — after fatal crash at triple the posted speed

Part of the National Transportation Safety Board's mandate is to investigate vehicle accidents on behalf of the U.S. government. Based on its findings, it issues recommendations to other agencies like the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) about how to make U.S. roads and travel safer. The NTSB cannot make new laws and regulations, it can only advise the departments that do make the laws. After investigating a three-vehicle accident that happened in Las Vegas in January 2022, the NTSB is again recommending a few measures to curb speeding, one of them being the "need for intelligent speed assistance (ISA) technology and countermeasures including interlock program for repeat speeding offenders."

This is the third time since 2017 the agency has suggested new measures inside and outside a car to limit speeding and maximize enforcement of speed limits. The NTSB's 2017 Safety Study: Reducing Speeding-Related Crashes Involving Passenger Vehicles, SS-17/01, recommended ideas to the FHWA like updating speed camera guidelines "to reflect the latest automated speed enforcement (ASE) technologies," and working with the NHTSA "to assess the effectiveness of point-to-point speed enforcement in the United States." In 2022, after investigating a crash from December 2021, the NTSB nudged the NHTSA to entice "vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) systems that would prevent speed-related crashes."

In the Las Vegas crash, the driver of a Dodge Charger doing 103 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone ran a red light and hit a minivan. The impact killed him and his passenger, as well as a family of seven in the van, and critically injured a woman in a third car. It was the deadliest wreck in Nevada going back 30 years. The Charger driver in was later found to have been high on PCP and cocaine.