A bill passed in the California state Senate would require all new cars sold in the state to use “passive speed limiters” by 2032.
The law wouldn’t go so far as to mandate cars that can’t speed. Instead, S.B. 961 would require new cars to “utilize a brief, one-time, visual and audio signal to alert the driver each time the speed of the vehicle is more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.”
It would ladder in the rule, requiring 50% of new cars, trucks, and SUVs to have the technology by 2029 and 100% by 2032.
The most populous state often sets standards that spread outside its borders. The Associated Press notes, “California has set its own emission standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.”
Roads Have Grown More Dangerous
The bill’s author, Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), points to research showing that traffic deaths have spiked in recent years. “These deaths are preventable, and they’re occurring because of policy choices to tolerate dangerous roads,” he says.
Traffic deaths soared during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, hitting a two-decade high in 2022. A federal study of car accidents found that speeding, drunken driving, and distracted driving had all grown even before the pandemic and only increased when many Americans were in lockdown.
A recent AAA study found that most drivers engage in behaviors they know are dangerous.
The tide may have begun to turn. More recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that traffic fatalities fell last year.
Some Have Advocated Actual Speed Governors
The California proposal would require cars to beep once when a driver travels 10 mph over the limit. Some 2024 cars already have that fairly simple technology.
In every car we’re aware of, you can turn the notice off. To comply with the California proposal, automakers would just need to remove the deactivation option.
But some safety advocates have called for more extreme solutions. The National Transportation Safety Board — an advisory group that investigates crashes and cannot pass rules of its own — has recommended systems that would simply prevent cars from speeding every year since 2017.
Other New Safety Rules Coming
There’s no guarantee the bill will become law. The upper house of the state’s legislature has passed it. Now, The Hill reports, it “moves to the State Assembly, where it must pass by Aug. 31.” Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has not commented on whether he would sign it.
If it becomes law, it would join a wave of new safety requirements. Federal safety watchdogs recently required all new cars to have automatic emergency braking systems as standard equipment by 2029.
A little-noticed provision of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act requires cars to have anti-drunken-driving technology by 2026.
