A proposal has been approved by the European Transport Safety Council, which plans to see all new cars fitted with devices to physically restrict them to speed limits. The plan put forward states within the next 3 years, all new cars sold in the EU will have to be fitted with one of these automatic speed limiters as standard. This device is called intelligent speed assistance (ISA) and will use GPS data or traffic sign recognition cameras to know what the speed limit is and enforce it.
If a driver does go up to the speed limit the device would not let the speed go into illegal speeds unless the driver pressed forcefully on the accelerator. This would override the system and would take the speed up, however visual and audio alerts would repeatedly signal that the car is over the limit until the speed was brought back down.
All cars produced from 2020 will have these devices, but they have already been installed in some cars out now! For all of those worried about the limits there is going to be an off button for these machines, at least when they are first implemented. The ability to disable the device is an attempt to make people more tolerant to them being introduced, but they are expected to be permanently on at a later date.
These ISA’s are being implemented to make roads safer and lower the rates of injury and death by dangerous driving. There’s also a move to implement and enforced black boxes and lane assist systems in all cars, but there are currently no plans in place for this.
