On Sept. 28, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill calling for speed limit warning systems on all new cars in California. While this might sound like a win for agency and responsibility of free will, it’s merely the first battle. See, the end game of this speed warning mission is a whole lot bigger than California.
I’ve previously written about this piece of proposed legislation, SB-961, so if you missed that coverage, here’s the gist of it: It was a proposal to mandate audible speed limit alerts for any new vehicle sold in California from 2032 onwards. The suggested implementation was a bit flawed, with the bill calling for “an integrated vehicle system that uses, at minimum, the GPS location of the vehicle compared with a database of posted speed limits,” but a passive audible alert system sounds like the least invasive way of doing something like this.
However, the vetoing of this bill isn’t a case of striking back against safety nannies because everyone would just turn them off anyway. Instead, it’s a case of waiting to see what the federal government does first. In a veto message, Governor Newsom wrote:
While I appreciate the intent to improve traffic safety, this bill presents several challenges. Federal law, as implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), already regulates vehicle safety standards, and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations that undermines this longstanding federal framework. NHTSA is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments.
Indeed, if NTSB get its way, every new car in America could one day come with alerts or soft governors tied into some system of gleaning the speed limit on a given stretch of road. Now, there might be a few problems with this, so let’s start with the downsides of drawing speed limit information from map data.
The first is that every communication network generation eventually sunsets, so if a vehicle doesn’t have access to the latest speed limit data, its Intelligent Speed Assistance program might not be accurate. Think of all the cars caught in the sunsetting of 3G and you’ll see where the issue lies. It also might not be accurate in reduced-speed work zones without constant, vigilant updating of map data, which would require coordinating resources on a vast scale.
Alright, what about drawing speed limit information from camera-based traffic sign alert systems using hardware already built into vehicles? Well, that sounds more current, and is likely a better idea, but only if the Intelligent Speed Assistance system is one of speed limit warning rather than speed limitation. Let’s say that a sign indicating a limit change is obscured by, say, a tree, and the camera in the windshield doesn’t pick it up. This would only be mildly annoying with a passive warning system, but if a power-capping speed limiter is in place and a speed limit increase isn’t detected, it could lead to potentially hairy speed differentials between vehicles with speed limit limiters and surrounding traffic without. After all, it takes decades for technology to be fully implemented in the U.S. light vehicle fleet, so even if Intelligent Speed Assistance were implemented on all new cars, it wouldn’t be everywhere for a while.
Of course, there is another question surrounding Intelligent Speed Assistance — if it is implemented, what if people just turn it off because it’s annoying? For years, we’ve been seeing people turning off or figuring out workarounds for features like lane centering and automatic start-stop, so why would Intelligent Speed Assistance be any different?
Obviously, there may be some insurance ramifications to this, but not everyone will be conscious of that. Driving slightly over the speed limit, to some extent, is a culturally acceptable thing in America, so changing those perceptions will be an uphill battle. Still, the war on speed isn’t over yet, so we’ll just have to wait and see whether, over the next few years, driving in America changes forever.
Gavin Newsom image credit: State of California
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
California’s Proposed Speed Limit Warning System Law Has One Big Problem
-
California Is About To Vote To Ban Sales Of New Gas-Powered Cars By 2035: Report
-
The EU Totally Caved On Its Internal Combustion Ban. Here’s Why That Could Be A Good Thing For The Environment
-
You Only Need 50 HP To Get By Even In Modern Traffic
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
If this was legally mandated, then the authorities and the various tech companies would figure out how to keep maps updated. Not because of the law, but because of lawyers. If a law like this passed, then lawyers would argue that if your vehicle system didn’t alert you to a speed limit change, you can’t be held responsible for a speeding ticket. This would force small towns (I’m looking at you, Texas, which I’m familiar with) that rely on people not noticing that the speed limit changes from 65 to 55 for a mile or so as you drive through their town so they can catch people in speed traps, to either put out the money to keep their speed limits updated on all these systems or to stop enforcing their traffic tickets (which is how they make most of their income, rather than, you know, taxing people who live in the town).
My biggest objection is the same as any self-driving software that includes negotiation or cooperation between different vehicles.
Individual automakers will turn this into a War of Privilege.
Who can go a fraction of a MPH faster than other cars? Who can leave the four way stop intersection slightly sooner than the others? Who can yield slightly less often than others? Who can merge into a slightly smaller space than others? Who is willing to do rolling stops at slightly higher speeds than the others?
A War of Privilege is inevitable because if drivers aren’t in control, they will eventually notice which brand of vehicles take priority over the others, and they will buy more of those. Even if it’s only a perception. And makers will notice, too, and build to that perception.
In my urban, residential area, Google maps thinks the speed limit is 80km/h.
Which wouldn’t set off the speed limiter but is an example of how maps can’t be trusted.
I also kinda wonder how cameras would handle the “you’re going to fast, we’re showing you an angry face” signs that are around school zones here, since they’re the same shape as a speed limit sign.