CA proposal for speed governors in cars advances in Legislat

[cng]

California proposal for speed governors in cars advances in Legislature — with one big change
Story by Ricardo Cano

California lawmakers advanced a proposal requiring new vehicles sold in the state be built to automatically warn motorists when they’re driving 5 mph over the speed limit.

The amended Senate Bill 961 by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener passed the Senate Transportation Committee 8-4 on Tuesday and made a significant change to the original proposal.

No longer does the legislation require new vehicles to come equipped with speed governors that utilize GPS technology to automatically cap speeds for drivers going over posted speed limits. Rather, the bill calls for installing cars with what’s known as a passive intelligent speed assistance, or ISA, system that activates when a motorist drives more than 5 mph over the limit.

If passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new ISA requirement would apply to half of private vehicles, trucks and buses of the 2029 model year and expand to all vehicles of the 2032 model year. The requirement does not apply to vehicles of earlier model years or vehicles sold in other states.

Wiener said he introduced SB961 to address the state’s epidemic of traffic fatalities. About 4,000 residents in the state die in car crashes, annually, Wiener said, and speed plays a role in many of those deaths.

“I understand that people like to be able to go as fast as they want to go,” Wiener said at Tuesday’s committee hearing. “All we’re saying is, let’s do a reminder when you are going significantly above the speed limit, so that you can be reminded to slow down.”

Here’s how the requirement would work in practice: A driver going 50 mph on a road with a posted speed limit of 45 mph would receive visual and audio warnings from the vehicle that they’re going over the speed limit.
That audio warning could come in the form of a beep, though the bill does not spell out whether vehicles’ warning systems would beep momentarily or continuously until a speeding motorist drives the speed limit.

“I can guarantee you that a persistent beep is not the car that people want to buy,” said state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, who supported the bill.

SB961 would make California the first state to have a speeding warning requirement for vehicles, though the technology has been adopted elsewhere.

New York City’s government tested active speed governors — which override the driver’s controls to cap a vehicle’s speed — in 2022. The European Union will require, later this year, that all vehicles sold there include speeding detection systems. Several auto manufacturers already offer speed governor-like features in newer models for drivers to utilize as a form of cruise control.

Supporters of the bill say speeding detection technology has helped improve traffic safety in places where they’re been required or piloted. The National Transportation Safety Board, since 2012, has called for the federal government to require that all new vehicles include technology that warns drivers when they exceed speed limits.

“Broad deployment of ISA will reduce the frequency of speeding and speeding related crashes, saving lives and preventing injuries,” said Ellen Lee, project manager at the National Transportation Safety Board.

Opponents of the bill, though, described the requirement as invasive to motorists. They cast doubt that ISA systems would create widespread shifts in speeding habits if only a subset of vehicles on California roadways are required to have them equipped.

State Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, questioned whether a recurring audio warning would distract drivers’ attention from maintaining the speed of traffic on freeways if it exceeds the speed limit.

“Those are distractions that can cause a person to not be paying attention, and especially when they’re going at (high) speeds they really need to be paying attention,” said state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, who opposed the bill.

SB961 would pilot active speed governors on a fleet of state-owned vehicles, as well. The bill also would require large trucks sold or registered in the state to come equipped with side underride guards meant to prevent people and vehicles from getting swept under during a crash.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/calif ... ccad&ei=58

[牛河梁]

应该的。老牛开车就不超速。