Survey Indicates Strong Support for Anti-Speeding Tech

A new survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows that over 60 percent of the more than 1,800 drivers surveyed wouldn’t mind if their cars provided ‘audible and visual’ warning signals when they exceed the speed limit.

According to a piece in GovTech by Dave Werner, “about half of drivers say they wouldn’t mind technology that makes the accelerator pedal harder to press or automatically restricts speed.”

The survey reveals a surprising level of comfort with speed governing technologies, also known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), hinting that their adoption may not be as difficult in the United States as some have hypothesized. This matters because “Any version of ISA likely to be adopted in the U.S. would give drivers the option to switch it off, so it will only be beneficial to the extent that the public finds it acceptable.” The European Union is already requiring the technology as of this July.

As Werner explains, “More robust ISA systems sound a warning or flash an alert when the driver exceeds the limit — or when they exceed it by more than a specific amount. Others provide accelerator feedback — making the pedal harder to push — or restrict power to the engine to prevent the driver from going too fast.”

An even higher number of respondents said they would like to see the speed limit prominently displayed (80 percent), while 70 percent wanted an unobtrusive tone to notify them of speed limit changes, signaling a preference for ‘advisory systems’ over those that physically intervene.