The National Safety Board Recommends New Technology to Limit Speed in New Vehicles

ISA (intelligent speed assistance technology) uses sign recognition and GPS to ensure vehicles do not exceed the speed limit set in the respective zone. However, automakers have not welcomed this new technology. In today’s BNN News, the National Safety Board (NSB) has recommended that all new vehicles should be equipped with ISA to prevent the drivers of the vehicles from going beyond the set speed limit in a set zone. It is set against the backdrop of an accident that killed nine people in Las Vegas.

NSB has come up second with such a recommendation in six years. Everyone knows that overspeeding is the major factor in auto fatalities. However, road safety advocates are doubtful about the adoption of new technology by automakers to prevent auto fatalities.

Automakers welcome ISA with little enthusiasm

The new recommendation by NSB is viewed by automakers with little enthusiasm. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not yet adopted NSB’s recommendation to introduce ISA in all new vehicles.

Overspeeding crashes killed over 12,000 people in the United States in 2022. In addition, several thousand people were injured in those accidents. Associate Director (Data Core) of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences, Isabella Chu, said we could do a lot of things to prevent crashes or make them less lethal. However, one of the best things we can do to prevent crashes is to reduce the speed of vehicles.

On today’s US news website, Jennifer Homendy, the NTSB Chair, said an accident in Las Vegas in 2022 killed nine people, of whom four were children. According to the findings, a car traveling at over 100 mph collided with a minivan. Jennifer said this is the latest crash the department has investigated so far where overspeed led to catastrophe.

ISA differs from traditional speed arresters

ISAs are different from traditional speed-limiting devices implemented earlier to prevent accidents. It does not enforce a flat speed cap. It applies the speed limit, considering the speed at which a person is driving.

ISA is one of the recommendations made by the NSB to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NSB also sent its recommendation for the implementation of ISA to major automakers in the US and regulators across the US. NSB expects to publish a final report on these recommendations soon. However, it is not known when this recommendation will be implemented in the US to prevent major accidents.

The public affairs specialist at NSB, Sarah Sulick, said the board does not have enforcement or regulatory powers. In 2017 itself, NSB suggested incentivizing innovative intelligent speed assistance technology to prevent casualties, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Sarah said that the recommendation is still considered non-urgent.

Issued a request for public comments on ISA 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has circulated a notification in 2022 seeking the opinion of the general public about the inclusion of ISA in the new car assessment program. It will pave the way for issuing safety labels to newly produced vehicles. More than one and a half years have passed since the release of this notification, and the agency is still working on the public comments and preparing a final decision.