It’s becoming a familiar experience for many drivers to hear their cars beeping if they drift out of their lane or turn on a blinker when another car is too close. Some cars even brake automatically to avoid a collision.
Now, the government agency focused on highway safety wants to do more. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended last month that automakers, at a minimum, be required to install systems that warn drivers who speed. More advanced driver-assistance technology might actively prevent a car from speeding. While cars with these systems have been on the road for years, the NTSB is looking to make them a standard for all vehicles.
The recommendations aim to reduce the number of speed-related deaths on U.S. roadways, which currently make up about a third of all driving deaths. Some drivers and privacy groups are wary of the systems, though, because they use GPS to track cars’ locations in real time.
Nancy Ryan likes the idea of requiring these systems.
“When we come into Chicago, it’s like a racetrack out there,” said Ryan, who is from Denver but whose son attends the University of Chicago and lives in Evanston. “We’ll be going five miles an hour over, [but] it’s like we’re standing still.”
Ryan, 60, drives an electric car that gives her a warning when she exceeds the speed limit. The car also has other driver-assistance technologies such as automatic braking. She added that, though it might take drivers time to get used to these assistance systems, they are useful.
“There’s a reason those speed limits are there, because they weren’t at some point,” she said. “... We can remember when there weren’t seatbelts. Now we can’t imagine getting in a car and not buckling.”
Her son, Matt Ryan, 33, also felt that requiring these systems would benefit roadways.
“American motorists have no business going the speeds that they’ve been going,” he said. “There is a narrative around freedom and libertarianism ... that tell a story about how ‘If I can’t go 110 miles an hour in a personally-owned vehicle, that that’s tyranny.’ And I think that that’s an unfortunate state of affairs.”
Other drivers aren’t as convinced.
Coleman Connolly, 27, of Edgewater doesn’t like the idea of giving up the option of stepping on the gas.
“I don’t love anything that restricts your ability to get out of a situation,” Connolly said. “Because there are situations ... where it can be dangerous. You have to get around, you have to move out of the way from something to avoid getting hurt yourself.”
Erik Bonilla, 25, of Elk Grove Village, said his primary concern is about what kinds of data and personal information are gathered and stored when these systems are in place.
“My first question would be how they would implement this with privacy in mind,” he said. “So how much information is being collected ... by manufacturers about the [owner’s] vehicle? By the government about the owner of the vehicle?”
The NTSB on Nov. 14 proposed that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sets the minimum safety standards for cars sold in the U.S., require all new vehicles to have intelligent speed assist technology, at a minimum warning drivers when they exceed speed limits. More active systems, which could be installed on vehicles of repeat speeding offenders, would slow down a speeding car. These systems typically have options for a driver to override them if necessary.
The recommendation comes after an investigation of a Las Vegas crash involving a speeding impaired driver that killed nine early last year.
High-speed crashes on the rise in U.S., Illinois
Speeding-related crashes resulted in 12,330 deaths in 2021, an increase of 8% from 2020 and the largest number of deaths since 2007, according to the NHTSA. That number has been on the rise since 2018.
Illinois had the fourth highest number of speeding-related fatalities in 2021, with 487, or 37% of all traffic deaths in the state.
Among the NTSB’s recommendations was a reiteration of one from 2017 that the NHTSA incentivize these technologies by including them in its new car safety assessment.
In 2022, NHTSA requested public feedback but has not yet taken that step. A spokesperson told the Sun-Times it “always welcomes NTSB’s input and carefully reviews it.”
Kristin Poland, deputy director of NTSB’s Office of Highway Safety, emphasized that these systems are meant to assist drivers by providing them with more information.
“If something suddenly happens, whether that’s a deer jumping out in front of you, or a child running across the street, when you’re speeding there’s just less time for you to take evasive action,” she said. “If you do crash and you’re at a higher speed, the consequences of that crash are much higher.”
A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois encouraged that measures be taken to avoid concerns shared by drivers like Bonilla — that these systems could be used to track personal data.
“Tools like this technology allow for government to track someone’s movements with ease — simply because an individual is driving a car,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We should take steps to ensure that any proposal aimed at public safety or personal convenience does not become a tool for surveillance and tracking.”
Speed limits already displayed on many apps drivers use
Jessica Cicchino, vice president of research for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, suggested that these features are meant to address a worsening problem.
“We’ve really seen more drivers on the road doing riskier behaviors, including speeding,” she said. “It’s something that we really need to get a handle on.”
Cicchino added that some cars on the road are already using variations of this technology. Drivers using Google Maps for directions may also be used to the app displaying the local speed limit and issuing speeding warnings.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association and lobby group for vehicle manufacturing companies, expressed support for a more holistic approach to reducing speeding.
“While vehicle technology can play a role, we’ve advocated for a continued emphasis on transportation policies that focus on driver education and awareness, strong laws and law enforcement, and infrastructure investment — and funding to support these safety initiatives,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the Sun-Times.
Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said normalizing intelligent speed assist technologies is a priority as drivers aren’t yet comfortable with them.
“When you’re introducing a new safety concept to the public and they have no knowledge of it, it can be an obstacle that has to be overcome,” she said. “We’re trying to get it out there so that people are like, ‘Oh, yeah, this works well. I want this in my car. I want this in the car that my teenagers are driving.’”
In the European Union, all cars will be required to have speeding warning systems starting in July.
Shaun Kildare, senior research director of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said requiring this technology is an important equity concern to ensure that safety isn’t a matter of cost.
“By making it standard,” he said, “you make sure that all boats are lifted, that everyone gets the exact same level of protection.”
