Automatic emergency braking, intelligent and predictive adaptive cruise control, driver attention monitoring: new cars are already packed with driver assistance technologies, many of them mandatory across Europe. Safety has become the industry’s top priority, and according to recent reports, a new system could soon join the list, one that’s likely to spark plenty of debate.
The European Commission is reportedly evaluating the possibility of introducing a new device, mandatory for all new cars sold from 2030, capable of automatically reducing a vehicle’s speed whenever it exceeds the posted limit. If the limit is 130 km/h, the car will go 130 km/h, whether the driver likes it or not.
One step further
The technology would build on the road sign recognition systems already fitted to new cars, combined with GPS data, to determine a vehicle’s exact speed and whether it complies with local limits, automatically slowing it down if it doesn’t. It’s a significant shift, one that effectively turns the car into a kind of watchful overseer. Until now, onboard systems have simply displayed the applicable speed limit for the road being travelled, in some cases adjusting cruise control to match what’s set out in the highway code, but always leaving the driver free to exceed it if they choose. In the future, the car itself could dictate the pace.
It’s worth stressing that this remains an exploratory phase, and there’s no guarantee that drivers will one day be stuck behind the wheel of cars that automatically decide their speed, with no way to intervene or switch the system off, unlike today’s Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), which can be deactivated. What does seem certain is that the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), an independent body dedicated to road safety across Europe, will keep pushing in this direction, much as it’s already doing in its campaign to lower speed limits across the continent to 30 km/h in urban areas, 70 km/h on rural roads, and 120 km/h on motorways.
Reasons for doubt
Road safety is nothing to joke about, but is a system that automatically decides for us really the right answer? Just look at the doubts still surrounding the various autonomous driving systems developed by carmakers: years of testing, some successes, some accidents, and above all one persistent concern, can we really trust the data these cars are reading?
Between missing road signs, outdated maps, and signage that isn’t always optimal, we’re still a long way from having error proof technology. There are other issues too, like cost. Systems like this come with real development costs, which inevitably get passed on to the customer, potentially slowing down new car sales and further ageing Europe’s existing vehicle fleet. And older cars, regardless of whether they can stop you from speeding, are simply less safe overall.
