California Bill Would Require Vehicles To Come With Tech That ‘Governs’ Their Speed

San Francisco state Senator Scott Wiener has introduced a bill, SB 961, requiring new 2027 vehicles manufactured or sold in the Golden State to come with an electronic intelligent speed limiter system. These intelligent speed limiter systems would govern a vehicle’s top speed so that no car could travel more than 10 miles faster than the posted speed limit.

It means that shortly, no vehicle, except for emergency vehicles, would be able to go faster than 80 miles per hour on the freeway in California. If this legislation passes, California would be the first state in the nation to make such technology standard in new vehicles.

A Change of Pace for California's Streets

According to a report from Car and Driver, the call for speed governors is part of The Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction (SAFER) on California Streets bill package published last Tuesday. Their report also notes that SB 961 includes language that stipulates that drivers can temporarily turn off the electronic speed limiter. However, there’s no mention about the situations that would happen.

Automakers and the California Highway Patrol commissioner would both be privileged to disengage a vehicle’s speed limiter at their discretion. All other motorists in vehicles 2027 or newer would only be able to drive 10 miles above the speed limit on highways and residential streets. For example, in a residential neighborhood where the posted speed limit is 25 miles per hour, the vehicle’s top speed would be capped at 35 miles per hour.

How Did SB 961 Come About?

According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, bill SB 961 looks to curb the state’s ongoing traffic fatality woes, which started to soar during the pandemic, especially in the Bay Area. The report also mentions data from the National Safety Council that cites speeding as a significant factor in around 33 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. They also point to a statistic from the National Highway Safety Administration that estimates there were over 40,000 traffic-related deaths in 2022 alone.

Berkeley SafeTREC, a UC Berkeley study, shows that speeding-related deaths increased by around 30 percent between 2017 and 2021 in California while also increasing by around 24 percent nationally during that same time frame.

Is SB 961 a Government Overreach?

The SF Chronicle anticipates that SB 961 will face pushback from drivers and automakers, who view the bill as government overreach. However, according to ABC7 News San Francisco, Senator Wiener said, “I don’t think it’s at all an overreach, and I don’t think most people would view it as an overreach. We have speed limits, I think most people support speed limits because people know that speed kills.”

The SF Chronicle also points out that various highway safety groups have appealed to Congress to enact federal regulations that would, at the very least, make speed limiters that tell drivers they are speeding standard in new cars.