Fed up of speeding cars? Read on about new developments
From the 7th July 2024 all new cars sold in the European Union were required to have Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) speed limiter technology fitted by law. This means that manufacturers had to update any cars launched prior to July 2022, the date when ISA systems were first mandated for newly introduced models.
As the UK is no longer a member of the EU, the rule (read more here) has no legal force in the UK, but manufacturers selling cars across the continent have, according to the RAC, shown no sign of wanting to provide ISA-free variants for UK buyers since that law on new model introductions was introduced in 2022. Different rules apply in Northern Ireland where the limiters will be included in new vehicles sold there.
An RAC article (here) describes speed limiters as "a system that restricts the speed of a vehicle automatically by using a combination of GPS tracking data, satellite navigation, and information on speed limits of that roads that the vehicle is currently on."
Do limiters take control away from the driver?
The website of the European Road Safety Charter explains the position as follows:-
The ISA system
The ISA system is required to work with the driver and not to restrict his/her possibility to act in any moment during driving. The driver is always in control and can easily override the ISA system.
The ISA regulation provides four options for systems feedback to the driver, from which car manufacturers will be free to choose from:
- Cascaded acoustic warning
- Cascaded vibrating warning
- Haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal
- Speed control function
The first two feedback options do not directly intervene but only provide warnings (first optic and if no response from the driver, a delayed acoustic/vibrating warning), which have to be as short as possible in duration to avoid potential annoyance of the driver.
The other possible feedback relies on the pedal restoring force - it will push the driver’s foot gently back to make the driver aware and help to slow down. The driver can ignore this feedback and override the system by pushing slightly harder on the acceleration pedal. Even in the case of speed control function, where the car speed will be automatically gently reduced, the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper.
