Toronto, Ontario — In a recent survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), more than 60 percent of drivers would find it acceptable if their vehicle provided an audible and visual warning when they exceeded posted speed limits.
The survey, which polled 1,802 drivers in the United States, asked respondents questions about the danger of speeding, the effectiveness of technology and individual driving behaviour.
Surveyees were also assigned to one of three questioning groups, with the first group asked about safety systems that provide an audible warning. The second group was asked about safety systems that make the accelerator harder to press;. In contrast, the third group was asked about safety systems that restrict acceleration when the vehicle exceeds the speed limit.
In the first group, 64 percent found the safety measure acceptable, 50 percent in the second group and 52 percent in the third.
The survey also found that about half of drivers wouldn’t mind vehicle technology that makes the accelerator pedal harder to press or automatically restrict speeds.
Moreover, regardless of group, more than 80 percent of all drivers agreed or strongly agreed that they would want a feature that displayed the current speed limit. More than 70 percent of all drivers also agreed or strongly agreed that they would want a discreet tone to sound when the speed limit changed.
However, there was a clear preference for advisory systems over those that intervene to control the vehicle’s speed “with nearly 60 percent of drivers in the advisory-only group agreeing it would be acceptable if the intelligent speed assistance (ISA) system came on automatically at the beginning of every trip, compared with 51 percent of drivers in the accelerator-feedback group and 48 percent of drivers in the speed-limiter group.”
In response to the data, IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan, who designated the survey, commented that “we can no longer pretend this is an unsolvable problem. With the technologies we have now, we could stop virtually all speeding and eliminate speeding tickets to boot. Instead, we seem to be going in the opposite direction, with adaptive cruise control and partial automation systems that allow drivers to peg their speed at 90 miles per hour (144 km/h) if they want.”
In this regard, the California Senate also recently passed a bill requiring 50 percent of passenger vehicles, motorcycles, motor trucks and buses sold in the state to be equipped with a speed assistance system by the end of the 2029 model year and then all vehicles by the 2032 model year.
To see the IIHS’s full report, click here.
