California governor vetoes requiring speed alerts in new cars

California would have become the first to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill, aimed at reducing traffic deaths, would require vehicles to call drivers when they exceed the speed limit speed of at least 10 mph (16 km/h).

The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exemptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and motorized scooters.

In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations.

National Highway Traffic Safety “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assist systems, and imposing statewide mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal evaluations,” the Democratic governor said.

Opponents, including auto groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, said such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year set new requirements for automatic emergency braking to reduce traffic deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.

The legislation would likely have affected all new car sales in the US because the California market is so large that automakers would probably just have to make all their vehicles comply.

California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international politics. The state has set its own emissions standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil fuel vehicles.

The speed alert technology, known as Intelligent Speed ​​Assist, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace against a set of posted limit data. If the car exceeds at least 10 mph (16 km/h), the system emits a single, short, visual and audio alert.

The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and those are likely to not include local roads or recent speed limit changes, leading to conflicts.

The technology has been used in the US and Europe for years. From July, the European Union will require all new cars to have this technology, although drivers will be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers, including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, already offer some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10 percent of all car crashes reported to the police in 2021 were related to speed. That was especially a problem in California, where 35 percent of traffic deaths were speed-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.

Last year, the NTSB recommended that federal regulators require all new cars to warn drivers when they are speeding. Their recommendation came after a crash in January 2022 in which a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph (161 km/h) and hit a minivan, killing himself and eight other people .