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Dive Summary:
- Most drivers in the U.S. would be open to vehicles equipped with intelligent speed assist, according to a June survey by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The in-vehicle technology aims to prevent speeding by using the vehicle’s GPS location and a speed limit database.
- ISA can be passive (warnings if drivers exceed the speed limit) or active (interventions that make speeding more difficult if drivers exceed the speed limit). The IIHS found that more than 60 percent of drivers would be open to passive warnings, while about half of those surveyed would welcome active interventions.
- “These findings are encouraging because they suggest that American drivers are willing to change the way they drive to make our roads safer,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a press release: “The conventional wisdom has always been that speed-restricting technology would never fly in our car centered culture.”
Dive Overview:
Each year in the U.S., more than 40,000 people die in car accidents, and more than a quarter of those deaths involve speeding, according to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
While ISA adoption is limited in the U.S., the technology is more popular worldwide; new cars in the European Union sold after July 2024 must be equipped with ISA. In November 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that U.S. automakers install ISA in their vehicles.
ISA technology varies depending on whether it passively notifies the driver with audible or visual warnings if they exceed the speed limit or actively employs assistive technology such as accelerator resistance to reduce speeding. Some ISA technologies can even prevent speeding altogether.
The IIHS surveyed 1,802 U.S. drivers about their acceptance of ISA based on whether the technology provided passive warnings or actively inhibited speeding. The study found that nearly 64 percent of respondents said they would be fine with passive warnings, while about half of respondents said they would be fine with technology that actively inhibited speeding. Additionally, about 70 percent of respondents said they would want ISA in their next vehicle if it helped lower their insurance costs.
According to the IIHS study, about three-quarters of respondents agreed that ISA would reduce speeding-related traffic accidents. The survey results also show that drivers would be more open to ISA if other cars had it, suggesting that federal intervention could facilitate ISA adoption in the U.S.
The IIHS suggested that some ISA features may be more accessible in the U.S., such as less flexible features in school zones and pedestrian areas, and more on highways.
“This technology enables nuanced interventions that were never possible in the past,” Harkey said.
