Governor Vetoes Senate Bill Calling for New Cars to Alert Drivers When Speeding

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit.

California would have become the first state to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. Senate Bill 961, aimed at reducing traffic deaths, would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph.

The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exceptions 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.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments,” the governor said.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who proposed the legislation, called the veto “a setback for street safety at a time (when) Californians are feeling extremely unsafe.

“The evidence is clear: Rising levels of dangerous speeding are placing all Californians in danger, and by taking prudent steps to improve safety, we can save lives,” he said in a statement. “California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961. Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality.

Opponents of the bill, including automotive groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, had argued that such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year established new requirements for automatic emergency braking to curb traffic deaths.

Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.

The legislation would likely have impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely have made all their vehicles comply.

California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emission 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 gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.

The speeding alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace with a dataset of posted limits. If the car is at least 10 mph over the limit, the system emits a single, brief, visual and audio alert.

The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and it’s likely that those would not have included local roads or recent changes in speed limits, resulting in conflicts.

The technology has been used in the U.S. and Europe for years. Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would 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 traffic safety administration estimates that 10% of all car crashes reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding. This was especially a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were speeding-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.

Last year, federal regulators were urged to require all new cars to alert drivers when they speed. The recommendation came after a Nevada crash in January 2022, when a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph and struck a minivan. The crash killed him and eight other people.