Honk your horns at this: California could soon be the first state in America to require that cars be equipped with new safety features that would either mechanically prevent them from going more than 10 miles an hour above the speed limit or nag drivers with a beeping sound much like the current seat belt alarms that are standard on all cars, setting a precedent for other states to take similar measures.

On Tuesday, California’s state senate approved legislation introduced by state Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, that mandates every passenger vehicle, truck, and bus manufactured or sold in California contain “passive speed governors” by 2032, with a 50 percent phase-in by 2029.  The bill, SB 961, passed by a vote of 22-13 and now moves to the state assembly, where it must pass by August 31. 

The proposed legislation is being promoted as an effort to slow down drivers and therefore tamp down a spike in traffic deaths in recent years. Mr. Wiener compares it to seat belts, which most Americans opposed in the 1980s but that are now commonplace and widely used.

Critics, however, are concerned about “governmental overreach.” California, given its sizable share of America’s car market, could set a precedent for other states. 

According to the California Office of Traffic Safety’s 2023 Traffic Safety Report, speeding-related crashes constituted one-third of all traffic fatalities in the state between 2017 and 2021. Drivers have become increasingly reckless in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, with fatalities involving alcohol and drug-impaired driving, motorcyclists, and teenage driving all increasing from 2020 to 2021.

“These deaths are preventable, and they’re occurring because of policy choices to tolerate dangerous roads,” Mr. Wiener said in a statement. “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.”

The technology of the “passive speed governors” would use a vehicle’s GPS system to determine the ideal speed a vehicle should be traveling at a given time and place. The devices can also use onboard cameras to read speed limit signs. The proposal says that drivers would be able to temporarily override the devices. The requirement would not apply to emergency vehicles.

Similar initiatives are already being rolled out elsewhere. 

In 2022, New York City launched a pilot program of “intelligent speed assistance” technology in fifty vehicles, which each had a button that could temporarily disable the speed reduction for 15 seconds. City leaders said in January that the vehicles successfully traveled within speed limit parameters 99 percent of the time. Plans are in place to extend the speed limiter program to 7,500 municipal vehicles. 

In July, the European Union will begin requiring that all new vehicles purchased in its borders are installed with the same speed assistance technology. Unlike Mr. Wiener’s legislation, the policy in Europe gives car manufacturers the choice of installing systems that would stop drivers from speeding, or using passive devices that alert drivers when they’re going too fast, without slowing down the vehicle. 

The Republican vice-chair of California’s Transportation Committee, Roger Niello, voiced concerns that the bill constitutes “governmental overreach,” since “the vast majority of drivers are not reckless,” he said, according to the San Francisco Standard. “The solution is more law enforcement on our streets with severe consequences to those who show complete disregard for traffic laws.”