Speeding scofflaws in Virginia are about to lose their ability to floor it whenever the urge presents itself. State lawmakers have greenlit a new plan that uses cutting-edge technology to prevent drivers from revving their engines on the open road.

The commonwealth is borrowing a page from Washington, D.C., by forcing habitual traffic offenders to have Intelligent Speed Assist systems — which prevent them from accelerating over the speed limit — installed in their cars.

Virginia is the first state in the nation to officially sanction ISA systems, though others are considering them, including California, Georgia, Maryland, and New York, according to Fast Company. 

“It’s really growing much more rapidly than we anticipated,” a co-founder, Amy Cohen, of a national advocacy group in favor of the various ISA bills, Families for Safe Streets, told the magazine.

The ISA technology, which can be installed while the car is on the assembly line or as an after-market accessory, uses GPS to determine the speed limit on a particular segment of road and then deters drivers from exceeding it in one of two ways — by using either a “passive” system that merely warns drivers or an “active” system that stops the driver from getting more from the gas pedal after the speed threshold is reached.

The efforts by American states come following legislation passed in the European Union last year that requires that ISA systems be installed in all new vehicles placed on the market from July 2024.

While California is currently mulling ISA mandates, it’s not the first time such legislation was presented at the state house. In September of last year, SB961 was approved in the state senate, and would have had the Golden State beating out Virginia as the first in the country to implement the system, but the measure was vetoed by Governor Newsom.

“While I appreciate the intent to improve traffic safety, this bill presents several challenges,” Mr. Newsom said in his veto message to the California state senate. “Federal law, as implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), already regulates vehicle safety standards, and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations that undermines this longstanding federal framework.”

While the use of ISA systems also raises questions about privacy, most drivers seem to be in favor of them, according to a 2024 survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The advocacy group said 60 percent of drivers polled would “find it acceptable” to have a passive ISA system, while nearly half of the drivers said they were also in favor of the active systems.

“These findings are exciting because they suggest American drivers are willing to change how they drive to make our roads safer,” the IIHS president, David Harkey, said in a statement announcing the results at the time. “The conventional wisdom has always been that speed-restricting technology would never fly in our car-centric culture.”