California’s governor is blocking a bill that would require speed warnings on new cars

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to honk at drivers if they exceed the speed limit.

California would be the first to require such systems on all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill, aimed at reducing road deaths, would have mandated that cars honk at drivers if they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph (16km/h).

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The European Union has passed a similar law to encourage drivers to slow down. The California proposal would not have provided an exception for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and scooters.

In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already sets auto 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 programs, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting this ongoing federal evaluation,” the Democratic governor said.

Opponents, including auto groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, say the rules should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year introduced new requirements for automatic braking to prevent road deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal would make cars more expensive and distract drivers.

The law is likely to affect all new car sales in the US, as the California market is so large that automakers may have to make all their vehicles compliant.

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California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emissions standards for vehicles for decades, rules that have been adopted by more than a dozen other states. And when California announced that it would finally ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles, major automakers quickly followed suit with their own announcement to phase out gasoline vehicles.

Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the law a setback for road safety.

“California should have taken the lead on this issue as Wisconsin did in passing the original belt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto leaves Californians at unnecessary risk of death.”

The speed alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare the vehicle’s speed with a dataset of posted limits. If the vehicle is more than 10 mph (16 kph) higher, the system issues a single, short, visual and audible warning.

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

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

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car accidents reported to the police in 2021 are related to speeding. This was particularly problematic in California, where 35% of traffic deaths were related to speeding — the second highest in the country, according to a legal analysis of the proposal.

Last year the NTSB recommended that federal regulators require all new vehicles 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 a speed of more than 100 mph (161 kph) and crashed into a van, killing himself and eight other people.

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