Some of America’s most prominent sustainable transportation advocacy organizations are challenging governments to embrace a ground-breaking technology that makes it impossible for drivers to speed — starting with the vehicles in their own fleets.
In a webinar aired last week, a coalition of nonprofit leaders announced an ambitious goal to get 50 United States communities to install Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) technology on at least a portion of their municipally-owned fleets by 2025 — an effort they’re calling the Safer Fleets Challenge.
Already required on new cars in Europe and piloted on city-owned vehicles in New York City and elsewhere, ISA systems use GPS or road-sign recognition cameras to detect the current limit, and either warn the driver to slow down when they exceed it or automatically throttle the car’s velocity, with an override option that allows motorists to speed up briefly to pass.