If car pace is among the greatest visitors questions of safety we face, why not use out there expertise to restrict autos to (or not less than close to) the pace restrict? 

Sounds fairly simple. That’s why America Walks is urging the federal authorities to require this confirmed expertise, Clever Pace Help (ISA), on all new autos. Like in Europe, the place all new autos are required to have ISA by July 2024. For this similar cause, we’ve launched our Safer Fleets Problem, calling on cities and cities to start out putting in ISA on their fleets. We’re searching for 50 governments to take motion to undertake ISA by 2025.

The thought is spreading.  The Nationwide Transportation Security Board lately beneficial a “requirement for clever pace help expertise in all new vehicles.”  NTSB is an investigative and advisory company, not a regulatory company, so it will require USDOT to set requirements for brand spanking new motor autos.

I lately attended New York Metropolis’s Imaginative and prescient Zero Fleet Security Discussion board, the place I discovered concerning the phenomenal success of the Metropolis’s ISA pilot program. For the reason that launch of New York Metropolis’s ISA pilot program in August 2022, autos using ISA have pushed over 133,400 miles and efficiently traveled inside pace restrict parameters 99 p.c of the time. Metropolis autos with ISA additionally noticed a 36 p.c discount in exhausting braking occasions, which is usually an indicator of unsafe driving. They’re extending the pilot to 300 autos, together with college buses and vehicles.   

Different governments are additionally embracing ISA retrofits for his or her fleets, together with:

We anticipate that federal regulatory motion shall be sluggish.  In distinction, native governments have the ability to manage their very own autos. It’s a tangible motion to again up proclamations that “security is our highest precedence,” and a significant step to attaining the Imaginative and prescient Zero aim of no deaths or critical accidents.  

For that cause, we hope state and native advocacy organizations will embody the Safer Fleets Problem of their 2024 coverage priorities. Experiences in New York Metropolis, Somerville, and Ventura County present we are able to begin addressing extreme speeds proper now with out there expertise.