- We could help motorists avoid speeding — and therefore reduce emissions and fuel use, improve traffic flow, reduce crashes, lower insurance costs, make streets feel safer to walk and cycle – and totally avoid speeding fines.
- It’s no wonder Australians want this technology – 81% believe “intelligent speed assist” technology is important for making roads safer.
Technology to stop speeding
“Intelligent speed assist” is the name of the low-cost technology that could save lives every year by reducing speeding.
- The idea of helping drivers to avoid speeding is more than 100 years old.
- Currently, we must constantly monitor speed limits and adjust our speed accordingly to avoid speeding.
- Given how often speed limits can change on a route, and that we all make mistakes, it’s no wonder speeding is so common.
Will it work?
Installing intelligent speed assist in all cars could prevent at least 8% and up to 19% of all crashes Australia-wide. This represents up to 200 lives saved per year. A NSW Centre for Road Safety trial found advisory intelligent speed systems reduced speeding in 89% of vehicles, across more than 1.9 million kilometres of testing. Intelligent speed assist is not yet a perfect system. Hurdles to overcome include:
But shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to overcome these hurdles, to make such a life-saving, child-saving technology work as well as it can?
What’s already been done?
- Legislation in 2022 has made intelligent speed assist technology mandatory for all new cars sold in the European Union.
- In Australia, if you drive a relatively new car, you may already have the option of intelligent speed assist.
What about older vehicles?
- So retrofitting older cars with intelligent speed assist technology has been trialled.
- It is common, though, to retrofit fleet cars such as government and company vehicles with intelligent speed assist.
‘But I only speed a little bit’
- More than one in four Australians think it’s ok to speed if driving “safely”.
- For every 1km/h increase in speed, there is a 4% increase in fatal crashes.
- If everyone was to increase their speed by just 1km/h, we could expect an extra 48 deaths a year.
- Road deaths remain the number one killer of children in Australia and speed is the most common factor in a crash.
3 actions to get started
Intelligent speed assist is not a silver bullet. But it is one of five crucial actions that can make zero road deaths possible. More than 200 cities around the world have already achieved this goal at least five times for a calendar year since 2009. Here are three actions to get started:
install intelligent speed assist in all all public buses and government fleet cars – the NSW government fleet, for example, has 25,000 cars
require intelligent speed assist for a 5-star ANCAP safety rating
adopt the EU legislation in Australia to require intelligent speed assist in all new cars.
We have an urgent problem, we have the technology, we have the evidence it works, so what’s stopping us using it to save lives on our roads? The authors have provided footage online of intelligent speed assist in action, for free reuse.
- Matthew 'Tepi' Mclaughlin receives research funding from the Australian government's Medical Research Future Fund and the government of Western Australia's Healthway.
- He also receives salary support through the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course.
- Paul Roberts receives funding from: 1. the government of Western Australia via the Road Safety Commission of Western Australia funding of the Western Australian Centre for Road Safety; 2. the Australian Office of Road Safety.
