All new vehicles sold in Europe – including Northern Ireland but not Great Britain – will be required from now on to have intelligent speed assistance technology installed.
From 7 July 2024, every vehicle sold in the EU and Northern Ireland will need to be fitted with a range of technical safety features as standard. The most notable of these is the Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) or speed limiter.
Those vehicles already registered or in circulation are exempt, but any existing unregistered cars on forecourts will have to be retrofitted with a speed limiter before they can be sold.
This ISA mandate comes after the European Commission’s legislation that made it a legal requirement for all new vehicles sold in Europe to be fitted with a speed limiter from 6 July 2022.
The difference is that while drivers of most new cars with this feature were able to override it and simply turn it off, it is now impossible to permanently turn it off as it restarts each time the engine does.
Combining mapping technology with a forward camera to spot speed limit signs, the ISA will automatically alert the driver if they are exceeding the speed limit. This includes an acoustic alert, a cascaded vibrating warning, haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal, making the steering wheel vibrate or a speed control function.
According to the European Commission, safety is the overriding reason for this new requirement. The aim is that it will enhance road safety by ensuring drivers are constantly aware of the legal speed limits, irrespective of the presence or visibility of road signage.
In a statement from the European Transport Safety Council, which has been pushing for mandatory speed limiters, it stressed that: “The importance of the adoption of the technology cannot be overestimated. ISA is expected to reduce collisions by 30% and deaths by 20%.”
According to Auto Trader, many manufacturers have already started including factory-fitted ISA in some of their cars, including Citroen, Ford, Honda, Jaguar, Peugeot, Renault and Volvo. Renault Group also went a step further by limiting the top speed of all new Renault and Citroen cars to 112mph to increase safety.
As well as the speed limiter, the new provisional EU regulations also include other compulsory safety equipment such as autonomous emergency braking, data loggers, emergency stop signal, driver fatigue detection system, lane keep assist, built-in breathalysers that won’t let you start the car if you fail and reversing sensors or cameras.
While these safety measures aren’t being adopted in Great Britain at the moment, the Department for Transport has made it clear that it is constantly researching how the latest technology will help ensure journeys are safe and reliable and cut emissions.