in World News New California Law Will Require Cars to Beep When Traveling 10 Miles Over the Speed Limit
by Rick Moran
For a state built on the selling point of unlimited freedom, California sure has a lot of authoritarians making laws.
The state legislature passed a bill that requires all cars built after 2030 to give a beep when the driver exceeds the speed limit by 10 MPH. Violations of the law wouldn’t carry just a fine. The state would consider speeding 10 MPH over the limit a crime.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener was surprised by the vicious pushback from citizens to the bill. However, the current language of the bill has been modified considerably from the original text.
As introduced, the bill required “the GPS location of the vehicle [to be] compared with a database of posted speed limits, to determine the speed limit, and electronically limi[t] the speed of the vehicle to prevent the driver from exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour.” As introduced, the bill would have made “every passenger vehicle, motortruck, and bus manufactured or sold in the state” of the 2027 model year and beyond incapable of driving more than 10 miles per hour above the limit.
Yikes.
Wiener believes reckless driving has increased since the pandemic and that the state should intervene to solve this problem.
Wiener emphasizes that “dangerous speeding [is] placing all Californians in danger, and by taking prudent steps to improve safety, we can save lives.” The senator’s concern for public safety is well taken, but there’s already a prudent, private, and voluntary alternative: auto insurance programs that use apps to track driving habits and reward safe drivers with discounted rates. Programs like Allstate’s Drivewise, USAA’s SafePilot, GEICO’s DriveEasy, and State Farm’s Drive Safe & Save enrolled 16.8 million North American drivers in 2022, according to market researcher Berg Insight.