Are Mandatory Speed Limiters Just Another Reason to Own a Classic?

From tomorrow (July 7th, 2024), all new cars (as well as those that are yet to be registered) will be legally required to have speed limiters fitted to them. Yep, you read that right. This isn’t some dystopian future nightmare sci-fi, this is reality and although this is a European mandate by the European Commission it has been adopted by the UK, despite Brexit, in a bid to improve road safety by keeping drivers within the speed limit and while the idea and implementation of such limiters has been around for a while, tomorrow it becomes law.

These speed limiters, known as Intelligent Speed Assistant devices (ISA) utilise a combination of GPS data and traffic sign recognition technology to determine the maximum speed of a vehicle on any given road. Should the speed limit be exceeded, warning signals will be sent to the driver, whether haptic (touch and feel), audio, or visual, until the car returns to within the legal boundaries of whatever stretch of tarmac it happens to be on at the time. Certain physical interventions will also be deployed, ranging from a heavier accelerator pedal that actively pushes back against your foot, to the system actually reducing engine power. Yikes.

Now as we see it, there are numerous problems with all of this, ranging from the abdication of free will to it being downright dangerous. Having multiple flashing lights, audible warnings and various vibrations through your hands, feet and body can be incredibly distracting. Driving a car already puts a lot of stress on the nervous system and the potential sensory overload of an ISA shouting at you to slow down could cause issues for some.

And what about when the ISA gets it wrong? As we all know, technology is fallible. It’s more than likely that at some point the device will malfunction or read the speed incorrectly, slowing down the car in a dangerous place. Let’s say, for example, that your Sat Nav thinks you’ve taken a slip road off the motorway when in reality you’re simply driving alongside it, still in multiple lanes of fast moving traffic – as many systems have been known to do. What happens when the ISA decides that instead of 70mph being the speed limit, it thinks it’s now 40mph? Or 30? A recipe for potential disaster.

The “good” news is that, initially at least, the device can be overruled by the driver simply by pushing down harder on the throttle and the system can be deactivated entirely should you wish but will reactivate every time you restart your car. We suspect that the ability to do so has been included to increase acceptance and we’re pretty sure stricter measures will no doubt be implemented in the future. Watch this space…

Many manufacturers have actively been using speed limiters for a while now and companies like Renault have even gone as far as hard limiting its new vehicles’ top speeds to 112mph already, but is the deployment of such speed limiters just another form of relinquishing control to the nanny state? Don’t get us wrong, we’re not condoning breaking the law in any way, shape or form but when you start removing free will then you have a problem that will only gestate and fester into a bigger and more invasive issue in the future.

Thankfully there is no talk (yet) of retro-fitting these types of speed limiters to classic cars. Granted, many of our classics struggle to hit 70mph to begin with but at least we still have the choice to drive how we see fit and we would very much like to keep it that way. Sometimes it’s entirely necessary to push on and possibly exceed a given speed limit in order to avoid potentially dangerous situations. Slowing down or stopping entirely in an emergency isn’t always the safest bet.

The way we see it, it’s just another string to the bow of classic vehicle ownership, an extra feather in the cap of running and maintaining an older car. In our humble opinion old cars are simply better than new ones. And by better we don’t necessarily mean objectively, we’re talking somewhat subjectively here, but we can almost certainly guarantee that few classic car owners will lament not having yet another “driver aid” telling them what to do.

We think we speak for the majority of classic car enthusiasts and fans of older cars when we say that speed limiters can get in the sea. We shall continue to trust our instincts and our right foot thank you very much and should you want to ditch the modern and get in on the classic action but haven’t yet settled on a suitable steed then get browsing and pick one up before all the fun, and indeed the freedom, gets sucked out of driving.