The federal agency responsible for conducting independent crash investigations has recommended technologies in new vehicles to limit speed and prevent impaired driving in an effort to curb a growing number of related fatalities.   

  The National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation on alcohol-impairment detection systems is on track to become a requirement after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act gave the Transportation Department three years to create a mandate for such a feature in new vehicles.  The board’s new recommendation to incentivize intelligent speed-adjustment systems, however, has yet to gain broader federal support and could face resistance from U.S. drivers accustomed to speed limits being enforced by law enforcement. and not from the vehicle itself.   

  The NTSB’s recommendations – which cannot be implemented without approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – specifically include requiring all new vehicles to have “integrated passive in-vehicle alcohol impairment detection systems, advanced driver monitoring systems, or a combination of two that could prevent or limit the operation of the vehicle if it detects driver impairment from alcohol.”   

  Reiterating a recommendation made in 2017, the NTSB also recommended that NHTSA provide incentives to vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt Intelligent Speed ​​Adjustment (ISA) systems that will prevent speed-related crashes.”   

  Intelligent cruise control systems can range from a warning system that issues visual or audible alerts when a driver accelerates to a system that electronically limits a vehicle’s speed.  The NTSB did not specify what type of system should be adopted.   

  An investigation into a crash in California that killed nine people, including seven children, on New Year’s Day 2021 led to Tuesday’s recommendations, according to the NTSB.  Investigators, the agency said, “determined that the driver of the SUV (involved in the crash) had a high level of alcohol intoxication and was operating at an excessive rate of speed.”   

  NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that the technologies “can prevent the tens of thousands of deaths from driving and speeding-related crashes that we see in the U.S. every year.”   

  Thirty-two people die in alcohol-related crashes every day – more than 11,000 each year, according to the NHTSA.  It said deaths rose by 5% in 2021.   

  According to the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there are several technologies aimed at preventing impaired driving being evaluated by the Department of Transportation.  The department was given three years to create a requirement for new vehicles to have “advanced drunken and impaired driving prevention technology” as part of the infrastructure law, which passed with bipartisan support last year.   

  NHTSA said in a statement Monday that it “has begun work to fulfill the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act’s rulemaking requirement on advanced impaired driving technology in vehicles.”   

  Such technologies include off-vehicle cameras and sensors that monitor driving performance, on-vehicle cameras and sensors that monitor the driver’s head and eyes, and alcohol sensors to determine if the driver is intoxicated and then prevent the vehicle from moving.   

  The prospective regulation has sparked privacy concerns and questions about whether the systems would falsely classify some people, such as people with disabilities, as intoxicated.   

  Intelligent cruise control systems have gained some traction in the European market, where they will be mandatory on all new cars sold there from July 2024. The new cars will issue either a ‘sequential acoustic warning’, a ‘sequential vibration warning’ , tactile feedback via the accelerator pedal’ or a ‘speed control function’, according to the European Commission.  A driver can bypass the ISA system, the commission says.   

  New York is also piloting a fleet of city vehicles with the ISA system.  The city announced in August that 50 vehicles operated by city employees will have systems that will set a maximum speed for the vehicle and “will also be adjustable based on the local speed limit.”  The system has an active mode, which will automatically slow down a vehicle, and a passive mode, which will alert the driver when it is speeding.   

  The vehicles will be retrofitted and installed in vehicles in various parts of the city and will also be tested on 14 new, all-electric Ford Mach Es.   

  This story has been updated with comments from NHTSA.