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This new gadget is ready to pump the brakes on bad drivers.
New “speed limiter” devices for cars are set to force reckless drivers with multiple violations to finally slow down, by linking to their ignitions and capping how fast their car can go with the help of GPS technology, The Post has learned.
The new units — which could be forced into the cars of some 3,000 bad drivers at $1,000 a pop under a proposed state law — was giving a test drive Wednesday for reporters.
The units gave a glimpse at what life in the slow lane will be like for careless speed demons.
“This technology does work,” said Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a co-sponsor of the so-called Stop Super Speeders Act, told The Post during a demonstration of the tech in South Slope Wednesday.
The bill, which would force the devices into chronic speeder’s cars for as long as a year, is the latest attempt to thwart speeding after the expansion of red light and speed camera programs.
“For a small stubborn subset of drivers, there is no adequate remedy” to speeding right now, he said, noting the city’s own top 10 super speeders landed more than 2,700 speed cameras last year alone according to data collected by Transportation Alternatives.
“We need to do something different we need to do something outside the box,” he added. “If we can stop even 1,000 or 2,000 of the most dangerous vehicles in our city … then we can save lives.”
The measure would target drivers who incur 16 or more speed camera tickets in a year, as well as those who accumulate 11 or more points on their license in 18 months, according to the bill text.
Court orders for the tech will be attached to bad drivers, not vehicles — and those caught driving a vehicle without a speed limiter will be held in contempt of court.
A judge can preset the “leeway” given to a vehicle, the elected explained, with a suggested 5 mph buffer between a posted speed limit and a device’s maximum speed setting. The technology would automatically adjust speeds caps when entering zones with different speed limits, like highways and school zones.
The device would also allow speedsters to still attend work and drop kids off at school — all while ensuring better driving habits are formed, Assemblymember Robert Carroll noted.
A previous version of the bill called for the device to be installed for drivers with six or more speed-camera or red-light camera tickets within a 12-month period.
The legislative push for the devices passed in the state Senate in 2024, and Gounardes remains hopeful will receive the same approval in the Assembly. The move would follow similar measures to curb speeding in Washington and Virginia, as well as a 2022 pilot program for New York City’s own municipal fleet.
The pilot proved so successful that the city is slated to install the tech in 7,000 of its non-emergency vehicles.
The push to pass the measure comes months after horrific Brooklyn car crash on Ocean Parkway took the lives of a mother and her two children.
The driver had 90 speeding-related violations at the time of the crash, Gounardes said — and if the speech tech were in place, “they would still be alive today.”
Other supporters of the bill include Upper West Side resident Darnell Sealy-McCrorey, whose 13-year-old daughter Niyell McCrorey was killed in October 2024 by a speeding SUV driver.
“I never thought her mother and I would be burying our daughter so soon,” he tearfully said above the Prospect Parkway overpass. “Today, we can all protect other families from suffering like this.
“If we don’t do something, another life is going to be taken.”
English (US)