Connected Through Safety

Gabriel Robinson, director, Washington D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles

Speeding can do damage beyond repair, and when you drive over the speed limit, you put yourself and everyone on the roadway in danger.

Intelligent speed assistance (ISA) devices actively enforce compliance with speed limits to mitigate injuries and potentially fatal crashes. In the District of Columbia, which will be the first ISA program in the nation, we are starting out by looking at aggressive drivers. And we do believe that anyone who’s been convicted of aggravated, aggressive driving has demonstrated that their behavior could cause damage or even death to others on the roadway.

“In our urban areas, 5 miles an hour literally can make the difference between life and death if a pedestrian is struck—especially when we look at how big our motor vehicles have become (and that they’re easier to drive and more powerful than ever).”

Michael Hanson, chair, Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)

I’ve had the opportunity to drive in a vehicle with ISA to see what it does and how it reacts. It allows you to drive as usual, so you feel no difference in the mechanics of the vehicle until you are attempting to go above the speed limit (the car I drove had a grace period of about 5 miles per hour over the speed limit). It did give me, however, an opportunity to override the system briefly, potentially in the case of an emergency, like needing to get around a car quickly.

And it worked. The device understood the speed limits as it changed from location to location, and it kept me in compliance with the local speed limit. I think drivers will have a period of adjustment that they will need to go through, which is why we have a public awareness campaign about ISA in D.C. this summer, and we are requiring our vendors to educate drivers. We don’t want to put drivers in a dangerous situation because they think their car can do something that it no longer can.   

All of this has been a journey for us—learning and educating ourselves about what the industry has for these types of devices and from areas, mainly in Europe, where similar devices have already been implemented. It’s been a journey of talking to a lot of people and trying to understand how we can build a framework for this program around the individuals and convictions that we have designated as needing this device.

I have had lots of conversations with AAMVA and my colleagues at other DMVs and jurisdictions across the nation. As we do this roadway safety, I think it’s important to work together—no road ends in one state. In order for us to have safer roads, we need safer drivers in all jurisdictions, so I’m very excited about the future and appreciative of the collaboration. It’s been a process, and not always easy, but just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Owning the Message

Michael Hanson, chair, Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)

Speeding is the one behavior that every driver is in complete control of. To use a hockey metaphor, coming from Minnesota, it takes away time and space. You don’t have time to react, you don’t have space to react, and when you lose those two, bad things are going to happen.

In our urban areas, 5 miles an hour literally can make the difference between life and death if a pedestrian is struck—especially when we look at how big our motor vehicles have become (and that they’re easier to drive and more powerful than ever). The high-profile, over 100-mile-an-hour violations that we see on our freeway systems are attention-getting, but it’s really critical that we address speeding across the entire spectrum of speed limits.

We need a robust educational campaign—a lack of education is one of the biggest challenges we face. Effort has to go into dispelling the fear of this technology, that big brother shadow. Why is this important? How does it work? How is it going to be applied? Who is going to be affected by it?

The reason that we implement any of these things, the core mission, is safety, safety, safety. That is the sole purpose. It is not intended to penalize somebody. It’s not a money-making scheme. It’s meant to be a corrective action, giving the driver a tool that will help them be safer and prevent crashes from happening in the first place.

You have to do a lot of that background work so everybody has a clear understanding of what this is going to mean for their state, before any legislative hearings or anything like that. You need a widespread campaign and to use every avenue of communication you can afford. Social media is obviously huge, but also TV messages, billboards and wraps on buses, semis and metro trains.

“While public awareness campaigns and license suspensions have been useful tools, too, ISA just seems like a no-brainer—the type of technology that could really save lives.”

Brandy Nannini, chief government affairs officer, Smart Start, Inc.

It took a while for alcohol ignition interlocks to take root, and progress always takes time—and data. The one thing we kind of lack right now is data, because this technology is relatively new here. The more data that we assemble from the jurisdictions that implement this, the better the case we can make.

When I look across our European neighbors, where this type of technology is widely used, their crash rates pale in comparison to ours. So we know the technology works, and the more we can leverage technology to reduce the human factor in driver error, the better.

The fact that we’re still killing over 40,000 people a year on U.S. highways in 2025 in completely preventable events tells me that we have a tremendous amount of work to do, and that we have to use every tool in our toolbox to fix this. It’s up to us in leadership positions to make the case that programs like ISA are a good policy decision.

Technology to Save Lives

Brandy Nannini, chief government affairs officer, Smart Start, Inc.

Until recently, I’ve primarily focused on impaired driving prevention throughout my career. But we really need to start normalizing that speeding is every bit as dangerous as other risks like impaired driving and distracted driving.

Through our Steer Safe partnership with Life Saver, we want to replicate the model that ignition interlock has used for drunk driving. We want to look at people who have proven to be dangerous on the road, falling under several categories: whether that’s repeat offenders, people charged with racing or reckless driving, or someone who caused a death or injury as a result
of speeding.

This project is my first time working with Families for Safe Streets, and it’s a daily reminder of why this cause is so important because there are families whose whole lives have been devastated because of speeding. I am blessed that I haven’t been personally affected, but far too many people have suffered from that.

My son got his license this year, and it’s fascinating thinking about this connection between driving age in the U.S. and brain development. The risk-taking part of your brain is what develops first, and right when that risk-taking part of your brain is developing, that’s when we allow people to drive. The part of your brain that controls critical thinking, which leads to safer behaviors, develops much later, especially in boys.

Speed hasn’t been a front-burner issue for many people despite a lot of traffic safety groups urging a bigger focus on speed. But with COVID, for all of us in traffic safety, we were shocked to see that the people who were on the roads were driving so unsafely that deaths went up despite vehicle miles traveled going down.

Suspension used to be the only measure we could take. But we know from research that roughly 75% of people continue to drive on a suspended license. In many parts of the U.S., suspending a person’s license puts them in one of two places. They either have to violate the law to fulfill their obligations, or they don’t drive. Not driving could mean taking ride shares, which can be expensive; relying on family for rides, which can be stressful; or potentially losing a job.

ISA is a good alternative: It’s a chance to change behavior while still letting people fulfill their daily obligations without posing a threat on the road. The studies on these programs from Europe and in commercial fleets here have shown that these devices are very effective. While public awareness campaigns and license suspensions have been useful tools, too, ISA just seems like a no-brainer—the type of technology that could really save lives.