No remote speed-limiting, says EC

The European Commission has assured European motorists that a Daily Mail story about a bid to limit vehicle speeds by remote control via roadside cameras and GPS technology amounts to deliberate distortion of fact.

“Drivers face having their cars fitted with devices that slam on the brakes if they go over the speed limit, under draconian new road safety measures being drawn up by officials in Brussels,” Britain’s Daily Mail shrieked recently.

There they had it: a yarn with all the makings of a Fleet Street red-top front page -- a massive incursion by Big Europe on the rights and liberties of Little Britain, hereby invoking remote-control technology to ruin the traditional Sunday drive.

“Vehicles already on the road could even be sent back to garages to be fitted with the ‘big brother’ technology, meaning that no car in the UK would be allowed to travel faster than 70mph – the speed limit on motorways,” continued the newspaper.

And there was more: “All new cars would have to include camera systems that ‘read’ the limits displayed on road signs and automatically apply the brakes.”

But just as the British motoring public massed in gratitude outside Mail HQ in London for alerting it to yet another incursion of evil from across the channel, a rebuttal arrived in the nation’s collective inbox from the EC.

“This is quite simply not true,” was the European Commission’s riposte, “and the Commission had made this very clear to the journalists concerned prior to publication.

“[The Daily Mail] for example, uses a quote from a Commission spokesman but chooses to leave out the first and most important sentence given to the paper’s reporter, which was this: ‘The Commission has not tabled – and does not have in the pipeline – even a non-binding Recommendation, let alone anything more’.”

To clarify its stance on the matter, the EC statement added that “[The] Commission has supported past research into ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation). There is a current stakeholder consultation and study focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs (Heavy Goods Vehicles) and buses. One aspect of that is whether ISA could in the long-term be an alternative...”

“It is part of the EC’s [mandate] to look at, promote research into and consult stakeholders about new road safety technology which might ultimately save lives.”

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