New ‘super-speeder law’ in Va. aims to slow down drivers

This article was originally published by Virginia's WAVY TV 10.

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — Speeders beware, there’s a new law in Virginia, and you’re probably not going to like it, but your fellow drivers definitely will.

“Virginia is the first state in the United States to pass a super-speeder law,” said Michael Travars, president of LifeSafer. “What the law does is, it says that if you’re a repeat reckless speeder, if you’re going 85 miles an hour in a 20, if you’re going over 100 miles an hour, in lieu of suspension or impoundment, instead of losing your license, you will put an ISA device in your vehicle.”

ISA stands for Intelligent Speed Assistance, and it looks like a GPS. It makes sure your car doesn’t go any faster than the posted speed limit.

“If you’re driving down the road and I say devices in your vehicle, you’re going to get to 55 miles an hour and you’ll be stopped from accelerating further,” he said. “They won’t hit the brakes. It’s not going to slow your car down. You just can’t go faster.”

If you have a teen who has a need for speed, you can have one installed on their car. The device already has AAA Tidewater’s blessing.

“AAA is very supportive of this new intelligent speed assist law,” said Holly Darby with AAA Tidewater. “We are just thrilled that there’s a way to help slow down people out there on the roads. We see too often on the news that you report somebody was going over 100 miles an hour. Somebody was going 75 in the neighborhood. We need to slow down.”

Speeding is the number one cause of traffic-related accident fatalities in Virginia. It consistently contributes to roughly 45% to 50% of all vehicle-related deaths in the Commonwealth.

Said Travars: ‘If we can address the speeding problem, we can address most of the other problems on the roadways today. And the purpose of an ISA program is to slow down vehicles, to get vehicles to go the speed limit, and, as the result, make roads safer for everybody.”