Arizona should use tech to rein in state’s most dangerous speeders

David A. King

Submitted photo/Arizona State University

For me, this is not just a professional issue; it is deeply personal. A few years ago, I was hit by a speeding driver while riding my bike. The crash shattered my spine and other bones. I was fortunate to survive and recover, but many Arizonans in similar crashes do not.”

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OPINION — Arizona’s roads are among the deadliest in the country, and the toll of crashes should be treated as a public health crisis, not an unavoidable cost of daily life. Too many Arizona families have lost parents, children and neighbors to crashes that were preventable.

One major reason: speed. When drivers go too fast, they have less control of their vehicles, less time to react and far less margin for error. Speed turns what might have been a minor collision into a devastating, often fatal, crash.

As an associate professor of urban planning at Arizona State University, my research focuses on transportation policy, road safety and access to economic opportunity.

We know that better infrastructure can reduce crashes: redesigning dangerous corridors, calming traffic with narrower lanes, improving lighting and building safer crossings all help. But those fixes take years to plan, fund and build, and even the safest streets cannot fully protect the public from a small group of drivers who simply refuse to slow down. That is why we need tools that can save lives today.

One such tool is before the Arizona Legislature. Lawmakers are considering House Bill 2417, a bill that would offer anti‑speeding technology called intelligent speed assistance —ISA — to drivers convicted of serious or repeated speeding offenses. These devices use GPS and speed‑limit data to keep a vehicle from exceeding the legal limit — a precise way to rein in the most dangerous speeders without affecting everyone else.

There are two core reasons to support this legislation.

First, a small number of “super speeders” cause a disproportionate share of the worst crashes, and traditional penalties — tickets, fines, even license suspensions — often don’t change their behavior. Second, ISA gives us a way to protect the public without cutting people off from the economic opportunities that driving provides.

In metro Phoenix and much of Arizona, access to a car still largely determines access to jobs, education and basic services. License suspension may be necessary in some cases, but it can also push people out of work or school. ISA offers a better balance: it forces compliance with speed limits while allowing people to keep driving legally to work, school and other obligations.

HB 2417 gives people convicted of serious or repeated speeding a clear choice: install a speed governor or lose your license. This is not leniency; it is accountability paired with technology that changes how these drivers behave. And it only applies to people who have been found guilty. 

For me, this is not just a professional issue; it is deeply personal. A few years ago, I was hit by a speeding driver while riding my bike. The crash shattered my spine and other bones. I was fortunate to survive and recover, but many Arizonans in similar crashes do not. In talking with people afterward, I realized that almost everyone knows someone who has been seriously injured or killed by a driver going too fast.

We should be honest about what it will take to change this. Arizona must invest in safer street designs, better transit and more options so that people are less dependent on their cars to survive. Those long‑term improvements are critical, but they will not arrive overnight, and they will not solve the problem of chronic, reckless speeding on their own. Intelligent speed assistance is not a silver bullet, but it is a proven technology that can immediately reduce the risk posed by the most dangerous drivers.

The choice before lawmakers is not between infrastructure or technology, nor between safety or economic opportunity. We can and should do both: redesign our roads for safety and deploy intelligent speed assistance for the small group of drivers who have demonstrated they will not follow the law.

If we are serious about treating traffic violence as the public health crisis it is, then using every effective tool available — including ISA — is one good place to start.

 David A. King is an associate professor of urban planning at Arizona State University and a member of Families for Safe Streets. He writes about practical solutions to make streets safer while preserving mobility for working families. He wrote this for Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA.

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