DriveTech has outlined the importance of driver training as new type approval regulations come into force leading to the introduction of mandatory speed limiters in cars and vans.

From 2024, all new vehicles sold must feature a range of additional safety devices, including a speed limiter.

DriveTech’s latest Whitepaper, Intelligent Speed Assistance – a logical move for safety, but driver tech education is still a critical need, helps to summarise the Europe-wide move to mandate the fitment of additional safety devices including speed limiters.

It points specifically to the essential need to ensure drivers are not forgotten in this process and are made fully aware of the devices that will feature on new vehicles, their benefits and practical use.

Dr Helen Wells, lecturer in Criminology at Keele University and director of the Roads Policing Academic Network, said: “As our vehicles become ever more complex and their safety features more intrusive, and as the pace of change of those features increases inexorably, it is time to open the debate about licensing arrangements for drivers. Many have felt for a long time that it is simply not sufficient to allow a driver to rely throughout their adult lives on a test they took, quite possibly, in their teens.”

The DriveTech paper covers speed limiters and other additional safety devices to be included, but concludes there are still risks associated with this development, most notably with the driver, and urges consideration to be made for lifelong learning for all drivers for the sake of road safety and more effective driving behaviours.

The full Whitepaper can be accessed and downloaded free from the DriveTech website: http://www.drivetech.co.uk/news-and-resources/mandatory-speed-limiter-fitment-in-vehicles.