NYC plan could put speed-capping devices in the cars of chronic speeders

Drivers in New York City who keep getting flagged by speed cameras may one day face an order to put a speed-capping device in their cars. At the same time, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that 2,000 more city-owned vehicles will get the same kind of equipment within three years.

The system is known as intelligent speed assistance. Drawing on speed-limit data, it keeps a car from accelerating beyond a set point. The proposed state law would still let equipped cars travel as much as 5 mph above the posted limit, with a little flexibility for traffic.

Who would have to install a speed limiter

The effort rests on a state measure, the Stop Super Speeders Act, which lets the city create a program focused on vehicles that collect camera violations over and over. Ordinary drivers would not be affected. The target is chronic offenders.

A City Council proposal sets the bar at 16 camera violations in a 12-month span. An owner held liable for that many could receive an installation order once a hearing is held. A second path in the state law covers drivers with 11 or more points from certain speeding offenses over 18 months. No order would follow from a single ticket. It would come only at the end of the administrative process.

Each repeat order runs longer. A second one lasts 24 months when issued within 10 years of the first term ending, and a third lasts 36 months when issued within 15 years. From the fourth order on, the device remains in place until the state commissioner signs off on taking it out. Drivers would usually get 10 days to prove the device is installed. The cost of putting it in, keeping it running and taking it out falls on the driver, unless a court or hearing officer rules the expense is beyond their means. Fee waivers or installment plans may be offered. Disabling or bypassing a working device would carry criminal penalties.

In 2025, the city’s 10 drivers with the most school-zone camera tickets averaged 179 of them apiece.

City fleet speed limiters grow to 3,000 vehicles

Together with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Mamdani tripled the fleet target to 3,000 vehicles, up from 1,000. The city’s pilot started in 2022 on just 50 cars and trucks. Today the technology runs on upward of 1,000 city vehicles, which together have covered over 10 million miles. The Mayor’s Office says the city’s speed-limiting technology currently covers vehicles at 21 city agencies across 23 vehicle types, NYC Mayor’s Office.

The larger fleet goal builds on a mayoral directive from July. That directive, Executive Order 19, makes speed assistance and pedestrian alerts standard on any new nonemergency vehicle or truck the city buys, and it calls for adding the alerts to nonemergency trucks already in service. The Mayor’s Office says the city plans to retrofit all of its roughly 4,000 existing civilian fleet trucks with pedestrian alerts by June 2029, NYC Mayor’s Office. In a separate trial, the city and New York City School Bus Umbrella Services will fit 100 school buses with alerts meant to warn people on foot when a bus is turning.