Would you volunteer to pay for a speed-limiting device on your car that prevents you from accelerating over the posted speed limit? What if your only other option was to surrender your license or wear a location-tracking ankle bracelet? This is the choice reckless drivers in Virginia may soon face.

This is made possible by a technological advance: Most new cars come with a traffic sign recognition system. These systems can read posted speed limits and may even show the driver the current speed limit in a subtle heads-up display. But Virginia’s speed-limiting technology adds a GPS that can tell how fast the car is moving and limits the driver from accelerating above the posted limit.

Virginia’s speed limiter laws

Washington D.C. passed a law last year to install these devices in the cars of reckless drivers. When Virginia was considering the measure, some residents lobbied to make it an automatic penalty for any drivers caught speeding over 100 mph. Governor Glenn Youngkin decided instead to make the system an option the judge can choose.

Now, a judge has another tool in their arsenal. They can still take a reckless driver’s license. But if that driver complains that they need to commute to work or run errands, the judge could offer this alternative.

The way the law’s written, the driver must pay for the device. The judge can choose to sentence them to keep it anywhere from two to six months. Tempering with it or driving a different car would be a crime.

So how will Virginia sentence drivers of older cars without a compatible traffic sign recognition system. I suppose it’ll have to go the license suspension or ankle bracelet route. That said, I’d think they could just limit the reckless drivers’ vehicle to 65 mph. They might still speed on surface streets, but couldn’t reach ultra high speeds on the highway anymore.