A teenager who admitted to being “Speed addicted” Behind the steering wheel had total two other cars in the year before he crashed into a minivan at 112 mph (180 kph) in a Seattle suburb, killing the driver and three of the five children he transported for a home education cooperative.
After sentencing Chase Daniel Jones last month to more than 17 years in prison, the judge added a novel condition in case he drives again: his vehicle must be equipped with a device that avoids Accelerate far beyond the speed limit.
Virginia this year became the first state to give its judges a tool to deal with most dangerous drivers in it path. Washington, DC, is already using it and similar measures expect the firms of the governors in the state of Washington and Georgia. New York and California could also take advantage of GPS -based technology to help fight a recent national increase in Traffic deaths.
“It’s a horror that nobody should experience,” said Amy Cohen, who founded the victims’ defense group Families for safe streets After his 12 -year -old son, Sammy Cohen Eckstein, was killed by an excessive driver in front of his New York house more than a decade ago.
Andrea Hudson, 38, the Minivan driver who was killed when Jones ran a red light, was building a greenhouse in the backyard with her husband to help educate several children who move between the houses during the school day, said her father, Ted Smith.
Also murdered in the March 2024 accident near Hudson’s house in Renton, Washington, were Boyd “Buster” Brown and Eloise Wilcoxson, both 12 years old, and Matilda Wilcoxson, 13. The two children of Hudson were sitting on the passenger side and survived, but weeks spent in a hospital.
“You always listen to these horrible accidents, and it’s always far away, you don’t know anyone. But suddenly, it’s my daughter,” Smith said. “This guy didn’t deviate or stop. And it was just a missile.”
Smith knew Washington’s state representative, Mari Leavitt, who approached to offer condolences and told him that he was sponsoring legislation to demand intelligent speed assistance devices as a condition for usual voracious To recover their suspended licenses.
Leavitt predicts that it will have an even more powerful impact than revoking driving privileges, citing studies that show about three quarters of the people who lose their licenses behind a steering wheel anyway.
Between 2019 and 2024, the State saw a 200% increase in drivers cited for at least 50 mph (80 kph) on the speed limit, according to the Washington Traffic Security Commission.
“I think I don’t understand why someone is forced to want to drive that fast,” Leavitt said. “But if they choose to drive so fast with the speed limiter, they can’t. He will stop them dry.”
The measure, that Washington legislators approved last month and is expected that Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson soon firm, is called Beam’s Law, using the first letters of the names of the four victims: Buster, Eloise, Andrea and Matilda.
Because Jones, 19, did not receive a speed for speeding in his two previous accidents, would probably not be required to use the speed limiter before the fatal. And because it could be 2029 before the law enters into force, the judge’s requirement in the sentence only applies to his time on probation after being released from the prison, Smith said.
Competeting technology companies that united forces to press for the ignition interlocking requirements for drunk drivers have been working in unison again in recent years to present an intelligent speed assistance.
Brandy Nannini, director of government affairs of a manufacturer, Smart Start, based in Grapevine, Texas, said that fleet vehicles, including school buses in the capital of the nation, have been testing it for years.
But it took a lot of refinement before GPS technology could instantly recognize the speed limit changes and force vehicles with the devices installed to adjust accordingly.
“Now we have many more satellites in heaven,” said Ken Denton, a retired police officer who is Lifesafer’s compliance director, based in Cincinnati, part of the companies coalition.
When addressed to the court, the devices would prevent cars from exceeding the speed limits or any threshold that regulators establish. A cancellation button allows emergencies, but states can decide whether to activate it and the authorities would be alert every time the button is pressed.
A more passive version is required, which emits to alert drivers when they go too fast, for new cars in the European Union. Governor of California Gavin Newsom vetoed a similar proposal Last year, the federal government establishes vehicle security requirements and worried that a mosaic of state laws could cause confusion.
Before Del. Patrick Hope agreed to sponsor the proposal in the Virginia Legislature, tested the device in the Nannini car, which calibrated so as not to pass more than 9 mph (14 kph) on the speed limit.
“That was my first question: is it safe?” Hope said.
Not only was he convinced that it was safe, hope is now reflecting on whether to install it in the cars of his three children, all of whom are new drivers.
For those ordered by a court, the price could be considerable: $ 4 per day and an installation rate of $ 100. The rate would be reduced for low -income criminals.
Cohen With Families For Safe Streets, which provides support services to the loved ones of shock victims, knows first hand the type of impact that deceleration speeds can do. A year after his son was beaten and killed in front of his New York department, another child was injured in the same place.
By then, the speed limit of the road had been reduced.
“That boy lived when he was beaten, and mine,” he said. “When you go to a few slower miles, there is more time to stop. And when you hit someone, it’s much less likely to be deadly.”
