Picture this. It’s midnight. You’re starving. You slide into the backseat of your Level 5 autonomous vehicle and demand a drive-thru run. You want it fast. Like, now fast. Do you scream at the dashboard to ignore the 55 mph sign? Or does the car politely but firmly decline, citing traffic law?
The reality is less Black Mirror and more boring bureaucracy. While fully autonomous cars capable of driving anywhere without human oversight are still years away, the programming logic seems clear: they will likely stick to the speed limit. Safety exceptions aside, the robot driver isn’t going to speed just because you’re hungry.
This isn’t just speculation. It’s a calculated risk assessment by engineers who know human drivers are terrible.
The “10 MPH Faster” Experiment
Back when Google’s self-driving cars first hit American roads, they actually broke the law. Reuters reported that these experimental autonomous vehicles (AVs) were programmed to travel up to 10 mph over the speed limit.
Why? Not because the AI had an adrenaline junkie streak. It was survival.
Human drivers routinely blow past posted limits. We drive as fast as we think we can get away with. If a self-driving car obeys the law and cruises at exactly 55 mph in a zone where everyone else is doing 65, it becomes a floating obstacle. It invites rear-end collisions. Researchers realized early on that playing by the rules in an environment of rule-breakers is a recipe for disaster.
Robots Play by the Book. Humans Don’t.
Fast forward to today. There is zero evidence that AVs are prone to speeding. In fact, the data suggests the opposite.
California is the only state that meticulously tracks autonomous vehicle accidents. Since 2014, nearly 50 mishaps have been recorded. The narrative is consistent: human-driven cars rear-ending cautious AVs. Often, the robot vehicle slowed down to yield to a pedestrian or another car. The human behind it, frustrated by the “slow-poke” machine, clipped it while trying to pass.
The robots aren’t speeding. They’re just too polite for their own good.
The Government’s Speed Limit Vision
A 2017 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures outlines a future where AVs are hard-coded not to exceed posted limits. Traffic planners believe this regimentation will make roads safer by eliminating the chaotic variance in vehicle speeds that currently causes accidents.
There is a financial downside, though. A fleet of law-abiding robots means fewer speeding tickets. Local and state governments, which rely on this revenue stream, might not be thrilled. But the trade-off for safety seems to be the intended path.
The Future of Highway Speed
If we ever reach a tipping point where we have dedicated AV-only lanes, the speed limits might actually go up. Networked vehicles could communicate with each other, maintaining safe distances at higher speeds than any human could manage.
Consider the 2017 study by venture capital firm Madrona. It envisioned converting U.S. Interstate 5 in the Pacific Northwest into an AV-only route. The logic is simple: if everyone is a robot, everyone can go faster, safely.
“Because autonomous vehicles are designed to adjust to and accommodate human drivers’ maneuvers, even a small proportion of robots driving on a highway — as few as 5 percent of total cars — could eliminate the stop-and-go waves that lead to congestion.”
— University of Illinois researchers
That 5% figure is staggering. A tiny fraction of autonomous cars smoothing out traffic flow for everyone else. It suggests that the friction between human impulsivity and machine precision is the primary cause of our gridlock.
So, will you be able to tell your car to speed? Probably not. But you might get to your burger faster anyway. The question remains: are we ready to trust a machine to be a better driver than we are?
