Ford this summer rolls out Intelligent Speed Limiter technology that reads traffic speed limit signs, and adjusts your car’s cruise control accordingly. It lets you cruise 5 mph over the limit, but — wimps! — no more than 5 over. Never mind that in the US at least, it’s a rare highway where you’re vulnerable to law enforcement until you’re more than 10 mph over. Try doing 70 in a 65 zone and see how many cars you pass.

Intelligent Speed Limiter and “more than 20 [other] new technologies” will be introduced on the 2016 Ford S-Max, a midsize crossover/minivan that holds seven in just 188 inches (4,770 mm). Many are new to the price segment, but a Mercedes buyer already has them. They include Pre-Collision Assist with Pedestrian Detection and a front split-view camera for pulling into snug parking spaces or pulling out of alleyways into traffic.

How Intelligent Speed Limiter works

The S-Max is the first Ford to be offered globally with Intelligent Speed Limiter. Ford says it blends two other Ford technologies. Adjustable Speed Limiter lets drivers manually set a maximum vehicle speed. Traffic Sign Recognition recognizes the text as well as the shape of signs and provides the current detected speed limit, cancellation signs, and overtaking restrictions. Drivers use the steering wheel to choose the traditional driver-adjustable speed limiter (cruise control) or Intelligent Speed Limiter. If there’s navigation onboard, the car augments traffic sign recognition with GPS and “map data for improved accuracy,” for instance perhaps when the S-Max camera misses a speed limit sign.

Ford says, “Intelligent Speed Limiter … allows drivers to set a speed tolerance of up to 10 km/h (5 mph) above the detected speed limit.” Ford is trapped between a rock (how drivers really drive) and a hard place (the annoying-ness of safety zealots and the tort system). In the US at least, on 65 mph Interstate highways, drivers routinely set cruise control for 10 mph over, sometimes 15. A lot of drivers believe the odds of getting a ticket are modest until they’re doing more than a dozen mph over the limit, meaning you’re in the high 70s.

What Ford should have done

Ford should let each driver choose comfort levels and have them embedded in the car, or do it automatically with the customizable Ford MyKey. A driver might decide the comfort level is 5 mph over the speed limit up to 40 mph, then 7 mph to 55, then 10 over to 65, then 12 over. He or she might also decide in a school zone the allowable overrun is zero. It seems unlikely many US drivers are willing to be made to drive 5-10 mph slower than the traffic flow.

Not to quibble, but Ford says European (metric system) drivers are allowed 10 kph over while US drivers get 5 mph over. So the rest of the world actually gets to do 6.2 mph over. That may be more in keeping with European driving habits, where motorists are more concerned about photo radar.

All this rest-of-world vs. US discussion is academic for now. The Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta are designed in Europe and in the US they are strong sellers but it’s not clear the S-Max is bound for the land of the Big Gulp. It’s sized more like a Mazda 5 than a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna, and no matter what the size, if it’s perceived as a van/minivan, that’s the kiss of death in the USA. That’s not to say Intelligent Speed Limiter couldn’t make its way across the Atlantic, but if Ford keeps ISL’s speed option at just 5 mph over, not 10 or 15, most drivers will leave ISL in the off position. High-end European cars have been able to read speed and other traffic signs for almost a decade, made easier by the uniform styles for signage in Europe. If you see a circular sign with a red outer ring, the number inside is always the speed limit.

Other S-Max technologies

Stop us if you’ve heard these technologies before. You probably have, on an Audi, BMW, or Mercedes-Benz. You haven’t on a car that mainstream families can afford to drive. Here they are:

Glare-free high beam paired with LED headlamps and the adaptive (steerable) front lighting system, adjusts the headlamp beam angle and brightness to one of seven settings based on speed, ambient light, steering angle, wiper settings, and distances from the car in front. High-end cars do this by masking a multi-LED array and placing a shutter over elements that would shine directly on an approaching car.

Adaptive steering reduces the steering ratio (how many turns lock to lock) at slow speeds so the car turns more with a slight steering input. At high speed, it takes a greater turn of the wheel to change lanes, adding to the sense of stability. BMW has had adaptive steering for years, but at a cost of $1,200. On a car with steer-by-wire such as the Infiniti Q50, it’s just a few more lines of software code.

Some of this is cool technology. But Ford’s big brother-knows-best attitude means that when Intelligent Speed Limiter reaches our shores, it may go unused. A decade ago when the first adaptive cruise control systems arrived, the minimum (shortest) following distance was set with safety in mind. That was just enough of a gap to allow aggressive drivers room to cut in front of you. Now technology is better and automakers allow a bit less following distance, in keeping with how people drive.