All Brits must be aware as new driving law is introduced today

Today is the day a new driving law comes into effect across the UK, and it'll have an impact on anybody wanting to buy a car from now on.

From now on (7 July), all new cars sold in Europe will have speed limiters fitted to them due to European Union legislation that was passed back in 2022.

While the UK might have left the EU, it hasn't felt the need to deviate from the regulations on this front, and of course there are cars made in the UK which could be sold on the European market which would need to follow this new law.

This new law does cover Northern Ireland as well as the EU, so while the rest of the UK could try to opt-out if it so desired, there's not much point.

The new driving law will cover cars that are manufactured from this point on, as well as those sitting on the forecourts of dealerships before being sold.

Speed limiters will spot what the road signs say and try to keep the car from breaking it. (Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Those vehicles which have been made but not yet sold have been retroactively fitted with a speed limiter.

When it comes to speed limiting technology the new part on cars is called an Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) system, and there are three different types of this gizmo which could be fitted onto the car.

With the three different types comes a varying level of interference in the way that you drive, though all of them use speed sign recognition cameras and GPS to figure out what the speed limit on the road is and how fast the car is going.

A lot of satnavs already know what the speed limit on the road is and how fast the car it's guiding is going, but speed limiters can go a few steps further in trying to get a driver to bring their speed down.

The first and least intrusive form of ISA is the 'advisory' one, which simply detects whether you're going too fast and tells you to check your speed.

The law change has come into effect today, so new cars being sold have to have the limiters. (Getty Stock Image)

After that is the 'supportive' ISA which will make it harder to push down on the accelerator pedal if the car's onboard technology detects that you're above the speed limit.

In essence this makes it harder to floor it above the speed limit and will try to help you get back to what you ought to be going at.

Finally there's the 'intervening' system which will reduce power to the engine if the car detects that it's going above the speed limit, slowing it down to acceptable levels.

Many experts say that the introduction of speed limiters will 'significantly reduce the risk of penalties' on the road and make things safer.

However, not all are convinced as Stuart Masson from The Car Expert has argued that a vehicle that could potentially act against its driver is 'problematic'.

He went on to say that it was 'incredibly annoying and distracting for drivers to have a car constantly bonging at you' with possible warnings, and that better driver training was the right alternative.