Maybe there is a reason to vote leave?

^
... and from the article,
"EU Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said: "Every year, 25,000 people lose their lives on our roads. The vast majority of these accidents are caused by human error."

Better to eliminate the human error rather than speed - regular psychiatric assessment of drivers to determine if they should have a licence, better driver training etc.... but no, let's use the "Big EU Hammer" and control people's cars instead

Hearing that on the news made me feel thoroughly depressed. I really don't see how limiting a car's speed is going to add to road safety because it is going to massively add to frustration. People are the problem and even then only a small minority but as usual those in power want to drag us all down to the level of the lowest common denominator. 

In 4 year's time, how are car brands going to differentiate themselves. What's the point in producing a 300 or 400hp car if you are going to be stuck behind Reginald Molehusband in his 80hp hatchback doing 50mph on the short straights of an A road. Perhaps the slingshot will come back into favour - a driving style I had to adopt in my 1300 Beetle if I wanted to pass anyone - fall back before the corner leading onto the short straight, wind it up and go round the corner on the limit and be prepared either to pull out and overtake if clear or hit the brakes if not - hardly the greatest contributor to road safety! 

I'm thinking of investing in a business that makes red flags.

If the aim is to reduce road deaths to zero and only a quarter of those deaths come from excessive speed then I suspect this news is the least of our worries.

With the market for new car sales, how is a mass reduction in sales going to impact the manafacturers? I cannot see how this will get through without huge financial losses and lost jobs.

Don't be daft - laws don't apply to them!

Surely all these devices will be disarmed by a bloke in a back street garage with a laptop.

I'd be tempted to go under the radar going forward, have an unregistered and uninsured car and carry on as before.

Probably.

But the likelihood that Brexit impacts that is nil. Our legislature is quite capable of coming up with its own barking impositions.

And to the original premise in the title - no - the article says the UK intends to follow suit irrespective of Brexit.

Yup.
Perhaps they could make vehicles into Faraday cages so the idiots can't use their smartphones to update their mood status on Facebook on the way into work?

I'd like to think the HGV driver I saw this morning going through Balmullo, past schoolkids waiting for the bus, while texting would be something the authorities would like to stop but in common with millions of other daily road users he's not going to get stopped because speed camera vans don't appear to pick up phone usage. 

I've said this before; take road policing out of the budget of the regular police and set up a separate body of Highway Police, fully self funded by fines. 

2 officers in a car - say £60k a year each for employment costs.
Supply of one fully expensed and maintained car - say £100k a year.
A bit of office overhead - say £30k a year.

Total cost £250k.

They work 250 days a year so need to generate fines totaling £1000 per day to pay for themselves. I could do that on my morning commute - a couple of £200 phone use fines, couple of speeders for £100 each, 3 red light jumpers at £100 each, baldy tyres, another few hundred.

I'd give them a bonus for every motorcycle they crush and a set of bolt croppers to cut the chain off every cycle they see been ridden dangerously or without lights.