WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2016 - Electronic governors keeping top
speeds at 60, 65 or 68 miles per hour in all heavy trucks and buses? Soon,
perhaps.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is pressing ahead with
a long-contemplated requirement for speed limiting gadgets, or chokers, in all
new Class 7 and 8 trucks (26,000 pounds gross weight rating), and possibly for
trucks already in use, including vehicles moving livestock and farm
commodities. The American Trucking Associations (ATA), representing trucking
company owners, and the safety advocating Road
Safe America (RSA) asked in 2006 for gear in all heavy highway vehicles to
impose a 68 mph cap, and DOT agreed in 2011 that it would propose such a
requirement.
Now, six years later, DOT has
issued its
proposal, and more than 3,700 individuals and organizations have submitted comments
pro and con, but most often critical or outright opposed. The agency considered
speed limiters for trucks 25 years ago, when the nation had a 55 mph speed
limit for all vehicles on the highways, but decided there was little
justification for the added equipment. A lot has changed since, DOT points out
in its summary: a lot more trucks on the roads, and improved technology and
economy of speed limiting devices. Plus more speed: 35 states have highway
speed limits of 70 mph or higher (Texas, 85 mph). The proposal projects that
imposing a 68 mph maximum for big trucks would save up to 96 traffic deaths a
year; a 65 mph maximum, up to 214 lives; a 60 mph limit, up to 500 lives.
The ATA doesn’t plan to submit its
own comments until DOT’s Dec. 7 deadline, a spokesman said. But it and many of
its member companies have looked kindly on the idea of highway speed-limiting
devices, even though they can slow deliveries. They say reducing speed saves
fuel, reduces accident frequency, extends the life of brakes, tires, and
engines, and ends up reducing truckers’ liability insurance. Still, ATA
President Chris Spear says, whichever of the optional speeds may be proposed,
highways should have uniform speed limits and the agency must “take the danger
of differential speeds for cars and trucks into account.”
Cynthia
Hilton, executive vice president of the Institute of Makers of Explosives,
says DOT “should consider allowing various maximum speed limitations based on
operating conditions.” That is necessary especially, she says, because so many
states have highway speed limits for all vehicles that are faster than the proposed
65 mph cap for big trucks, which she said is the velocity DOT appears to favor
in its proposal. Technology in such devices would allow drivers, for example,
to adjust their maximum speeds to 10 mph less than the 80-85 mph speed limits
in force on some states’ routes, she said.
Few farm and ag commodity groups
have shown an interest in the proposal, though speed limiting devices will, of
course, apply to a lot of farm commodity hauling, especially if DOT applies the
mandate to existing trucks. In comments
on behalf of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Holly L.M. Kennedy said any of
the proposed truck speed maximums would add to collisions in that state, which
has an 80 mph highway cap for all vehicles. The agency “did not thoroughly
address unintended consequences or its full implications. This rule, if
implemented, would drastically decrease safety for both passenger and
commercial vehicles,” she said.
Also, the mandate might be
retroactive. RSA points out: “All heavy commercial trucks manufactured since
1992 come equipped with electronic speed governors as standard equipment so
there is no capital expense” for speed control devices. Note, though, that DOT
suggests the devices it would require may include additional features, such as
electronic recording of when the device is switched on and off.
Comments to DOT, however, show a
lot of opposition by drivers, independent truckers and some trucking firm
owners who just don’t want more regulation. Ron Stallbaumer, of Gill, Colorado,
an independent trucker who has hauled cattle, hogs and sheep for 40 years, told
Agri-Pulse he believes DOT will impose
the speed limiting gear, though he thinks it is unnecessary and won’t improve
safety. The point of DOT’s proposal “is not whether it works or not,” he says, “It’s
about control, that’s all it is . . . it’s what the lefties think you should
do. I’ve got one more year to retirement, and if they start shoving crap like
that down our throats, then I am just going to retire.”
Don Jordan, a retired Frito Lay
Transportation truck driver in Silver Lake, Kansas, told DOT: “Most states have
replaced the split car-truck speed limits for safety reasons. Why go back to
that? It creates the safety problem of vehicles approaching slower trucks too
quickly before the drivers recognize the hazard . . . I know firsthand of … all
the unsafe actions of other drivers trying to get around us. So many times we
were a rolling road block, especially with the huge vision barrier we present.
Please don’t go back to those days.”
Meanwhile, a Mississippi trucking
boss, signing in at DOT, takes an opposing view: “As an owner of a small trucking
company (80 trucks), the fear of a serious and or fatal accident is always on
my mind. My company trucks are governed at 65 mph and have been for years. Our
owner operator trucks are not governed, however … seeing a truck traveling in
excess of the speed limit bothers me …. because I realize how dangerous 80,000
pounds is when traveling at a high rate of speed. All of this hogwash about
causing accidents due to a variance in speed is just that: hogwash. No truck
should be traveling over 65 mph … It’s a no-brainer.”
#30
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