Plans by federal regulators to issue a proposed rule requiring speed limiters on truck engines is getting pushback by a significant portion of the trucking sector.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s April notice seeking comment on the plan, which the agency aims to issue as a proposed rule for public comment in 2023, generated more than 15,000 responses. Most came from independent owner-operators and small trucking companies, which account for the majority of FMCSA’s regulated carriers. And most were adamantly against it.
“I lease my trucks to a company that requires us to limit our speed to 65 mph,” wrote the owner of IAB Trucking. “I feel it has made my drivers more unsafe, as they get caught up in packs of drivers now. They are unable to maneuver when necessary. And I think automobile drivers are even angrier around trucks that have their speed limited. Please, do not require this.”
IAB Trucking’s sentiment was typical and was echoed among a large sampling of responses: Roads are less safe when trucks are unable to adjust their speed to surrounding traffic.
Benefits underscored
FMCSA’s planned petition will be in the form of a supplement to a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that was issued jointly in 2016 with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It will propose that trucks weighing over 26,000 pounds that are equipped with an electronic engine speed governor be required to limit the truck’s speed to a rate to be determined by the rulemaking and maintain the speed setting for the life of the vehicle.
The American Trucking Associations, which developed a speed governing policy for commercial trucks in 2007, initially supported a fixed maximum speed of 65 mph for all Class 7 and 8 trucks with electronic speed governors manufactured after 1992.
ATA has since revised its policy to take into account the development of safety technology aimed at allowing trucks to travel faster and safer. For Class 7 and 8 trucks manufactured after 1992 equipped with automatic emergency braking (AEB) and adaptive cruise control, ATA supports setting speed governors to a maximum speed of 70 mph, according to comments filed at FMCSA.
The Truckload Carriers Association and Road Safe America, a nonprofit “with a mission to reduce the number of crashes between trucks and passenger cars,” both support ATA’s stance. Providing the option of a maximum speed of 70 mph for trucks using AEB and adaptive cruise control “would give existing fleets an incentive to purchase and use these amazing safety technologies,” wrote Road Safe America’s Steve Owings.
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety also supports speed limiters — but it wants the maximum speed set to 60 mph.
The safety group cited “incontrovertible” safety benefits highlighted in the FMCSA’s 2016 NPRM, where the agency noted that crashes involving heavy vehicles traveling faster are more deadly than those involving trucks traveling at lower speeds.
“The 2016 NPRM estimates that setting the device at 60 mph has the potential to save almost 500 lives and prevent nearly 11,000 injuries annually,” commented Advocates President Catherine Chase. “By comparison, the NPRM clearly states that setting the speed at 65 or 68 mph will result in far less lives saved and injuries prevented.”
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) also considers speed limiters a needed safety requirement, although it did not advocate for a particular speed setting for the devices.
“Although the use of speed limiters on large trucks has raised concerns about creating speed differentials between trucks and other vehicles, research has documented that trucks already travel significantly slower than passenger vehicles, including on roads with speed limits raised to among the highest in the nation,” IIHS stated.
Less safe, more delays?
The thousands of individual owner-operators commenting on the proposal who opposed requiring speed limiters on their trucks were backed by associations representing small businesses, in particular the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.
| Speed limit | Number | Percent |
| 25 mph or less | 123 | 2.7% |
| 30-35 mph | 316 | 7.1% |
| 40-45 mph | 635 | 14.2% |
| 50-55 mph | 1,491 | 33.3% |
| 60-65 mph | 897 | 20% |
| 70-75 mph | 860 | 19.2% |
| 80-85 mph | 24 | 0.5% |
| No statutory limit | 45 | 1.0% |
| Unknown | 88 | 2.0% |
| Total | 4,479 | 100% |
(Updated Oct. 2021). Source: FMCSA
In addition to unsafe speed differentials resulting if speed limits on certain roads have higher speed limits than those governed by the engine’s control unit, speed limiters take away a driver’s ability to avoid accidents and unsafe road conditions, according to OOIDA President and CEO Todd Spencer.
In addition, “speed limiters increase driver stress and make drivers more fatigued because they must operate longer hours in order to complete the work expected of them, and they must also operate at the maximum allowed speed for more of those hours,” Spencer said. “In a survey of our members, drivers that are required by their carriers to use speed limiters also report feeling pressure to ‘make up’ time on local roads when the posted speed limit is lower than the speed set on the truck.”
The Livestock Marketing Association, which represents more than 80% of local livestock auction markets, agreed that the use of speed limiters “ignores the very real safety hazard of speed differentials and fails to account for the safety impacts when a 60, 65 or 68 mph limit is applied to a [truck] while surrounding traffic are traveling speeds 10, 15 or even 20 mph faster. This difference in speeds will cause more dangerous conditions for the motoring public.”
Mandating slower truck speeds, he said, “will literally slow the movement of freight through the supply chain. At a time when businesses and families are having difficulties securing the supplies they need, this proposal would create additional challenges and delays.”
One commenter used FMCSA’s own data to counter research from safety and insurance groups used to support speed limiters (see table, above).
The commenter noted that according to FMCSA, highways with posted speed limits of 50-55 mph account for 33.3% of all fatal crashes and that highways with speed limits of 60-65 mph and 70-75 mph account for significantly fewer fatalities.
“What is more, this data shows that out of 4,479 fatal crashes only 1.0% (45 fatal crashes) occurred in areas with no statutory speed limit” and 97% occurred in areas with speed limits. “This evidence suggests on its face that fatal crashes are less likely, not more, as posted speed limits are increased or removed altogether.”
Related articles:
- Speed limiters, automatic braking on NTSB Most Wanted List
- Safety ratings at risk for violators of proposed speed limiter law
- US senators propose 65-mph truck speed limiters
Click for more FreightWaves articles by John Gallagher.
Fatal crashes involving large trucks
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Greg S.
The FMCSA has published data showing the number of accidents involving trucks in intervals between 25 and 85 mph. (Although if you look at the chart above, they show 40-45 mph, then skip 46 to 49 and go to 50-55 mph?) The last column of the chart shows the percentage of accidents at each interval. If they were to choose to limit the speeds based on this chart, the smallest percentages show that the speed limiters should be set at either 25 mph or 85 mph. Since we know those won’t be the choice, the data in this chart is irrelevant.
There are other problems with this chart. It fails to show fault. How many of these accidents were attributed to the truckdriver? It is not whether the accident is “chargeable”, but who was at fault. When I was driving, the carrier always found some reason to make the accident “chargeable” – even if it was that the driver shouldn’t have been on that stretch of road at that particular time for some reason.
Other than some goofy justifications with the chart, there are other considerations.
Truck freight tonnage will remain constant (or increase as the economy recovers).
Let’s say the choose a speed limiter setting that will decrease the average speed by 10 percent. (Anything more will be seen as excessive, anything less will be seen as a waste of time and resources studying the problem.)
DRIVER SHORTAGES: There are 3.36 million truck drivers in the United States. Reducing speeds by 10 percent will result in an increase in the shortage of truck drivers, currently stated to be 186,000 drivers. An additional 10 percent of 3.36 million will increase that driver shortage by 336,000 drivers, to 522,000 drivers.
DRIVERS PAY: Many truck drivers are paid by the mile. A 10 percent decrease in average speed translates to a 10 percent reduction in pay in a field that already underpays the truckers for their work. Others are paid by the load and a 10 percent decrease in speed on a cross-country run equates to many lost loads over a period of time. Even the port haulers that make a couple of loads per day will lose out on that one extra load per day that makes or breaks them.
FREIGHT RATES: The resulting decrease in capacity of America’s ability to move products will be more competition for trucks by shippers. Freight prices will increase and be passed on to the consumer. As the economy recovers, rates will increase much more than 10 percent, but those increases, in most cases, will not be passed on to the drivers, since they are now driving fewer miles in the same amount of time. Corporate bean-counters will take the position that the drivers are less efficient by running fewer miles in the same amount of time and therefore don’t deserve a pay raise.
PARKING: President Biden has recently signed an infrastructure bill that includes additional parking for truckers, however, the amounts allotted are insufficient to resolve the parking issues. Additionally, most of the funds appear to be targeted at the areas around the ports. This doesn’t do much for the cross-country long-haulers who are being forced to (illegally) park on the shoulders of freeway ramps or behind shopping centers even though they are not making deliveries to those locations. If the driver shortage shown above is magically resolved, where are they going to park?
INFRASTRUCTURE: America’s roads are already in sad shape. While slowing trucks down may reduce wear and tear on bridges and road surfaces, and maybe even reduce fuel consumption, it will, as an unintended consequence, reduce fuel tax income to maintain the roads.
COMCLUSION: If the FMCSA wants to put speed limiters on trucks, they must do more than justify them by crying “Safety”. They should interface with other agencies to get their inputs. They need to reconsider the cause of accidents, rather than just a blanket blame on the truckers.
Lonnie Hughes
When is the government gonna start putting a speed limiter on cars they don’t need to run like idiots and waste gas any more then trucks do.
None of your business
The Federal Government is wanting to limit the speed of the wrong group of vehicles. Limit the passenger vehicle’s instead. Its the passenger vehicle’s driver’s that get highly aggressive and impatient in traffic. They are also the ones who are causing traffic backups due to Thier lack of being able to merge on and off the highway and at highway interchange’s.
Dave King
Why is it always on the trucker and trucking companies? Have not seen anything about the cars and motorcycles that are going 10 to 30 mph faster. These states need to get set speed limits at same speed as trucks. Something (like trucks) going slower than cars and motorcycles is another obstacle to get around and if distracted they more likely to run into the slower traffic than same speed traffic. Reaction time for each individual is different and at high rate of speed more likely to hit the wall than stop to avoid a collision.
Kyle J McKee
All I can say is this, of the FMCSA rules in favor of speed limiters, I will turn in my CDL A and my keys and say goodbye to this disgusting, unorganized, out of touch industry that has no idea what it takes to treat their drivers the right way.
John
These are the same geniuses that changed the team driving hrs from 5hrs on then switch with co driver for 5hrs in sleeper and so on !! In their infinite wisdom they changed it to 10 hrs on and switch !! My co driver didn’t want to drive 10hrs and neither did I !!! We came off the road and got lock jobs !!! Sad thing is our truck only stopped for fuel and walk arounds when switching and it worked well for us !! The 10 hrs for teams sucks !!!
ray
it will end up just like a lot of def trucks hacked or removed!
Jeremiah McKenna
Or, just park the trucks and don’t deliver Anything to Anyone for a week. Post the reason is that unnecessary and uneducated overreact by government officials and ignorant non-government, non-driving people. See how long those unrealistic rules stay in place once the general public isn’t able to find gas, clothes, supplies or groceries. Believe me, their phones will be lit up for days.
Ronald Vernlund
Yes if the government wants to screw with the big trucks just park them for six months. Let the government get good and hungry. Show the government what power the truck driver have. Tell them you want to screw with us we will park for a and see how thay like it. When people get good and hungry the government won’t be able to control them
Wes
Maybe leave the Class 7/8 rigs alone and stop selling passenger cars with out speed limiters. That can run 100+ mph. Thats the real problem. Since october 2022 to 7/24/2022 ive seen easily 60 wrecks in the state of Iowa with passenger cars. Im 42yrs old and watch these young adults riding around on the phone doing no telling what. Maybe making a tiktok these days. Or taking a snap for snapchat. Or riding with their legs crossed in the seat. Or leg up on the dash by the steering wheel. I was with my wife and was able to snap a picture of a tounster dring with a leg out the window of a 1 ton dually. Im serious come on. Just blazing along in 65mph areas doing 80mph.
So slow them down and train them better. We are required to take like 3mths of driver training to get harassed by everyone as professional drivers. Being told how unsafe we are. While the mass population at 15yrs of age takes about 2weeks and is ok to jump behind the wheel of the Camaro ZL1 capable of 200mph or the Mustang GT500 Cobra able to do 180mph.
Why do we have speed limits of up to 85mph in areas of TX and other places if we manufacture these kinds of cars. Even a little Prius can run about 112mph. Why why why why why do we allow this but want to slow down the PROFESSIONAL DRIVER.
Stop being stupid and focus on the ROOT CAUSE of issues on the roads. Yea we got some idiot drivers out there. But way more in passenger vehicles that can zip and rip all over and cut us off and screw around doing brake checks to us to try and prove how alpha they are as men or women be they young new drivers or seasoned drivers.