It's almost unbelievable how fast our industry is changing thanks to modern technology, over-zealous legislators and trade groups attempting to level the playing field. The freedom of the open road is quickly becoming a nostalgic afterthought. They tell us when to drive, when to sleep, when to take a break and now they want to control how fast we drive. I thought we already had speed limits? Read the American Trucking Association's (ATA) stance here..aspx?width=350&height=237)
I read both studies that the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) conducted on speed limiters and you can find them here. Just type "speed" in the search box. The studies were very thorough and concluded that there is reduction in speed relevant crashes with trucks using speed limiters. However, I also learned some other interesting facts that ATA is not citing.
- Companies that DID NOT have speed limiters had an overall crash rate of 9.1%
- Companies that DID have speed limiters had an overall crash rate of 11.2%
- Speeding trucks are not a problem in the United States
ATRI was commissioned to determine how speed limiters impact safety and they did an outstanding job as they always do. However, there isn't much consideration on the impact to safety that would probably change if 4 million trucks are all driving the same speed. In their study, they did identify some of the disadvantages, but no studies were conducted. The disadvantages include:
- Differing speed limits in individual states
- Lack of independence could steer drivers away from industry
- Inability to accelerate to avoid crashes (almost 2% of crashes and conflicts used this maneuver)
- Trucks will speed on secondary routes to make up for lost time
It's impossible to conduct an accurate study of a regulation that isn't in effect yet. That's why we don't know the full implications and new problems that an over-reaching federal government will birth with this move. We saw that with the hours of service change that the FMCSA fully implemented in July 2013. Now, it has been returned to the way it was. We don't seem to learn our lessons...
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Please follow this link to tell the FMCSA what you think of their plan to implement mandatory speed limiters on ALL trucks.