WASHINGTON — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday will officially issue a “grant notice” on petitions filed in 2006 by the American Trucking Associations and another group, both of which seek a rulemaking that would require speed limiters on commercial trucks.
The notice will appear in Monday’s Federal Register and says that NHTSA will initiate the rulemaking process on the issue with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2012.
“Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it will conduct further research into whether establishing a safety standard to limit the speed of certain heavy trucks is effective and requires federal rulemaking,” a NHTSA spokesman told The Trucker. “NHTSA’s preliminary analysis indicates that there may be significant fuel savings as well as some safety benefits in requiring devices that would limit a truck’s speed. Today’s decision is in response to requests from the American Trucking Associations, Road Safe America and a group of nine motor carriers, who asked that NHTSA look into the possibility of a new rule.”
“This notice grants two separate but similar petitions for rulemaking, one submitted by the American Trucking Associations and the other submitted by Road Safe America and a group of nine motor carriers (Schneider National, Inc., C.R. England, Inc., H.O. Wolding, Inc., ATS Intermodal, LLC, DART Transit Company, J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., U.S. Xpress, Inc., Covenant Transport, Inc., and Jet Express, Inc.) to establish a safety standard to require devices that would limit the speed of certain heavy trucks,” the notice to be published Monday said.
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“Based on information received in response to a request for comments, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes that these petitions merit further consideration through the agency’s rulemaking process. In addition, because of the overlapping issues addressed in these two petitions, the agency will address them together in a single rulemaking activity. The determination of whether to issue a rule will be made in the course of the rulemaking proceeding, in accordance with statutory criteria.” NHTSA said.
An advance copy of the notice became available today on the Internet at the Federal Register’s advance document site.
Click here to read the entire proposed rulemaking.
The ATA’s original petition said trucks should be speed limited at 68 mph. In 2008, ATA changed its policy and now wants trucks limited to 65 mph.
The ATA said Thursday it was pleased with the announcement, but would push for a quicker rulemaking.
“Speed is a significant safety issue on our highways, and the trucking industry is willing to continue leading the way by slowing down even further,” Dave Osiecki, senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, told The Trucker. “We're pleased NHTSA has made the decision to move forward on ATA's petition to require electronic speed limiting of large trucks. It’s been four years since ATA filed its petition, and NHTSA's decision is the right one for highway safety.
Because of its potential to improve highway safety, ATA plans to encourage NHTSA to initiate its rulemaking process sooner than 2012, Osiecki said.
Road Safe America and the nine motor carriers called for a 68 mph limit when the group filed its petition in 2006.
On Jan. 26, 2007, NHTSA and FMCSA published a joint Request for Comments Notice in the Federal Register soliciting public comments on the ATA and Road Safe America petitions.
It received many, both pro and con, NHTSA said in the notice.
The Department of Transportation Docket Management System received approximately 3,850 comments, the majority of which were submitted by private citizens, the notice reads. Of these, many comments supported a regulation that would limit the speed of large trucks to 68 mph, which included comments from trucking fleets and consumer advocacy groups and others.
“Other comments submitted by independent owner-operator truckers, a trucking fleet association, and private citizens were opposed to the rulemaking requested in the petitions. The remaining comments did not explicitly indicate a position with regard to the petitions,” the notice reads.
According to the notice, comments from private citizens supporting the petitions include responses from individuals who were involved in crashes with heavy trucks or had friends/relatives who were involved in crashes with large trucks. The private citizen supporters of the petitions are typically non-truck drivers who stated that they are intimidated by the hazardous driving practices of some truck drivers, such as speeding, tailgating, and abrupt lane changes.
“These commenters expressed the belief that limiting the speed of heavy trucks to 68 mph will result in safer highways,” the notice said.
The notice said comments opposing rulemaking that would require speed limiters on large trucks to be set to a maximum speed of 68 mph were received from many independent truck drivers, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), and private citizens (non-truck drivers).
“OOIDA commented that the 1991 report to Congress3 is still valid today — there is no need to mandate speed limiters because the target population (high speed crashes) is still small compared to the total number of truck crashes,” the notice read. “According to OOIDA, speed limiters would not have an effect on crashes in areas where the posted speed limit for trucks is 65 mph or below.
OOIDA believes that the petitioners are attempting to force all trucks to be speed limited so that the major trucking companies with speed limited vehicles can compete for drivers with the independent trucking operations that have not limited their speeds to 68 mph or below. OOIDA also stated that it is not necessary to set large truck speed limiters at 68 mph to realize most of the economic benefits cited by the petitioners because improved fuel economy and reduced emissions can be achieved with improved truck designs.
TCA commented that a speed differential will be created in many states by the 68-mph speed limit for heavy trucks and a higher speed limit for other vehicles, noting that the speed differential would result in more interaction between cars and trucks and may be an additional safety risk for cars and trucks.