Why speed limiters? I drove several million miles, nearly 25 years, in trucks that could easily have done triple-digits in speed, yet I’ve never had an accident or a ticket on my DMV record.
My position has everything to do with safety. Speed limiters on semis are a major negative safety issue—and here’s why.
On April 29 of this year, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released its analysis of the safety and operational impacts from the 34-hour restart provisions. According to the report, the increase in truck accidents goes back to the change in the 34-hour restart regulation in 2013.
The ATRI study utilized truck GPS data to analyze and identify a shift of truck traffic from nighttime to daytime and a shift of truck traffic away from the weekends to more congested weekdays, with the biggest decreases in truck activity occurring on Sunday nights. The study determined the rule change created greater truck traffic on the highways during congested periods, producing a significant increase in truck accidents causing injury and requiring vehicles to be towed.
What does this have to do with speed limiters? Increased congestion from the 34-hour restart rule change is going to look minuscule when compared to the congestion caused by all the Class 7 and 8 trucks having the exact same top speed. Yet, there won’t be any mandates to control the top speed of other vehicles on American highways. The result will be greater congestion of big rigs rolling down the highway. And, depending on the weight of the truck, horsepower, transmission and engine torque, there will be a bottleneck of cars behind the slower trucks as the rigs constantly vie for position and take inordinate periods of time to pass one another, frustrating car drivers. This is a formula for increased road rage by the faster, non-truck traffic. And as any safe trucker knows, concentrating large numbers of both cars and trucks at lower speeds is a recipe for disaster.
Look back at all the huge multi-vehicle accidents this past winter. One of the major causes was increased congestion, as reported by ATRI. In this trucker’s 2.5-million-mi. experience, we’ll start seeing an increase in similar multi-vehicle accidents in the summer when there are even more cars, motorcycles, RVs, and semis on the road.
If FMCSA limits the speed of one type of vehicle on our Interstates, it needs to limit all vehicles at the same speed, but 5-8 mph higher than the actual speed limit.
And this leads me to the other major reason speed limiters are a dangerous idea.
If a trucker blows a steer tire, what should he/she do to keep control of the vehicle and get it to a safe place? Mash the accelerator just enough to keep the blown tire’s centrifugal force going by increasing the vehicle’s speed. There’s a critical point where momentum will carry the truck upright and forward with an additional increase in speed. If the truck is maxed out with its speed limiter, however, the results will be disastrous for the trucker and anyone within close proximity: crossing a median into oncoming traffic or rolling the truck.
It’s ironic (and sad) that ATA’s own research arm sees the problem concerning increased congestion and accidents caused by the 2013 34-hour restart rule change, but doesn’t see the similar disasters speed limiters will cause.
Speed limiters will cause more deaths and injuries to truckers and those sharing the road, as well as cost the trucking industry tens of billions of dollars in damages and revenue loss.
Contact Tim Brady at 731-749-8567 or at www.timothybrady.com
