The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has consistently opposed a proposed mandate of speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.
OOIDA helped rally its members to submit comments against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s 2022 proposal. Frequent Calls to Action from the Association played a role in FMCSA receiving more than 15,000 comments, with the majority coming from truck drivers opposed to a mandate.
The sheer number of comments was enough to slow down the previous administration from getting a speed limiter final rule across the finish line.
Then, as soon as President Donald Trump was set to take office, OOIDA wasted no time explaining why truckers believe that a speed limiter mandate would be bad for highway safety and the supply chain. Led by OOIDA, a coalition of 17 organizations wrote to Trump on Jan. 16.
“In short, this mandate will be harmful for America’s truckers and small businesses, and it will be counterproductive to improving roadway safety,” the coalition wrote days before Trump’s inauguration. “As you consider deregulatory action for your initial days in office, our coalition believes that stopping this mandate would be an ideal way to start.”
Last week, the Trump administration listened to calls from OOIDA, small businesses and individual truckers by officially announcing the withdrawal of FMCSA’s speed limiter proposal.
OOIDA’s message that slowing trucks down below the posted speed limit would create dangerous speed differentials obviously made its way to the White House and the Department of Transportation.
“Mandating speed limiters on heavy-duty trucks isn’t just an inconvenience – it is a safety hazard when drivers are forced to go slower than the flow of traffic,” the DOT wrote in its Jan. 27 news release. “USDOT is withdrawing the proposed rulemaking to mandate speed limiters so professional drivers can operate their vehicles safely.”
The DOT’s announcement that it is withdrawing the speed limiter rulemaking was part of an overall “Pro-Trucker Package” that includes nine initiatives championed by OOIDA. The other initiatives involve truck parking, hours-of-service flexibility, the FMCSA’s driver resource page, DataQ reform, the National Consumer Complaint Database, double brokering, electronic logging devices and deregulatory actions.
“We are the only organization that has pushed for all nine of these initiatives,” OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh said.
DRIVE Act
The good news for truckers is that a speed limiter mandate is off the table through the remainder of Trump’s term.
However, OOIDA wants to end the proposal for good. That’s why the Association is encouraging lawmakers to support the DRIVE Act, which would prohibit the FMCSA from issuing any rule or regulation mandating speed limiters.
Without the DRIVE Act, there is the potential for the proposal to be resurrected when a new president takes office.
For the past decade, truckers have faced uncertainty on whether or not speed limiters would be mandated. The first proposal came in 2016 during President Barack Obama’s administration. When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, the proposal was moved to the back burner. President Joe Biden’s administration resurrected the effort in 2022. The DRIVE Act would help end the game of political ping pong.
“We don’t want this back-and-forth every time there’s a change in administrations,” Bryce Mongeon, OOIDA’s director of legislative affairs, told Land Line Now last month. “What the DRIVE Act would do is let Congress assert its authority on this issue and tell FMCSA simply … ‘You’re not going to move forward with this rulemaking.’ So, this really is an opportunity to put this issue to rest once and for all.” LL
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