Two more lawmakers have expressed support for a bill that would stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from mandating speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.
Reps. Bob Good, R-Va., and Pete Stauber, R-Minn., recently signed on to the Deregulating Restrictions on Interstate Vehicles and Eighteen-wheelers Act, increasing the total number of co-sponsors to 27.
The DRIVE Act was introduced by Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., in May and has gradually gained support.
HR3039 would prohibit FMCSA from promulgating any rule or regulation mandating speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., introduced the Senate version of the DRIVE Act on July 27. S2671 was introduced with five co-sponsors before Congress began its August recess.
FMCSA speed limiters efforts
Last year, FMCSA issued an advance notice of supplemental proposed rulemaking that considers requiring commercial motor vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 26,001 pounds or more to be equipped with speed-limiting devices. A top speed was not determined in the advance notice, but previous proposals floated the possibilities of 60, 65 and 68 mph.
FMCSA is expected to unveil a formal proposal that includes a top speed later this year.
As part of FMCSA’s justification for the mandate, FMCSA cited 2019 stats indicating that there were nearly 900 fatal crashes involving large trucks in posted speed limits of 70 mph or more.
However, the statistic provides little to no insight into how much a speed limiter mandate would help in these crashes.
The agency doesn’t know the traveling speeds of the large trucks involved in the crashes nor if reducing the speed to one of the proposed top speeds would have prevented the fatality. The agency also said it doesn’t know how many of those trucks were already speed-limited.
Opposition
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association adamantly opposes any efforts to mandate speed limiters on trucks.
Truck safety groups have advocated for making the top speed 60 mph. OOIDA points out that such a speed would create drastic speed differentials as speed zones are as fast as 85 mph in some states.
“Studies and research have already proven what we were all taught long ago in driver’s ed classes – that traffic is safest when vehicles all travel at the same relative speed,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said. “Limiting trucks to speeds below the flow of traffic increases interactions between vehicles, which can lead to more crashes.” LL
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