Speed limiter regulations published in Ontario

Provincial officials in Ontario have officially published regulations for mandatory speed limiters on heavy trucks.

As previously confirmed by transportation officials, speed limiters will be mandatory beginning Jan. 1, 2009, on all trucks 1995 or newer with a gross weight exceeding 26,000 pounds. The regulation applies to trucks that travel Ontario highways regardless of where they are from.

The regulations, published online on Monday, Nov. 10, require the maximum setting of a speed limiter to be 105 kilometers per hour, or 65 mph. Ontario’s major highways have a maximum speed limit of 100 km/h, or 62 mph, but other provinces and U.S. states have higher speed limits.

The regulations will appear in the Nov. 29 edition of The Ontario Gazette, the official publication for government rules and regulations.

Ontario officials say enforcement of the regulations will begin with a six-month education period. After that, officers can cite truckers caught going faster than 105 km/h for not having a working speed limiter.

Owner-operator associations in Canada and in the U.S. oppose government-mandated speed limiters. Large motor carrier associations tend to support a government mandate.

Officials with the U.S.-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are preparing to file a formal “notice of intent” to challenge the regulation on a federal level in Canada.

Click here to read the Ontario regulations.

ATA chief advocates speed limiters to reduce fuel in letters to feds

ATA President and CEO Bill Graves has written letters to the heads of two federal agencies promoting speed limiters as a way to cut fuel costs and to the Bureau of Land Management advocating development of oil shale and tar sands resources in the U.S. to increase domestic oil supplies.

In his comments to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator John Hill and National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Nicole Nason, the American Trucking Associations chief noted that trucking could pay up to $135 billion for diesel this year, compared with $112 billion last year, adding that “One highly effective way to reduce fuel use by the trucking industry is to lower vehicle speeds.”

He added that ATA in October of 2006 had submitted petitions to FMCSA and NHTSA requesting that newly manufactured trucks be required to install speed limiters set at no higher than 68 mph.

“For each 1 mph that a truck’s speed is reduced, there is approximately a 0.1 mpg increase in fuel efficiency,” he wrote, adding that ATA “requests that NHTSA and FMCSA immediately grant ATA’s petition and expedite rulemaking in order to take advantage of both the fuel and safety benefits that a speed limiter requirement will produce.”

In his letter to the Bureau of Land Management, Graves said, “To ameliorate the volatility of diesel prices, ATA believes that the federal government must take immediate steps to increase the domestic supply of crude oil and refined diesel fuel in an environmentally responsible manner.”

One way to do that would be to develop oil shale and tar sands resources in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, he said.

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Speed Limiter Petitions Draw Heavy Response

The Department of Transportation received nearly 3,700 responses, many of them anonymous, to a pair of petitions seeking a federal regulation to limit truck engine speeds to 68 miles per hour, with comments ranging from strong support to warnings of increased road rage.

Backers of a speed limiter requirement included advocacy groups and truck fleets, but many of the opponents were largely owner-operators and organizations representing them.

Some supporters wanted speed limiters retrofitted to all trucks, rather than only newly manufactured trucks, as cited in the petition American Trucking Associations filed last year requesting the regulation (10-23, p. 1).

“Speeding is a serious problem,” said Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “Advocates supports retrofitting existing heavy trucks with speed limiters to the extent possible and a requirement for speed limiters on all newly manufactured heavy trucks.”

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued their request for public opinion after American Trucking Associations and Road Safe America filed petitions seeking a speed-limiter rule.

Road Safe’s petition sought a speed limiter requirement for all , including those already on the road.

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