The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) last week said it would press forward with a rulemaking to require speed limiters on commercial trucks – an initiative that had been mostly dormant since early in the Trump administration.
Polling conducted by CCJ this week revealed that about 73% of respondents were already speed limited – nearly 23% up to 65 mph, 26.4% between 66 mph and 70 mph, and 23.4% above 70 mph, while 27.5% of respondents said they do not use speed limiters in their operations.
The agency issued a notice of intent to proceed with rulemaking that would pick up where a Sept. 7, 2016, joint proposal from FMCSA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) left off; requiring "vehicles with a GVWR of more than 26,000 pounds to be equipped with a speed limiting device set to a maximum speed to be specified in a final rule and would require motor carriers operating such vehicles in interstate commerce to maintain functional devices set to that speed for the service life of the vehicle (81 FR 61942)."
Specifically, NHTSA proposed to establish a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) requiring each vehicle with a GVWR of more than 26,000 pounds, as manufactured and sold, to have its device set to a speed not greater than a specified speed and to be equipped with means of reading the vehicle’s current speed setting and the two previous speed settings (including the time and date the settings were changed) through its on-board diagnostic connection.
Neither the 2016 proposal nor last week's notice set a maximum speed. However, the Department of Transportation in 2016 appeared to be leaning toward 60 mph, 65 mph and 68 mph based on analysis on those speeds released within the rule at the time.
