ATA’s speed limiter stance – is it really about safety?

The American Trucking Associations wants to be depicted as an organization that is taking the safety high road when it comes to speed limiters.

But is ATA’s stance on speed limiters really about safety?

First, let’s back up a little. As you are probably aware, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working on a rulemaking that would mandate speed limiters on most commercial motor vehicles. A proposed top speed hasn’t been announced, but safety groups want heavy-duty trucks to be incapable of going any faster than 60 mph.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and thousands of truck drivers are opposed to a mandate, suggesting that the rule would create dangerous speed differentials and actually lead to negative safety results. With some states having speed limits as high as 85 mph and the flow of traffic often being 5 mph faster, a speed limiter mandate set at 60 mph means that trucks would be forced to travel 30 mph slower than cars on the same road.

OOIDA and many truckers have told FMCSA that they believe such a mandate would be dangerous as it would lead to unsafe behavior from impatient car drivers stuck behind slow-moving trucks, road rage and an increase in rear-end collisions.

But according to a recent report, ATA President Chris Spear called OOIDA “anti-safety” for having this viewpoint.

According to a recent article published by The Trucker, Spear said he’s “not beating up on owner-operators, but I think some of their representation in OOIDA is very anti-safety. I’m just going to simply call it like it is. You cannot be allowed to drive as long as you want as fast as you can. That’s not safety.”

It’s an interesting take when you consider that Spear had the opposite viewpoint in 2016, calling the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate speed limiters “dangerous.”

“The various differentials in speed from what this rule proposes and what state speed limits are is dangerous,” Spear was quoted as saying in 2016.

Responding to ATA’s criticism, OOIDA made sure to note Spear’s reversal.

“In 2016, Chris Spear called FMCSA’s speed limiter rulemaking ‘dangerous.’ Now he claims those opposing it are anti-safety,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a statement. “And he seems to have forgotten entirely that his organization petitioned the agency to launch this rulemaking in the first place. If the mandate is defeated, he’ll probably take credit for stopping it. There’s no telling what ATA’s position is on a given day, but you can almost always count on them not supporting professional drivers and their needs. That’s the difference between OOIDA and ATA. We trust the men and women who make their living behind the wheel to know what will improve safety on our highways.”

ATA’s accusations of anti-safety are laughable when you consider that it has opposed a minimum number of behind-the-wheel hours being included in an entry-level driver training rule and that one of its biggest crusades is to lower the interstate driving age from 21 to 18.

Anyways, let’s put all of that to the side right now and examine ATA’s current stance on speed limiters.

“Official ATA policy supports a maximum set speed of 70 mph in trucks equipped with automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control,” the organization wrote on its website. In trucks without those safety features, our policy supports a maximum set speed of 65 mph.”

It doesn’t take long to theorize an ulterior motive here.

ATA represents large fleets – many of which already have installed speed limiters for fuel efficiency and liability reasons. Large fleets also are much more likely to have that technology on their trucks. According to a 2022 survey from the OOIDA Foundation, only 10% of owner-operators had their trucks equipped with automatic emergency braking and only 20% had adaptive cruise control.

So what really is ATA’s stance on speed limiters? It wants trucks with automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control (their trucks) to be able to go as fast as 70 mph (their likely current top speed) while limiting trucks without the tech (owner-operators) to 65 mph.

Sounds like a heck of a deal for those mega carriers – a mandate that doesn’t affect my business but gives me a 5 mph advantage over my competitor. Who wouldn’t want to sign up for that?

But don’t let them pretend their stance is about safety, or that OOIDA and truck drivers should be villainized for thinking that a uniform speed limit is safest. LL