The mega fleets’ foolhardy stance on speed limiters

Ahhh, here it comes. The Trucking Alliance, the mega fleet group. In all of its smugness, the group has weighed in opposing the DRIVE Act.

Quickly for those who need to catch up: Lawmakers are rallying together to prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from mandating speed limiters on all large trucks. It’s called the DRIVE Act.

The push for a speed limiter mandate has been led, not surprisingly, by the American Trucking Associations and a smattering of safety groups. Now The Trucking Alliance, with its whopping 11-member group, has weighed in on the fray in opposition to the DRIVE Act.

While not at all surprising on any level, these large fleet groups like to lob safety benefits as the motivation behind the mandate. What is surprising is that they are either too arrogant or too ignorant to expect someone to take a deep dive into their inspection data.

Senior Editor Mark Schremmer and I had a gleeful time doing so earlier this week. We looked up each of The Trucking Alliance members’ CSA Safety Measurement System inspection data. Specifically, we looked for speeding violations and crashes. We excluded crashes that were determined by FMCSA to be non-preventable, even though we know speed limiters could very well have been a contributing factor in that non-preventable crash. More on that in a minute.

The Trucking Alliance proudly claims that 98% of their members’ trucks are speed limited. OK, fine. That’s their choice. Now, let’s look at the numbers.

The Trucking Alliance is comprised of large fleets Maverick, Bison, Cargo Transporters, Dupré Logistics, J.B. Hunt, KLLM Transport Services, Knight Transportation, May Trucking Company, Schneider, Swift and U.S. Xpress. Over the past two years, they had combined totals of 3,406 crashes that were not determined non-preventable and 3,481 speeding violations.

Let me say this slowly.

Speeding. Is. Speeding. Period.

Speeding in a 50 mph or 60 mph speed zone is still speeding.

The reality is that these large fleets who neuter their trucks to speeds well below the speed limits in a number of states are creating an unsafe environment on the road.

Let me point out a couple of big ways these speed-limited trucks are a menace to society.

1. They are pissing off impatient passenger cars who lose their fool minds and perform unsafe maneuvers and interactions. All too frequently likely resulting in a non-preventable crash with the speed-limited truck. And guess what? That crash will probably also wind up being settled by the trucking company.
2. Most motor carriers pay by the mile. Speed limiters lead to fewer miles and less pay. That creates a negative incentive to speed in lower speed limit areas, like rural highways and construction zones, where crashes are more likely. Throw in the electronic logging mandate these large groups also advocated for, and it’s turned into a recipe for disaster.

Now these groups will most certainly point to their out-of-service records. All 11 motor carrier members of The Trucking Alliance are below the national average in all categories.

So what?

That’s the equivalent of being graded on the curve in school. You know, the one where the whole class flunks a test, but the highest F in the class gets an A for earning the distinction of being the best loser?

The reality is out there in plain sight on every highway around the country, every day. Wrapping arguments for things like speed limiters in a fuzzy safety blanket is just trying to hide the grim realities.

Speed differentials are dangerous, and people drive stupidly because of them. Heap on a healthy serving of distracted driving, and if every truck is speed-limited, I don’t even want to know the carnage that will result from passenger cars rear-ending trailers.

Fortunately, lawmakers are seeing these realities, and we have the DRIVE Act in play. Visit FightingForTruckers.com and encourage your lawmaker to sign on. Drivers, we have allies; we just need more. LL