Truckers to DOT: Stop speed limiter proposal
The U.S. Department of Transportation wants to identify regulations that provide little-to-no safety benefit. Dozens of truck drivers have told the DOT that it can start by ending a rulemaking that would mandate speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.
“Get rid of the FMCSA speed limiter mandate proposal,” Edward Vazemiller wrote. “It is unsafe for semitrucks. OOIDA even had a video about it. Speed limiters on semitrucks will cause more road rage, shootings, traffic, bumper-to-bumper traffic, rear-end collisions and more accidents overall. Plus, it will delay the supply chain of America.”
On April 3, the DOT opened a 30-day public comment period as part of the Trump administration’s effort to reduce regulation and control regulatory costs.
As of Wednesday, April 16, the DOT had already received nearly 500 comments. Many of those were from truck drivers who want more flexibility in the hours-of-service regulations and the removal of the electronic logging device mandate. Another common theme has been stopping the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s speed limiter proposal from becoming a final rule.
“Proposed speed limiters are a bad idea,” wrote Jeffrey Hartman, who said he has been a commercial driver for 35 years with 4 million crash-free and moving-violation-free miles. “I have avoided many accidents by being able to accelerate my way out of trouble. The companies employing speed regulators now are one of the major causes of accidents.”
Speed limiter proposal
FMCSA issued a notice in 2022 that considered requiring commercial motor vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 26,001 pounds or more to be equipped with speed-limiting devices. Although the agency never proposed a top speed, safety groups advocated for making it 60 mph.
The proposal prompted 15,000 comments – many of which came from truck drivers who were opposed to a mandate. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and individual drivers pointed to the drastic speed differentials between cars and trucks that the regulation would create.
As the Trump administration seeks to find costly regulations that can be removed, truckers said the DOT can help the cause by ending the speed limiter rulemaking. Meanwhile, a bill in Congress would prevent FMCSA from issuing a speed limiter mandate in future administrations.
“Another rule that has been proposed but not enacted is the speed limiter proposal,” Dwayne Pope wrote. “If enacted, this will destroy many lives, because car drivers have become so impatient and dangerous nowadays. They cut slower-moving vehicles off and perform very dangerous maneuvers to get around trucks. Accidents will increase, and then the FMCSA and DOT will blame trucks and implement more useless regulations.”
How to comment
Members of the public who have identified a DOT regulation that should be modified or removed can file a comment by going to Regulations.gov and entering Docket No. DOT-OST-2025-0026-0001. Comments can be made through May 5.
In addition to the comment period, the DOT will accept emails on a continuing basis at Transportation.RegulatoryInfo@dot.gov about regulations that could be modified or repealed. Include “Regulatory Reform RFI” in the subject line of the email. LL