Petition to oppose FMCSA speed limiter mandate

Wrong. Speed differential kills. This is why it's a bad idea to have trucks governed at 6x MPH when a four-wheeler can easily slam into the DOT bumper at 80+MPH.

Spoken like a true statist.

And one who is ignoring the fact that law enforcement issues speeding tickets for the very fact that some people do not control their speed.

 

A true statist?! Hmmmm.....I am not sure what you mean. As for my stance, it's just an observation. People don't act right and you and I both know it. That's why these regs get put into place. Think about the elog mandate. Enough drivers were out here fudging logs so badly and falling asleep at the wheel, causing crashes. Read what I'm saying carefully. I'm not saying that it's happening in abundance. I'm only saying that there were crashes to fuel a push of an elog mandate. Many say they were pandering to the megas, and for all I know they may be right, but it was enough crashes to give the feds an alibi to push it forward. Here we are nearly 5 years later with speed limiters. I'm of the opinion that speed kills, you're not. Doesn't make either of us wrong, just different philosophically in terms of our views trucking. Whether you want to admit or not, enough devastating crashes have occurred due to excess speed. Again, the feds could be pandering to the megas for all I know, but because there have been enough accidents that can be attributed to speed, here we are. The majority may be able to handle high speeds in a truck, but there are some that handled wide open trucks irresponsibly and the results have been deadly enough to get us to this point....so my question would be, for all of you who are anti-speed limiters: You get angry at the government, but why? Shouldn't your anger be pointed at the drivers that gave the government all the ammunition to "over-regulate" the industry?

 

ATA trying to bring us all down to their level …….sadly it will probably pass.

There’s lots of ways around it if you own the truck , company drivers are screwed .

 

Someone who embraces the supremacy of the state over the individual.

And apparently, in your mind that justifies the government doing whatever it wants to control the people, without regards to the limits placed upon its authority.

No, I'm talking in terms of pure physics, not philosophy. When a four-wheeler traveling at 80 MPH slams into the DOT bumper of a trailer traveling 62MPH, the speed differential is what causes injury or death. If both vehicles were moving 80MPH then the collision would not have occurred and the occupant(s) of the four-wheeler would not have been killed or sustained injuries. Speed does not kill. The differential between two speeds is what kills.

Source citation needed.

Because the government is punishing all of us instead of the wrongdoers.

Now let me ask you this: why are you okay with the government treating us all as if we are all criminals, guilty by association?

Yes of course we are upset at them, but that doesn't mean that we should not also be upset at the government for their heavy-handed reponse. This is not an all-or-nothing deal.

 

Soooooo many cars speeding. Where are their limiters?

 

I’m not going to quote the years because it’s been a while. But originally the electronic log mandate was supposed to be for companies with a high number of HOS violations. OOIDA filed a lawsuit for some reason and got it stopped based on the ability of the company to monitor hours and saying when the driver needed to get moving again. Fast forward a few years and FMCSA comes back with another mandate, this time addressing everything that was in the lawsuit, and with the ATA right alongside them. The president of the ATA at the time said the mandate was needed in order the level the playing field because they can’t compete with small carriers and o/o’s who were running paper logs.

Fast forward to now and the ATA is right in step with FMCSA on speed limiters. You say enough wrecks have occurred because of speeding that it warrants the government dictating how fast we can go. There are already speed limits in place. Maybe those who are funded by our tax dollars should just enforce those rules instead of dragging all of us down to the lowest common denominator. Sort of like when there’s a mass shooting and everyone screams for gun laws, more rules aren’t going to make things more illegal.

These wrecks you say have occurred due to speeding, are they really due to excessive speed or driving too fast for the conditions? I’ve seen plenty of trucks wreck in the Midwest and out west that are company trucks that aren’t governed anywhere close to the speed limit.

You’re fine with limiters because it doesn’t affect you, you’re already governed. I invested my money into a truck and I should be able to drive it how I see fit within the limits already in place. Most of the time I run 65mph, but when I’m in high traffic areas I will speed up and go with the flow so that I don’t have everyone farting around me and trying to avoid me. The less interactions (cars avoiding me) the better. Do you honestly feel a 15-20mph differential between trucks and the general public is safe?

 

Of course, excessive speed kills but do you have any concrete proof as to the number of crushes done by speeding trucks specifically, that the public safety is compromised by excessively speeding trucks exactly? If you take the number of accidents involving big trucks, how many of those were resulting from the excessive speed of the trucks, not the other vehicles involved?
The worst traffic havoc on highways happens when there is too much speed differential. For example, on I-80 in Nebraska, when there is a Prime truck trying to get their fuel bonus at 61 mph and another Swift truck trying to take him over. Basically, for a 4 wheeler running often 80+ mph there, it is like approaching a wall.

 

I'm in favor of acts that benefit the greater good. What do you label those people as? I am not necessarily state or individual centric. I tend to think it will impact the greater good positively so I'm not opposed to it. I'm also not about to be a cheerleader about it either. I don't really care if the law passes or not. I'm already used to driving governed trucks so it ain't no adjustment to me. Even when I had a wide open truck, I ran it no faster than 65. It's just a comfortable speed for me. I don't feel controlled by the government in the least. I still have my right to work, and that's the most important thing to me. I couldn't care less about any of those regulations because I can't remember them all. Lol. The government is going to do what they do. It's just the way it is. Now I'd be naive to think that everything the government do is for the greater good. That ain't true either. You want a source for accidents that kill people because of speed? I'd say check out the trucking accidents forum. There's at least 5 or 6 new threads about trucking accidents daily. I'm pretty sure you could find a few threads talking about that. I didn't say it was the number one cause of crashes, I only said that enough have occurred to fuel this fire. Again that's just an observation. Now you say the government should punish the wrongdoers. I don't disagree, but that ain't realistic. You ain't gonna catch em all, then you gotta have prevention mechanisms to deter potential wrongdoers. Anyway, I don't understand why yall think the worst is going to happen. Why do you think that everyone is going to be confined to the granny lane at 65 and under? What if they set a limit to 75? Let's just say they max out at 75. If you can't make a living at that rate of speed with 11 hrs drive time daily, then you need to reevaluate your work practices.

 

Wow. And we wonder why we continue to lose our liberties in this country, and most importantly why this industry is rotting.

 

Thats not a speed differential issue. That's the 4 wheeler not paying attention. It's a hell of a lot easier to stop a 4 wheeler quickly. Not so much with an 18 wheeler, especially at a high rate of speed. That would be one of my guesses as to why they are pushing this so hard. I never gave a number or did I say it was the number one reason. I only said the government has enough of a sample size to push some of these regs. It don't take crashes involving trucks to catch their attention you know, especially when there is a fatality.