IIHS Wants Speed limiters on Trucks: ’bout time!

The federal government should expedite plans to require speed limiters on large trucks and extend the requirement to medium-duty trucks, IIHS said in a recent regulatory comment that was posted today. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is considering a proposal to require devices that limit the top speed on commercial vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating over 26,000 pounds. A specific top speed would be determined later in the rulemaking process.

Why this is creeping at an idle rate in the bureaucracy is inexplicable because excessive speed was a factor in about one-third of all US crash deaths during 2020. FMCSA began discussing speed limiters more than a decade ago. (Read AutoInformed on: Covid Lock-downs Caused Ongoing Speeding, Risky Driving)

“Limiting speed is especially important for large trucks,” said Eric Teoh, IIHS director of statistical services. He wrote a comment that said “because of their greater mass, trucks have more momentum and thus require longer stopping distances than smaller vehicles. They also do more damage in the event of a crash. This is true not only for the largest tractor-trailers but also for class 3-6 trucks, which weigh 10,001-26,000 pounds when they are loaded to capacity.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its early estimate of traffic fatalities for 2021. NHTSA projects that an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the largest annual percentage increase in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history.