OTA announces desired speed cap for all trucks in the province

TORONTO — One-oh-five. That — in kilometers per hour — is the speed the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) wants all trucks running in the province limited to. Actually, all the trucks in Canada.

Backed by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA), the Canada Safety Council, and environmental group Pollution Probe, OTA president David Bradley announced the proposed 105 klick limit at a press conference Wednesday, the day before the OTA’s annual conference kicks off.

As Today’s Trucking reported this summer, the OTA is trying to get the Ontario government-and eventually the rest of Canada and the U.S.-to require speed limiters be activated on all trucks. Industry watchers had been speculating on which specific maximum the group would actually want the province’s trucks limited to.

No need for speed: OTA proposes enforcement officials download
speed data from truck engine ECMs

According to the proposal, Ontario police and inspectors would enforce the rule by reviewing a truck’s engine ECM at scales or during routine checks with hand-held PDA’s. The OTA insists that other types of information would be blocked from being downloaded.

Dealers, repair shops, and carriers would have the ability to adjust the maximum speed so long as it didn’t exceed 105 km/h, but it would be a legal requirement for enginemakers to “hard code” the speed setting on all trucks manufactured after 1995. Penalties for tampering with the governor would include fines, suspensions and revocation of repair shop licences.

“The OTA has attempted to find the right balance between the effective speed on our highways and a responsible speed cap for trucks,” Bradley said.

“A 105 km/h cap will enable Ontario trucks to operate and compete in those jurisdictions with higher limits,” he said, adding that the OTA committee that drafted the proposal went through extensive consultation involving drivers, fleet owners, road safety experts, truck and engine manufacturers and the insurance industry before committing to the 105 limit.

He added that giving trucks some leeway would permit passing of slow-moving vehicles and avoid the “elephant race” that results when two trucks traveling at similar speed find themselves in parallel lanes on multi-lane highways.

An OTA “blue-ribbon task force” of CEOs and executives — most of whose fleets are already speed-limited — produced test results showing that a four-to-five-km/h reduction in speed can result in a four to-five-percent savings in fuel costs.

According to the OTA studies, if a truck normally runs at an average of 115 km/h but drops to 105, the saving is about $5,300 over a year.

And the chairman of the OTA, Scott Smith of J.D. Smith and Sons, told the press conference that although truckers are responsible for a small minority of traffic accidents on Ontario roadways, an industry running with speed limiters will be helpful in attracting new recruits as well as saving fuel and minimizing emissions.

Bradley says the rule automatically takes pressure off drivers who feel they must speed to meet tight delivery times. “Of course that would mean that carriers and shippers would have to readjust their delivery schedules in some cases,” he added.

Committee members stressed that most truckers already drive responsibly, but this initiative will not only weed out the illegal operators, it will improve the image of the industry in general.

In response to a question about whether limiters would force smaller independent operators to earn less money, Smith said any trucker who has to speed to make a living is operating from the “wrong economic model.”

Next, OTA will begin lobbying the government to introduce legislation. Bradley says that four out of the seven other provincial trucking associations are also on-board and will adopt the same policy, but he didn’t mention which four they are.

While Bradley insists 90 percent of his members support the proposal, other truckers have been less impressed with the controversial plan.

Dozens of carriers and owner-operators have actively expressed their opposition to Today’s Trucking, arguing that the OTA wants to regulate the industry by having the government monitor the competitive playing field for OTA members, many of which already govern truck speed voluntarily.

Says Ed Wesselius, veteran owner-op and former fleet safety director, “I run at 105 now, it’s a reasonable speed. But I really don’t like the idea of that kind of control. You need a bit more throttle every once in a while,” he says. “Nobody is going to govern my truck.”