Speeding trucks slow within Canadian borders

The Canadian Trucking Alliance recently called upon the country’s provincial governments to take action on the problem of speeding trucks.
The Alliance, a federation of Canada’s provincial trucking associations, has endorsed a national policy to pass a law making it mandatory that speed limiters on all trucks operating in, out and within a Canadian province be activated. In addition, the Alliance recommends the maximum speed of trucks should be set at no more than 105 km/h.
The law would apply to all Canadian heavy trucks as well as all US trucks coming into the country.
A speed limiter is a built-in microchip that allows a truck engine’s top speed to be preset. Most trucks built in the last decade posses this technology.
Truck drivers are Canada’s safest drivers and are the least likely to excessively spped, according to CEO of the Alliance David Bradley. However, Bradley adds that the intention is to eliminate speeding altogether. He says the environmental and safety benefits of reducing speeding are too significant to ignore.
The benefits of slowing down trucks include:
* Fuel savings of as much as 10,500 litres for the typical tractor-trailer, which translates into more than Cdn$8,000 per truck in savings per year;
* Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 350 kilotonnes of GHG emissions in total per year in Canada;
* Less severe truck/car crashes; and
* Improved lane discipline and less tailgating.
Safety and environmental groups publicly supporting the proposal include:
* The Canada Safety Council,
* Pollution Probe
* The Traffic Injury Research Foundation
* SmartRisk,
* The Lung Association,
* The Canadian Transportation Equipment Association
* The Insurance Bureau of Canada, as well as Canadian insurance companies Markel and Old Republic.
Herb M. Simpson Ph.D., president and CEO of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, says: “The policy has been developed with due consideration to the research on the relationship between speed and crash risk as well as the relationship between differential speed and crash risk.”