The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is going to begin a rulemaking that could lead to mandatory speed limiters on heavy trucks, as requested by American Trucking Associations and Road Safe America.

The announcement, which will come Monday, has been four years in the making.

In separate petitions in 2006, ATA and Road Safe America asked NHTSA to consider requiring limiters set at 68 mph in heavy trucks. The two groups differed on timing, ATA requesting limiters in all new trucks, and RSA in all trucks built after 1990. ATA later modified its request to all trucks built after 1992 - which means virtually all highway trucks.

NHTSA has been gathering information and comments, and now says it will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2012. That process will not necessarily produce a rule but the announcement does signal the agency's strong interest in speed limiters.

Details to come next week.
 

0 Comments