ARLINGTON, Va. — The speed-limiter bug is spreading south of the border.

Last week, the Ontario Government announced it would be introducing legislation making speed limiters mandatory for heavy-duty trucks. The recommended limit was 105 km/h, or 65 mph.

That announcement came two years and a bit after the idea was hatched by the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA).

Last week, American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves reminded the trucking regulators in his country that his organization agrees with the idea.

In his comments to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Graves noted that trucking could pay up to $135 billion for diesel this year, compared with $112 billion last year, adding that: “One highly effective way to reduce fuel use by the trucking industry is to lower vehicle speeds.”

He reiterated that the ATA in October of 2006 requested FMCSA and NHTSA to insist that manufactured trucks be required to install speed limiters set at no higher than 68 mph.

“For each one mph that a truck’s speed is reduced, there is approximately a 0.1 mpg increase in fuel efficiency,” he wrote, adding that ATA “requests that NHTSA and FMCSA immediately grant ATA’s petition and expedite rulemaking in order to take advantage of both the fuel and safety benefits that a speed limiter requirement will produce.”

Under the proposed Ontario legislation, American trucks in this province would be required to have limiters, but the top speed as proposed by Graves is about 3 mph higher than the proposed Ontario limit.