TAMPA, Fla. — The American Trucking Associations, the U.S.’s largest trucking industry trade group, has followed the lead of their Canadian brethren and endorsed a move to limit the maximum speed of large trucks, at the time of manufacture, to no more than 68 mph. The group took the action at its annual Winter Leadership meeting in Tampa, Fla.

The ATA says the move is aimed at reducing the number and severity of speed-related crashes among all vehicles on U. S. highways. Other ATA safety initiatives include a call for universal primary safety belt laws in the fifty states and the enforcement of traffic laws against unsafe driving actions around large trucks.

When in Toronto last fall for the Ontario Trucking Association annual convention, ATA President Bill Graves hinted he might support a mandate for speed limiters and added he would take such a proposal to his members for consideration.

The OTA was the first trucking group to formally draft the idea, and launched a full-fledged lobbying campaign last fall. Its determined speed cap of 105 km/h, which converts to about 65 mph, is slightly slower than the ATA consensus.

While the OTA enjoys support from most of the other provincial trucking associations — as well as environmental and safety groups — its proposal is being challenged by many grassroots truckers and owner-operator groups like the Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada (OBAC) and the Virginia-based Owner-Operator and Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), who argue that governed trucks may actually increase the risk of collision by creating dangerous speed differentials.

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation has received comments from all sorts of groups and stakeholders and is expected to respond to the OTA proposal in the next few days or weeks.

The maximum governed speed effort in the U.S. follows a study issued by ATA motor carriers, which found that nearly 75 percent of the trucks evaluated in the study already had speed governors and that most were set at 70 mph or lower.

“There has been a growing sense within the trucking industry for the need to slow down the large truck population as well as all traffic,” said Bill Graves, ATA President and CEO. “With speeding as a factor in one third of all fatal highway crashes, it makes all the sense in the world to work to reduce this number.”