GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. – Responding to stakeholder concerns that not enough American owner-op are interested in hauling over the Canada-U.S. border, the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has launched a survey to gauge how trucks feel about cross border trucking in Canada.

OOIDA Director of Regulatory Affairs Joe Rajkovacz says the purpose of the survey is to collect data for stakeholder groups that are affected by regulations, fees, credentials, wheelbase restrictions and other things affecting NAFTA.

"Does the mandate for speed limiters or other regulations influence your business decisions?" the owner-op group asks.

Rajkovacz says the fallout from Ontario’s and Quebec’s mandatory speed limiter rules is what trucking interests in those provinces wanted all along — to keep American trucks out.

The survey, which is available at OOIDA’s site, also asks about truckers’ thoughts on a new bonding requirement to register with the Canadian Border Services Agency by April 2011.

Hurdles like border e-manifests — on both sides of the border – as well as jurisdictional restrictions like wheelbase limits in Western Canada, are having truckers choosing to stay away from either country.

"It’s not any one of these things. It’s all of these things together being used to discourage American truckers from competing," Rajkovacz said.