TORONTO — The Ontario Trucking Association has released a poll to drum up support for its controversial speed limiter proposal that shows over 70 percent of Ontarians support the idea of capping speed on truckers’ engines.

The two-question survey, conducted by IntelliPulse research firm in Toronto, indicates 71 percent of people in the province either “strongly support or somewhat support” mandatory speed limiters on all trucks set at 105 km/h; while 79 percent of the Ontario public believes mandatory speed limiters would have either a “major” or a “minor impact” in improving highway safety.

The research group broke down those numbers further for TodaysTrucking.com, indicating that less than half of respondents (40 %) strongly believe the plan would make roads safer, while 39 percent thought it would have a minor impact. 19 percent said it would have no effect. IntelliPulse added that in the first question, 44 percent strongly supported speed limiters, while 27 percent were somewhat on-side.

One-O-Five: is fast enough says OTA, who wants that to
be the mandated speed of all trucks in Ontario

IntelliPulse surveyed 1,001 Ontarians between January 31 to February 2, 2006. A sample of this size yields results that are accurate within 3.2 percent, 19 out of 20 times.

The OTA has drawn support from almost all the other provincial trucking associations and is also flanked by several transportation and safety-related groups that approve of the proposal. They include the Canadian Transportation Equipment Association, CAA Ontario, the Canada Safety Council, and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, among others.

OTA President David Bradley says that the poll confirms that the plan has support from average folks and road users as well.

“While the majority of trucking companies and truck drivers are dedicated professionals who take their responsibility to share the road in a safe manner seriously, there is still a small segment of the industry for which voluntary compliance goes unheeded. This poll confirms our belief that the Ontario public wants the Provincial Government to support OTA’s call to activate speed limiters.”

The Ontario Ministry of Transport has been collecting comments from stakeholders and critics and is expected to come down with a verdict on the proposal shortly. It’s clear the OTA is hoping the latest poll will have an effect on the MTO’s decision.

“The provincial government has been studying the safety and environmental advantages of speed limiters for a couple of months now and we hope that this confirmation of public support for the idea will help the Minister and the Premier make up their mind to act now,” Bradley says.

Opponents insist enforcement already exists to nab
the small number of trucks that speed excessively

However, critics who have vocally opposed the speed limiter plan say they aren’t impressed with the survey results. “The fact that they’re saying that 79 percent of the Ontario public is saying that this would improve safety shows that the public is simply ill-informed about the whole issue,” Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada Executive Director Joanne Ritchie said in an interview this morning. “And this survey obviously isn’t going to shed any light for people in helping them understand all the issues involved.”

Ritchie says both her group at the Owner-Operator and Independent Drivers Association based in the U.S. have submitted to the MTO several documents and studies that show speed limiters have no major impact on highway safety and, in some cases, actually increase the risk of collision to motorists — mainly in the form of rear-end crashes — by creating “dangerous speed differentials.”

“You can debate the fine points of all those studies — and I’m willing to do so — but there’s been many done world-wide,” Ritchie says. “The OTA — which for the most part doesn’t even deny many of those claims stated in the studies — has never drawn people’s attention to them … And I’m sure (people) responding to this (survey) aren’t aware of all the other information available.”

OBAC, OOIDA and countless of other owner-operators and small fleet owners responding to this issue over the last six months point out speeding trucks is not a major problem and stepped-up enforcement of current speeding laws would curb the minority of truckers that continue to break the law.

The OTA continues to insist its policy is a safety issue, but also about conserving energy and creating an equal level playing field for carriers that currently abide by the law. The association adds that more than a few stakeholders that helped draft the policy are fleet owners that spent years sitting behind the wheel themselves.

“This whole resistance to 105 km/h top speed has me puzzled. These owner-operator associations would be helping their members a lot more if they supported and sold this to their members than take the easy route and criticize the change,” says Brian Taylor, president of Liberty Linehaul, in a listing of members’ statements distributed to media by the OTA. “If the owner-operators that are speeding would just slow down for one month and track their expenses we wouldn’t have to sell them at all.”

Adds Allan Robison, president and CEO of LTL carrier Reimer Express Lines in Winnipeg: “As a former truck driver, I have emphatically endorsed the concept of having speed limiters for our equipment,” he says. “Physics tells you that you can’t stop the large truck quick enough when it is traveling over the speed limit — who can argue that? Second is the savings in fuel, which any business minded person can quickly see the benefits of paying less for fuel with the kinds of prices we have today.

“Today we have a public that fears the bigger trucks because of the speed that they drive and we have lost in many cases a very valuable public asset when we exceed the speed limit.”