A controversial idea that would make Ontario the first jurisdiction in North America to mandate speed limiters on trucks is threatening to cause a rift between the province’s truckers.

The Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) Board of Directors has decided it wants to eliminate speeding by heavy trucks, and it will spend the next few months figuring out how to turn that wish into policy and then into practice. The Board also sees lane discipline as an issue.

“The direction of the board is clear,” said OTA Chairman Scott Smith, who is also the CEO of JD Smith & Sons, “speeding trucks and trucks that sit in passenger lanes should no longer be tolerated. We’ll talk to carriers, truck drivers, government, police and motorists to answer questions like what speed trucks should be limited to, how to avoid tampering [with limiters], how to deal with the fact that there are 60 jurisdictions in North America. But we are of the strong view that mandatory speed limitation for trucks is overdue.”

While the plan has been discussed behind OTA walls for years, the group gave it the green light soon after a few members returned from a fact-finding tour of Europe — where speed limiters are mandatory.

The OTA wants to make it clear that a speed cap has not been decided. Only after comprehensive consultation will the OTA develop a policy that it will then take to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the American Trucking Associations, and government bodies.

According to OTA president David Bradley, the plan has support from a majority of member carriers. But other truckers in the province –from owner-ops to larger firms — wasted little time in expressing their displeasure with the idea. Within hours of the original story appearing on TodaysTrucking.com, dozens of letters flooded our e-mail boxes, many questioning the purpose of the plan.

One was from Martin Paddock of Packers Logistics in Stoney Creek, Ont., a 50-truck food hauler. “This is a perfect example of why I won’t participate in (OTA),” Paddock told Today’s Trucking in a subsequent interview. “It never ceases to amaze me that these groups who would claim to have significant ties to the trucking industry seem to have not even the first clue about the real issues facing the industry at the street level.”

Paddock says the OTA would better serve the industry by seriously tackling issues like the “outrageous cost of insurance” or the “plague of unscrupulous load brokers.”

“These just represent the tip of the iceberg of problems that we deal with on a daily basis,” he says. “If Mr. Bradley and company are bored and looking for something to do rather than wasting time addressing issues that are, by his own admission, ‘not an apparent crisis,’ why not tackle these for starters?”

Owner-operator Ed Wesselius also finds the scheme rather dubious. While he’s all for trucks operating at reasonable speeds for safety and better fuel economy, he says the plan has more to do with using the government to level the competitive playing field for carriers that fear losing drivers to fleets without governors or strict speed rules.

Bradley knew he’d face such opposition. He also makes no apologies for promoting an equal playing field for his members — many of which he says already voluntarily control speeds of their fleet.

“Yes, this is a safety issue, and it’s do deal with fuel consumption. But more importantly it’s to level the competitive playing field,” he tells Today’s Trucking. “Our members that are playing by the rules, and keeping drivers limited to whatever speed they’re limiting them to, are losing drivers to companies that will let their drivers speed.”

And can recruitment and retention be considered the government’s problem? Bradley says it isn’t, but speeding is. “We can all agree that this is already the government’s responsibility. But maybe we wouldn’t have to do this if there was enforcement. There isn’t, and there isn’t going to be. That’s the reality,” Bradley says. “So,
as an [industry] we want to be proactive.”

Critics suggest the proposal wouldn’t work anyway-especially considering that much of it is supposed to dovetail the European trucking model.

But Bradley isn’t fazed. He refers to the OTA’s fact-finding report that concludes that trucking on either side of the pond is not that different in many respects. Contrary to popular belief, trucks are not relegated to a single lane in much of Europe, except during rush hour in a handful of major cities, Bradley says. Furthermore, the potential problem with speed differential between cars and trucks — something North American governments claim causes more accidents — is mitigated by the overall safety benefits brought on by lower
truck speeds.

“The ‘wall of trucks’ that is sometimes created is seen as an aggravation more than it is a safety issue,” the report states.
But Europe isn’t Canada. In large urban centres like Greater Toronto, exit/ entrance ramps are as close as two kilometers apart. There would be more cars in close proximity speeding or slowing down to get through the truck wall. As Paddock drearily predicts: “At those rates, you’re going to have cars splattered at the back
of trucks.”

Also, drivers in Europe are paid almost exclusively by the hour, and therefore, unlike drivers mostly paid by the mile in North America, they tend to be more comfortable having their speed capped.

Bradley acknowledged such dilemmas in certain parts of the country. That’s why he’s taking every comment he receives seriously — from compliance and tampering, to industry acceptance — before the OTA crafts its official blueprint.

As for North America-wide acceptance, the OTA is staring up the steepest of mountains. American Trucking Associations spokesperson Mike Russell would not offer an official position on the OTA’s proposal, but did say the group would discuss it at their next meeting this fall. Getting the rest of the Canadian provinces on board is a more immediate, and perhaps more challenging, project considering they still can’t all agree on what a heavy truck is.

“I’ve been around a long time and know it’s going to be (difficult). We wish for a North American approach, but I also know our board isn’t going to wait forever,” Bradley says. “The Americans are pretty good at saying ‘you want to operate here, you better play by our rules.’ And technologically, we don’t see why we can’t apply the same sort of thinking here if we have to.”

While he admits there are legitimate concerns to be addressed, he advises the industry against fear mongering. He insists it can work, and that he doesn’t see how good, reputable truckers would be hurt by the plan. “Reducing driver income is not what we’re doing here,” he stresses. “Where it’s going to reduce someone’s income is in situations where as part of the service, it’s built in that drivers have to speed. Well, we don’t condone that anyway.”

Neither does Paddock, of course. It’s just that more state intervention is not what he thinks trucking needs. In fact he’s bemused by the irony of the situation. “We fought for decades for getting the government out of regulating this industry,” he says. “Now [the OTA] wants to go back the other way.”