ALBANY, N.Y. — Allow speed limiters and risk losing business from New York. That’s the message N.Y. Rep. James T. Walsh sent Ontario this week, urging Minister of Transportation Donna Cansfield to reconsider her promise to cap the speed of all trucks operating in Ontario at 105 km/h.

According to a letter obtained by Landline, the official publication of the U.S.-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Walsh is asking Cansfield to wait for a proper study to assess the impact speed limiters would have on trade.

Cansfield has pledged to introduce a speed limiter rule if her Liberal Party is re-elected in October. Quebec has also introduced similar pending legislation.

OOIDA says the differential in speed between cars
and trucks could cause more crashes, not less

A consequence would be that New York and other companies along the Canada-U.S. border might refuse to haul into those two provinces, Walsh warned in the letter.

Exports from New York into Ontario and Quebec totaled $10.7 billion from June 2006 through June 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

“The majority of these goods are brought into your provinces by trucks that do not currently employ speed limiters, as it is not a requirement in the United States,” Walsh stated.

But that could soon change as well. The American Trucking Associations has adopted much of the language in the Canadian speed limiter proposal, which was first drafted by the Ontario Trucking Association.

The ATA is urging regulators in the U.S. to implement a speed limiter mandate of 65 mph.

OOIDA and its Canadian counterpart, the Owner-Operators Business Association of Canada, oppose the proposed legislation in either country. The groups have submitted literature and studies to their respective governments that show that speed limiters in some cases could cause more accidents because of the differential speed between cars and trucks.

The owner-op groups are also skeptical of claims by proponents that speed limiters would save tens of thousands of tones of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions per year. OBAC says that many of those projections are exaggerated since they assume that all trucks in the province are speeding beyond 105 km/h.

OOIDA and OBAC submitted comments in December 2006 to the MTO saying they believe it’s law enforcement’s responsibility to crack down on the minority of repeat violators.