68 MPH
 

What a crock. 98% of the truck wrecks I see come from a color coated company's. They already run slower than 68mph. The crash test study shows that the #2 reason of truck wrecks are trucks going too fast for conditions. DUH. BUT they failed to mention is that most of them are the trucks that are already governed.
I would say go for it if every state would raise or lower the truck speed to 68mph. except for cities of course.
Meaning 68 in CA and all those 55 mph states.. If they wanna slow us down it should only be fair to make up for the lost time in the 55 mph states..

Re: 68 MPH
 

The ATA has already admitted that the statistics show that the majority of truck accidents happened at speeds below 68 mph.

OK so what is the petition for?

Simple, the ATA is selling independent drivers out.

It is fairly obvious, and has been for a long time, the ATA is for the trucking companies and the companies only. The only time they stand on the side of drivers is when the goal happens to be the same.

Personally I have no problem driving a governed truck. In my experience, how many miles you get and how much money you earn has very little to do with how fast a truck can go. It has much more to do with how well your company has its act together and how well they work with shippers and recievers to minimize delays (charging them big money for those delays and paying the driver for his/her time).

Re: 68 MPH
 

While that is true, the problem is with the severity of those accidents occuring above 68 mph. The faster you are going, the more damage you will do. Simple as that.

Re: 68 MPH
 

So, park your truck and eliminate all accidents.

Re: 68 MPH
 

Any accident involving a truck VS car above, say, 40 mph is probably going to be a fatality. So lets govern trucks at 35 mph.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I believe the main reason these companies want to govern their trucks at 68 is because of Canada. I believe Ontario has already passed legislation requiring trucks running in the province to have speed limiters governing at 68 mph. I don't see safety as an issue. I spoke to a driver a couple of years ago who had been driving for several years. He told me that he never got a ticket until he got into a governed truck. I believe he was speeding in a construction zone. :?

Some trucks need to be governed to the speed limit for the road the driver is traveling on. If he is in a 25 mph speed zone, limited to 25, 40 mph speed zone limited to 40, etc, etc. Some drivers just make bad decisions and get speeding tickets or have accidents. I hired a former B driver, got him his A CDL and he went for first load. 10000 lbs of insulation on a 48 flat. He called to ask where to scale it. I said you dont need to scale it. He said if I get overweight ticket, you'll pay. I said okay. 1 hour later he called saying he got a ticket. Turns out he was speeding in the hammer lane on a lane restricted road. He says he had to get home and evryone was going to slow. He didnt know he couldnt run in the hammer lane. HE KNOWS NOW!!

I really think it has nothing to do with safety. The ATA is an organization made up by the large trucking company's. It is in "their" best interest if all trucks would run the same speed. It would be easier to recruit drivers, drivers like to go at least the speed limit and they don't really want to run 62 when they can legally go 65 or even 70. If all the trucks on the road would only run 65 they would burn less fuel causing the demand to fall slightly. When you spend millions in a month on fuel like some of the very large company's a couple cents decrease is a big amount to them.

It's just like in NASCAR they don't want someone else to have an advantage over them. If the ATA was concerned about safety they would focus more one driver training rather than reducing the speed of trucks.

I don't know why everyone thinks going fast is somehow an advantage.

It IS about safety. Simple physics states so. Momentum is speed * weight. Stopping distance increases exponentially with speed. Damage done increases massively with speed.

However, it is *NOT* the right way to go about it. Mandatory disc brakes on all trucks and trailers would be a FAR better way to make the roads safer.

Energy = Mass * Velocity(squared)

That little squirt Bruce Lee proved this!!!

ALL trucks are governed to 56MPH in Europe and its a nightmare. Trucks taking 5 miles to inch past each other on the interstates causing even more congestion, driving too close to each other to get close enough to overtake but more importantly...when the 56MPH "speed limiters" were introduced for the next few years there were significantly more accidents involving trucks because the drivers were being "put to sleep" by the constant speed and lack of control over it...kinda like an auto pilot thing.

IMO they should have a blanket speed limit across the whole USA for trucks of say 65 or 70 MPH and have speed limiters/governors fitted on all trucks at 5mph over whatever that actual nationwide speed limit is. That way most trucks would be travelling at a legal speed and have enough 'pedal' in reserve to pass another slower truck.

It wont be long before US trucks are shut down by federal law to about 60mph IMO to save on valuable resources (FUEL) and cops will just plug in a laptop to your trucks diagnostic port and they'll be able to tell you what time you atarted driving that morning, how fast you've been travelling, how many miles you've done that week etc etc etc. Mark my words...it come sooner or later.

I think that everyone just needs to learn a little patience!! When you get in a hurry it does not matter how fast or slow your truck is. You are just plain dangerous! We live in a world where everything is hurry up and wait! I see no need to go flying down the road! Just my $0.02 worth.

Well Like the other driver said. Where does it stop? 68 55 45mph Really It should be up to the company or the owner of the truck Which is one in the same. Also why don't they install blue tooth on every truck that way they can see all your info Logs, miles, hours and also who is driving without even pulling you over. Probably have to put your drivers license into a card reader for the truck to start. It would make them millions on tickets because no one would get away with cheating their logs or speeding. Just pull along side of you. Oops too many miles in that short of time. They wouldn't even have to pull you over since they know who is driving just send it to yo in the mail. We need to regulate ourselves not let the government do it for US.