Talk to an owner-operator or other trucker long enough about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's moves toward a mandate for speed-limiter use, and you're highly likely to hear safety, congestion and other operational concerns. Yet there's another objection amongst the most commonly proffered. That's the feeling that the FMCSA and others pushing a limiter mandate on safety grounds are fundamentally getting their priorities wrong.
This week's edition of Overdrive Radio kicks off with K&D Transport operator Andrew Axelson, speaking from the site of the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, late last month. "Instead of limiting the speed on trucks, they should really limit the speed on cars," he said. That's where he contends most of the outlandish speed issues on American highways today sits.
As Overdrive contributor Clifford Petersen once put it:
Professional truckers are not the problem. Excessive speeding by automobile operators is. If government is going to limit the ability to speed, start with cars.
