A hearing of the House of Representatives' Highways and Transit Subcommittee Wednesday saw opening testimony from Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chief Robin Hutcheson stress the work her agency has put into implementing provisions of the 2021 infrastructure law, the express subject of the hearing with other administration heads as well. Yet much of the questioning from reps was directed at something not included in that law at all. Namely, subcommittee members grilled the FMCSA administrator about the wisdom of the FMCSA's moves toward mandating speed-limiter use by commercial motor carriers.
Questions from Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri typified the exchanges, as he relayed constituent truckers' concerns with a variety of regulations, including the limitations on operating time in the hours of service. He cast a speed limiting device mandate as an adding-insult-to-injury situation for drivers already taxed by a parking shortage and those time limitations, trying to find an adequate spot to rest. "Now you're telling them they'll have to reach their destinations at a slower pace" with a speed-limiter mandate, he said. "When is enough enough?"
Any on-highway situation in which a driver needed to make up time, he added, might spill into areas where no one wants a speeding vehicle of any kind, much less a large truck. With speed limiters, the "only place to make up time [might be] on city streets, in suburbs or construction zones," he said. "Could this reduce safety?"
Administrator Hutcheson throughout the hearing deflected questions like this with acknowledgment of the in-process nature of any speed-limiter rule. Currently, the agency has accepted comments on a speed-limiter Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and hasn't issued any subsequent proposal, she said routinely each time the subject was broached. To Burlison, she noted she "shared your commitment to drivers, certainly to their safety," as well that of others on the roadway. "We're under way in a process of rulemaking for speed limiters."
Burlison shot back: "I would encourage you to not implement that rule."
Jeff Van Drew (R-New Jersey), later, concurred. "It is a bad idea."
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