The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is seemingly slowing down in its efforts to develop a proposed rule to potentially mandate speed limiters on heavy-duty trucks.
In the Spring 2024 Unified Regulatory Agenda, FMCSA is now projecting a May 2025 publication date for the speed limiter notice of proposed rulemaking. In the Department of Transportation’s Significant Rulemakings Report released in late January, the proposed rule was slated for a May 2024 publication.
FMCSA revived the speed limiter debate in 2022 with a notice of intent to proceed with a rulemaking that would require the use of speed limiters on heavy trucks. A prior DOT rulemaking report published last September -- which first listed the maximum speed for the mandate at 68 mph before the agency backtracked to remove a specific speed -- indicated the speed limiter proposal would be published in December 2023, later pushed to this May.
FMCSA has said its new proposal will require motor carriers operating trucks equipped with an electronic engine control unit (ECU) capable of governing the truck’s maximum speed to limit the truck to a speed as determined by the rulemaking and maintain that ECU setting for the service life of the truck.
There are also efforts ongoing in Congress to bar FMCSA from mandating speed limiters on trucks.
