Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations; Parts and Accessories Necessary for Safe Operation; Speed Limiting Devices; Withdrawal

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 393</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2014-0083; Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0004]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2126-AB63</RIN> <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 571</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2016-0087]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AK92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations; Parts and Accessories Necessary for Safe Operation; Speed Limiting Devices; Withdrawal</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM); advance notice of supplemental proposed rulemaking (ANSPRM); withdrawal. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FMCSA and NHTSA withdraw the September 7, 2016 joint NPRM that proposed to require that heavy vehicles (those with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of more than 11,793 kilograms (26,000 pounds)) be equipped with a speed limiting device that is maintained at a set speed. FMCSA also withdraws its May 4, 2022 ANSPRM, which announced FMCSA's intent to proceed with a speed limiter rulemaking. The ANSPRM stated that FMCSA was preparing a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) to propose that motor carriers operating commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) in interstate commerce with a gross vehicle weight or GVWR of at least 11,794 kilograms (26,001 pounds), whichever is greater, and that are equipped with an engine control unit (ECU) capable of governing the maximum speed, be required to limit the CMV to a speed to be determined by the rulemaking and to maintain that ECU setting for the service life of the vehicle. In light of significant policy and safety concerns and continued data gaps that create considerable uncertainty about the estimated costs, benefits, and other impacts of the proposed rule, FMCSA and NHTSA have decided to withdraw the proposal. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> FMCSA and NHTSA withdraw the NPRM published September 7, 2016, at 81 FR 61942 as of July 24, 2025. FMCSA withdraws the ANSPRM published May 4, 2022, at 87 FR 26317 as of July 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">FMCSA:</E> Mr. David Sutula, Chief, Vehicle and Roadside Operations Division, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001; (202) 366-2551; <E T="03">MCPSV@dot.gov.</E> <E T="03">NHTSA:</E> Mr. Markus Price, Office of Vehicle Rulemaking; (202) 366-1810; <E T="03">markus.price@dot.gov;</E> or Mr. David Jasinski, Office of Chief Counsel; <E T="03">david.jasinski@dot.gov.</E> Mailing address of these officials: NHTSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On September 7, 2016, in response to separate petitions  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> from the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and Schneider National, Inc. et al. (including 9 other ATA-member motor carriers), NHTSA and FMCSA issued a joint NPRM proposing to require heavy vehicles with a GVWR of more than 11,793 kilograms (26,000 pounds) be equipped with a speed limiting device initially set to a speed no greater than a speed to be specified in a final rule. NHTSA and FMCSA also proposed to require motor carriers operating such vehicles in interstate commerce to maintain the speed limiting devices for the service life of the vehicle (81 FR 61942). NHTSA and FMCSA requested comment on speeds ranging from 60 to 68 miles per hour (mph). The estimated economic impacts of the joint NPRM varied widely based upon the set speed, with annual costs ranging from $209 million to $1.561 billion. The Agencies also estimated that, at a 65 mph set speed, the proposed rule would save between 63 and 214 lives annually, monetized at between $716 million and $2.4 billion using both the value of statistical life in 2013 as well as economic costs and would also result in $848 million in fuel and emissions savings based on then-current price estimates. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  These petitions were granted. By granting a petition, NHTSA and FMCSA agreed to commence a rulemaking action, which was accomplished by publishing the NPRM. The ATA petition can be found at <E T="03"> https://www.regulations.gov/document/ NHTSA-2007-26851-0005 </E> and the Schneider National, Inc. et al. petition can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/NHTSA-2007-26851-0001.</E> </FTNT> The NPRM was based on a review of the available data, which suggested that limiting the speed of these heavy vehicles would reduce the severity of crashes involving these vehicles. However, NHTSA and FMCSA were not able to estimate the effects of speed reduction on the number of crashes occurring ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> collision avoidance), and the proposal did not include estimated costs or benefits related to crash reductions or increases. The NPRM sought comment on the analysis of the costs and benefits of amending the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) to require speed limiting devices and their usage. Comments were solicited on the NPRM for a total of 90 days, ending December 7, 2016. A total of 7,225 comments were received by that date  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> from individuals, motor carriers, industry organizations, and advocacy groups. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  FMCSA received a total of 4,633 comments, and NHTSA received a total of 2,592 comments. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Overview of Comments to the NPRM</HD> Individual drivers supporting the NPRM discussed a variety of topics. Many drivers of light vehicles ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> vehicles with a GVWR of less than 3,856 kilograms (8,500 pounds)) supported the NPRM, stating that it would contribute to overall driving safety. They gave numerous examples of perceived dangerous driving by heavy vehicles based upon personal experiences and asserted that slowing down heavy vehicles would improve safety. Many individuals who responded in favor of the NPRM indicated that the rule should be expanded to apply to all heavy vehicles that already have speed governing equipment installed by the manufacturer. Individual drivers opposed to the NPRM raised concerns about a host of potential impacts. The most common concern was about the potential speed differential between speed-limited heavy vehicles and light vehicles. Commenters indicated the relative differences in vehicle speeds could lead to more interactions between heavy vehicles heavy and light vehicles and could lead to increased or risky driving behavior by light vehicles trying to pass the slower heavy vehicles. Many commenters stated that the proposed requirements would slow traffic in general, particularly if two speed-limited heavy vehicles tried to pass one another. Some commenters stated that speed limiters would lead to increased speeding by heavy vehicles on surface streets with lower speed limits due to drivers trying to make up time. Others stated that the proposed rule would amount to government over-regulation, and result in increased costs for the trucking industry and slower overall delivery times. Commenters suggested increasing training for both heavy truck and light vehicle drivers as well as the alternative of increasing enforcement of existing speed limit laws. The comments received from industry and advocacy groups were also mixed. Those in favor of the proposed rule, like Coach USA, supported a 68 mph speed limit, indicating that, as of December 2016, they have been using speed limiters in their fleet of buses for about 10 years, and that their speed limiters are set to 68 mph. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) supported the NPRM, stating that lowering speeds would also lower the kinetic energy of crashes (thus reducing injuries), and that speed differentials already exist between trucks and cars on the highway. IIHS stated that the rule should require speed limiters to be added to existing heavy vehicles. Some opposing the rule, like the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), stated that it would set a national speed limit for trucks, preempting State laws. MDOT also stated that the increased speed differential between heavy vehicles and light vehicles would possibly lead to more crashes. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) stated that speed limiters would increase driver fatigue and “[t]he agencies have made no attempt to examine the externalities of a speed limiter mandate other than to evaluate the societal costs incurred at the event of a heavy vehicle crash, whereas congestion costs are largely omitted.” In the NPRM, three different speed limits were analyzed for heavy vehicles: 60, 65, and 68 mph. Analysis was conducted on each speed limit with the predicted improvement to safety given for each speed. The NPRM requested that commenters indicate which speed would be most appropriate. Relatively few of the commenters responded to this request. Among those that did, the preferred speed was nearly evenly split among the three proposed speeds. <HD SOURCE="HD1">FMCSA ANSPRM</HD> On May 4, 2022, FMCSA published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 26317) an ANSPRM announcing the Agency's intent to proceed with a speed limiter rulemaking to follow up on the joint 2016 NPRM. The ANSPRM explained that FMCSA intended to issue an SNPRM that, if adopted, would impose speed limitations on certain CMVs subject to the FMCSRs. Specifically, the Agency indicated that it would propose to require motor carriers to limit speeds for certain CMVs operated in interstate commerce t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━