WASHINGTON — Three federal rulemakings that have cost implications for truckers and motor carriers are on the short-term horizon for a former top official at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Earl Adams, who served as FMCSA’s deputy administrator and chief counsel under former administrator Robin Hutcheson, led a team at the agency that is developing the first major set of rules for high-level automation in heavy-duty trucks.
The result of that effort — a proposed rule on autonomous driving systems (ADS) — is on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s calendar for rollout in December.
Combined with a final rule on automatic emergency braking (AEB) and a proposed rule to set a federal top speed for trucks, they rank as the most anticipated regulations on Adams’ radar.
“Whether the outcome of the election is a Trump or a Harris administration, I think you’re going to continue to see significant efforts to collect data around AV [autonomous vehicle] systems already deployed on the roads,” Adams told FreightWaves in an interview.
ADS guard rails
Adams, now a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells, said the Trump administration took an industry-driven approach toward the development of autonomous vehicle operations by encouraging feedback from the companies that could benefit from them the most.
The Biden administration, in contrast, “was focused on leveraging technology to get safer outcomes,” he said. “We were willing to establish guardrails – that is, an actual rule – as opposed to letting the industry dictate what would happen, and I spent the better part of my two and a half years in the administration trying to develop those guardrails.”
Higher costs for training and certifying individuals performing enhanced inspections for higher levels of automation are expected to be considered in the proposed rule, as well as the potential for sidelining trucks and their drivers with additional inspections that could reduce the amount of time available for revenue-generating service.
Adams cautioned, however, that given recent and growing concerns from labor, getting an AV rule proposed next year could prove difficult even in a Harris administration.
Automatic braking rule to set new standards
A final rule regulating a specific type of automation — braking — has been scheduled for publication in the Federal Register in January, to be issued jointly by FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The rulemaking “is expected to establish performance standards and motor carrier maintenance requirements for AEB systems on heavy trucks and accompanying test procedures for measuring the performance of the AEB systems,” according to a rule summary.
“I’ll be looking to see if they actually move forward on that,” Adams said. “We have a braking rule in place now for passenger cars, but we saw an opportunity to work hand in glove with NHTSA to extend that to trucking.”
The National Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC), which represents thousands of small-business motor carriers, contends that technology mandates such as AEB will ultimately raise costs for shippers and consumers, due to higher capital costs for new trucks.
“Further, more expensive, new model trucks slow turnover of older trucks,” said NASTC President David Owen, in comments submitted on the AEB proposed rule.
Owen also asserts that the safety case for mandating AEBs has not yet been adequately assessed nor has the technology been perfected. For example, when AEB’s activate suddenly, it can catch a truck driver by surprise, he said.
“The suddenness of the device’s action causes near-misses and may require evasive action on the professional driver’s part. At present and for the foreseeable future, AEBs present more of a threat to road safety than a solution.”
Speed limiter anxiety
An even more controversial rulemaking on the horizon for trucking that Adams is keeping tabs on is a requirement by FMCSA to limit the top speeds of heavy-duty truck engines equipped with electronic engine control units. That speed limit is to be determined by a proposed rule slated for May 2025.
Much of the criticism FMCSA received was from smaller truck owners and owner-operators, who believe that limiting speeds would make it more difficult to compete with larger carriers – many of which already employ speed limiting devices in their fleets – and would put them out of business.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which strongly opposes speed limiting devices, also contends that they are also unsafe due to increasing speed differentials that would occur with other vehicles on the highway if there was a mandated top speed for heavy trucks.
Adams acknowledged that the FMCSA “received a lot of criticism for the speed limiter proposed rule,” he said.
“But even now, looking back nine months or so to when I was at the agency, we approached this without bias or preconceived ideas, whether speed limiters are good or bad,” he said. “It was an extremely apolitical approach to a technology that has been around for years among fleet owners.
“What was on our mind was the fact that we have 40,000 deaths on the highways per year, with 3,000 coming from commercial trucks, and a large percentage of those were speed-related. So if we can use technology to limit the speed and thus can save lives — that’s the reason we took this on and are so committed to trying to solve it.”
Christian Almanza
To set a speed limit will not and never will prevent an accident with or without a commercial vehicle. These new drivers simply need a CB Radio in order to communicate traffic information (no matter race); although we (I) will never take them seriously because the non-citizens( excluding Mexicans, will not care about other than themselves. I bet you my last name on that.
Jimbo
I’m sure Teabag Earl has never driven a large truck. Karen needs to find a different line of work.
Ronnie Register
ONE BIG MISTAKE THE ROAD RAGE WILL BE ALOT WORSE THAN IT ALREADY IS.ROADS WILL BE CLOGGED UP FROM TRUCKS TRYING TO PASS SLOWER VEHICLES IN THE RIGHT LANE AND TWO TRUCKS WILL BE SIDE BY SIDE FOR MILES AND MILES.PEOPLE TRYING TO MERGE INTO THE FLOWING TRAFFIC AND THEY CANT MOVE OVER BECAUSE THERE TO SLOW TO MOVE OVER.
Ricky Handley
Apparently Mr Adams doesn’t drive you can drive across any highway in America and you get behind two trucks trying to pass and they can’t even get enough speed to pass and that’s more dangerous than a truck with a little more speed that can move on out of the way, and again here we go with just more government control with trucking companies going out of business faster then you can count, the government has put so many companies out of business with all their control.
Jerri Hawkins
They say 3000 was killed by big trucks
Majority involved speed
But out of the 3000
How many was solely the fault of the semi truck
75% of semi truck accidents are caused by cars
I been driving for 15 years and 90% of the times I was hit it was by cars speeding, failure to maintain lane, improper lane change, didn’t know how to merge on interstate
The semi trucks that hit me i was parked i only had one semi truck to hit me in a fuel island and another failed to yeild
We are not the problem
They just give a driver’s license to anyone
Or
It be the blind teaching the blind how to drive so now it’s more people with bad driving habits
Greg J Gomes
I think you people need to stop thinking about new rules. Who would even want to be a driver anymore, already to many laws. Maybe if you get PUC back in the Trucking so the rates would meet all these rules. Petroleum trucks have to carry higher liability insurance besides the fact any insurance is getting to expensive. Truckers have 300,000 dollar equipment cost per unit, then you take a service tech has maybe 65,00 dollar per unit cost. Trucks are lucky to make 85.00 dollars per hr. You service techs out there charging 135 to 160 dollars an hour. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s dumb ass is.
Christopher Moulton
Another fine example of people who have no idea how to do my job trying to tell me the best way to do my job. 3000 deaths involving trucks leaves 37,000 that DIDN’T involve trucks. If you limit our speed more than you already have, it’s going to cause MORE accidents, not less. Car drivers, already impatient around trucks, will become moreso, and take more risks to get around them.
Robert Richardson
It’s the cars,pickup trucks and motorcycles that are the ones going 100 plus mph it seems like a great idea to govern their speed more than a slow ass semi truck