Jim Kenzie On Truck Speed Limiters
Make big trucks go slower and the roads will become safer.
Obvious, isn't it? It's also obvious when you look out the window that the world is flat.
Last Monday, truckers in Ontario tried to mount a convoy to Queen's Park to show their opposition to electronic speed limiters. These devices, electronic chips in trucks' engine management systems, restrict speeds to 105 km/h, and have been required in Ontario and Quebec since the start of the year.
The protest didn't draw anywhere near the numbers organizers had hoped for (only five trucks turned out), but the legislation stands as a classic case of a regulation being imposed by transportation officials who don't have Clue One about how traffic actually works in the Real World.
First, what's with a speed limiter that allows you to exceed the speed limit? Is there a speed limit or is there not?
Secondly, what transportation officials have yet to understand is that speed isn't a problem; speed is the objective. The whole point of superhighways is to increase speed.
If we weren't in a hurry, we'd have stayed with two-lane roads like the old Hwy. 2 between Windsor and Montreal.
Yes, we want to do it within as large a safety margin as possible, but we must understand that any motion involves a degree of risk. And we old-timers all remember how safe Hwy. 2 was ...
It's true without a doubt that trucks take a long time to stop. And they take a longer time to stop from a higher speed than they do from a lower speed. So do cars.
But stopping isn't usually the issue: running into other vehicles is the issue.
And any traffic analyst will tell you what any fluid dynamics engineer would tell you: that things flow more smoothly when that flow is "laminar" – when all or most of the components of the flow are running at roughly the same speed.
It's when you stick an obstruction in that flow – a slow-moving truck on the 401 – that you start to get turbulence and deterioration of that flow.
That's also when things start running into each other, and when those things happen to be trucks weighing upwards of 40,000 kg, you have a problem.
And the problem isn't whether that 40,000 kg thing is going 105 km/h or 120 km/h: it's whether it runs into something else or not.
If that 40,000 kg thing is going 120 km/h and that something else – a car, presumably – is also going 120 km/h, then there's nothing to run into.
But if the other object is going 105 km/h and the truck is going 120? Ker-bang!
So the objective of traffic management is to try to ensure that as many vehicles as possible are going as close to the same speed as possible.
The specific speed isn't as important as the fact that it be the same, or nearly so, for all vehicles.
Artificially limiting a subset of your flowing components to a speed that's 15 to 30 km/h slower than the other components of your flow is a recipe for disaster.
A recent study conducted for Transport Canada by the University of Waterloo concluded: "As the (traffic) volume is set close to capacity, more vehicle interactions take place and this leads to a reduction in safety, especially for those segments with increased merging and lane-change activity, such as on- and off-ramp segments."
Hmm ... does that sound like the 401 through the heart of the GTA?
Exactly.
"In these instances, the introduction of truck speed limiters can actually reduce the level of safety when compared to the non-limiter case."
Exactly.
Critics of the report say the university focused solely on divided highways, and didn't take two-lane roads into consideration. Um, what percentage of our truck traffic is on divided highways?
Exactly.
So far, only the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba have implemented the speed limiters.
These limiters also penalize local truckers when they carry loads to the U.S., because South Dakota truckers (for example) can deliver the goods sooner.
So, what should the government do? Whatever they can to ensure that traffic moves as smoothly as possible.
One of the most important things truckers need to make their passage as smooth and safe as possible is a proper, guaranteed passing lane. That's supposed to be the centre lane on the 401 (through the GTA, truckers are generally prohibited from driving in the left-most lane).
But that centre lane is usually clogged by slowpokes who are afraid of driving in the right-most lane (where logic, good manners and the Ontario Highway Traffic Act all require them to drive), because they are afraid (with no small justification) that it is going to disappear or turn into an off-ramp with little warning.
So OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino should get over his obsession with motion, and assign a few dozen of his minions to enforcing the laws we already have against people who hog the left- and middle-lanes. While he's at it, maybe he could use his considerable political clout to get the damned lane markings properly painted so the right lane doesn't keep disappearing.
If he did these things our traffic would flow faster, more smoothly, more safely and in a more fuel-efficient manner.
Our truckers could also drive at whatever speed they felt was safest and most efficient, and wouldn't be penalized when running into the U.S.
This could all start Monday morning, and be done within weeks.
Then we could start on roundabouts and make some real gains.
