From Tire Review

NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind said that his agency will push for regulation requiring speed-limiting devices on commercial trucks as a result of a recent Associated Press (AP) investigation.

The investigation found that commercial truck operators often travel at speeds faster than what their tires can handle. These speeds, the report found, are a result of increased speed limits in 14 states that allow operators to travel faster than the truck tire’s 75 mph rating designation.

In 2013, NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposed a rule to require speed-limiting devices on heavy-duty trucks.

That proposal has been “stalled for years in a morass of cost analyses and government reviews,” according to the AP investigation.

Rosekind told reporters that NHTSA would push for quick action on the proposed regulation at a safety symposium in New York last week. According to the Rubber Manufacturers Association, 70 percent of trucks operate with speed-limiting devices. According to an American Trucking Associations report from 2007 cited in the AP investigation, the devices capped drivers to an average speed limit of 69 mph.

The AP began its investigation between truck tires and higher speed limits following a NHTSA investigation of Michelin truck tire failures that began last October. The agency concluded that increased highway speed limits were likely the cause of 16 steer axle tire failure complaints.

The agency found that truck owners were at fault because of under-inflation or heavy loads. However, NHTSA pointed to increase speed limits as the “more likely explanation.”

“The more likely explanation of failures is the increase in maximum speed limits in several states,” the agency said in its investigation. “Of those 16, four allow truck speeds of 80 mph or more.”