By Arthur Weinreb
Monday, July 9, 2007
Last week the Ontario government announced that speed limiters would be required on trucks that travel on provincial highways. Trucks will now be prevented from travelling faster than 105 km/hr.
One reason for why the law is being brought in is, you guessed it, to help protect the environment. One of the worst consequences of the near panic about global warming or as we say in the winter, climate change, is that governments are now pretty free to do whatever they want to do as long as there is at least a scintilla of an argument that that it will be of some benefit to the environment. According to Ontario Transport Minister Donna Cansfield, the lower truck speeds will save 10,500 litres of diesel fuel for every tractor trailer on the province's roads. At least Al Gore will be pleased; this will help offset all the carbon spewed into the atmosphere during his Live Earth concerts.
Another reason given for the law, not that one was really necessary, was one of safety. Proponents of the 105 km. maximum speed limit think that Ontario's highways will be safer if the maximum speed that trucks are capable of travelling is reduced. To begin with, it is hard to believe that there will be much of a difference between a large rig crashing into an environmentally-friendly little putt putt when that truck is travelling at 100 kph compared to one where the truck is going 110 or 115. The "safety" component of this new law may be more illusory than real. As the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada has pointed out, speeding truckers have never been a major problem on Ontario's highways.
Limiters of course do nothing to protect other motorists from driver error that can have fatal consequences at any speed. And driver error will not be reduced if truckers are forced to be behind the wheel for longer hours as a result of not being able to travel faster than 105 km., especially during times where traffic is light and road conditions are good.
The speed limiters wouldn't be so bad if we had proper infrastructure and less traffic on our crumbling highways. But building more highways and improving the ones we have is just too politically incorrect during a time when politicians of every stripe are obsessing over climate change. Transit, good – cars and highways – bad. Building a subway to nowhere, as Toronto did a few years ago is preferable to maintaining the highways to keep up with the burgeoning number of cars. This is part of what has led to the current phenomenon that is currently known as road rage.
No doubt the general lack of civility and the "me first" philosophy of life that is widely held my many today is partially responsible for road rage. But the congested state of our roads and highways certainly plays a part. Limiting the speed of trucks will definitely exacerbate this problem on the 400 series of highways where the speed limit is 100 km/hr. While that is the posted speed limit, the effective normal rate of speed on these highways is between 110 and 120 km/hr. Motorists will become impatient as a large rig travelling at 105 km/hr will pass another tractor trailer going 100, a maneuver that will seemingly take forever. Where highways have more than 2 lanes in each direction, there will be cars weaving in and out of lanes while they are passing trucks that are travelling in tandem as one truck very slowly passes another. The OPP will call that street racing and Attorney General Michael Bryant will be salivating at the thought of crushing the offending vehicles.
There are several arguments being made that the speed limiters will make the roads less safe, not more. While the official opposition doesn't necessarily have to oppose everything that a government does, in a perfect world that party would make these arguments to ensure that the Liberal majority government has thoroughly thought through this legislation. But the province of Ontario, for those who haven't yet noticed, is far from perfect. Instead of criticizing the Liberal plan and pointing out the negative consequences of limiting truck speeds to 105 km/hr, the Progressive Conservatives are bragging about having thought up this legislation first, only to have it stolen by Dalton McGuinty. Liberals, John Tory, same old story.
As good and as environmentally-friendly as this legislation is, look for more road rage and more congestion on our already overly congested major highways.
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