Say no to ‘speed limiting governors’ for semis

Envision this … you are on vacation with your family cruising down the interstate. While the speed limit may be 65 or 70 miles an hour, you set your cruise control for seven mph over that limit. You keep up with the flow of traffic, smoothly passing traffic as you do.

Then you come upon two semi tractor trailers riding next to each other for miles upon miles as one tries to pass the other. That is because the vehicle that is doing the passing has a “speed limiting governor” that limits their speed. As a result it takes miles for them to make a simple pass of another semi.

The result is having a slew of vehicles backed up behind them, side-by-side like a stock car race at the Newton speedway. All of this traffic going 65 mph bunched up is not as safe as keeping traffic flowing.

A recent letter in The Gazette urged speed limiting governors supported by highway safety organizations. What the letter does not state is that semi-tractor-trailers and their professional drivers are involved in less than 10% of traffic fatalities.

If you want to improve safety on the highway, don’t slow down the semis, get the idiots off the road … especially those who are cruising down the interstate at the speed limit (or less) in the left lane, probably with their turn signal still on.

Frank Garfield

Hiawatha