Road Safe America

Road Safe America is an American non-profit organization promoting road safety. It was founded by the parents of Culling Owen, who died after his car was struck by a speeding truck on December 1, 2002.

A "New York Times" article, dated November 27, 2005, [cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/national/27safety.html|title=Tragedy Moves a Grieving Father to Press for Safer Driving |date=November 27, 2005|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2008-10-02] tells of Steve Owings' attempts to have speed governors placed on large trucks. In the article, Mike Russel, a spokesman for American Trucking Associations (ATA), is quoted saying that the ATA supports a national speed limit of 65 mph for all vehicles. Russell goes on to state that forcing trucks to drive slower than other traffic increases the accident rate. That has been the conclusion of several traffic studies. In 1991, speed limiters were considered and rejected by Congress. Despite the evidence that speed limiters would increase accident rates, Road Safe America petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require manufacturers to install speed limiters on all trucks over convert|26000|lb|kg GVW, to limit their speeds to 68 mph.

These petitions were protested by the Owner Operators and Independent Drivers Association, citing the past dangers found in studies, and claiming the intent of the petition was to stop ATA drivers from going to companies that allowed their trucks to run the speed limit. Many trucking publications, including "The Trucker" and "Road Star", featured articles on the issue. Articles in "The Trucker" mentioned additional studies finding that split speeds increased fatigue, and editorials in "Road Star" questioned ATA's motives. NHTSA published a request for comments on an online petition. While the request listed 9 specific questions NHTSA sought information on, some responders ignored those questions, allegedly because Road Safe America used faxes http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf100/456656_web.pdf and their website Roadsafeamerica.org to link hundreds of supporters directly to the comment page without reading the request for comments.

References

External links

* [http://www.roadsafeamerica.org Road Safe America]