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Transportation Equipment<br />
Association, (CTEA) which<br />
represents mainly truck<br />
component manufacturers.<br />
The equipment group made<br />
note of the safety benefits<br />
based on the OTA’s kinetic<br />
energy analysis. It compared<br />
the percentage increase in<br />
energy of a loaded tractortrailer<br />
traveling at 105 km/h<br />
versus the same unit traveling<br />
at 120 km/h, and found<br />
that 30 percent more energy<br />
must be managed—slowed,<br />
stopped, etc.—at the higher<br />
speed due to kinetic energy<br />
varying with the square of<br />
the speed.<br />
“If we then compare the<br />
kinetic energy of an automobile<br />
travelling at the same<br />
speed as having less than<br />
four percent the kinetic<br />
energy of the tractor-trailer<br />
the huge mismatch in a crash<br />
becomes painfully obvious,”<br />
new CTEA Executive<br />
Director Donald E. Moore<br />
wrote in a letter to MTO.<br />
(Moore recently replaced Al<br />
Tucker who will remain with<br />
the group until his retirement<br />
sometime in 2007.)<br />
While OTA hasn’t denied<br />
critics’ claims that the proposal<br />
would result in more<br />
rear-end crashes, it insists it<br />
would reduce severe cartruck<br />
accidents because of<br />
lower speed during impact.<br />
ROLLAWAY MISSILES: A tractor-trailer<br />
hauling two Department of National Defence armoured personnel<br />
carriers loaded with anti-tank missile launchers was<br />
tailed for 20 km on Hwy. 401 by Ontario Provincial Police after<br />
the vehicle was reported stolen.<br />
According to Canadian Press, the truck driver’s confusion<br />
is to blame for the bizarre incident, which led to the truck<br />
being pulled over by police on the shoulder of Canada’s<br />
busiest highway in December.<br />
The shipment of army vehicles was scheduled to arrive in<br />
Montreal. But apparently, the driver got pre-occupied with<br />
personal issues and got confused about the shipment date<br />
and location.“That’s where everything began to spiral out of<br />
control,” Peel Regional Police Const. Dameon Okposio told CP.<br />
After the truck failed to show up in Montreal, the carrier<br />
company contracted to the military reported the shipment<br />
stolen. OPP and Peel Police didn’t have much trouble<br />
spotting the load shortly after as it rolled in the opposite<br />
direction, westbound toward Toronto.<br />
Curious onlookers could be forgiven for thinking the<br />
worst, as police seized the M113 armoured personnel<br />
carriers spec’d with ground-to-ground missile launchers<br />
used mainly for piercing tanks.<br />
�<br />
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However, opponents aren’t<br />
supporting faster trucks. They<br />
adamantly oppose the idea<br />
because they say it uses the<br />
government to regulate a<br />
more competitive playing field<br />
on behalf of OTA members<br />
currently using speed limiters,<br />
but who may be losing drivers<br />
to non-governed fleets.<br />
The charge against the<br />
proposal is being led by the<br />
Owner-Operator’s Business<br />
Association of Canada<br />
(OBAC), which is being<br />
flanked by the 130,000<br />
trucker-strong American<br />
group, Owner-Operator and<br />
<strong>In</strong>dependent Drivers<br />
Association (OOIDA). <strong>In</strong><br />
their final submissions to the<br />
MTO, both groups referenced<br />
several studies by<br />
Transport Canada, the<br />
University of Arkansas, and<br />
the National Highway Traffic<br />
Safety Administration<br />
(NHTSA), that showed that<br />
MARCH 2006 11
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