U.S. considering speed-limit device rule for trucks, buses

Reuters ^ | August 26, 2016 | Staff

[C19fan]

Trucks and buses in the United States may have to be equipped with devices to limit their speed under a proposed rule issued on Friday by the U.S. Transportation Department which said the move could save both lives and fuel.

The department will weigh setting speed limits at 60, 65 or 68 miles per hour for heavy commercial vehicles, but said it will consider other speeds based on comments from the public.

[Hoffer Rand]

How about a device that keeps the buses from running red lights? It’s bad enough when POVs run lights, but when you have state employees, driving state owned buses running not yellow, but solid red lights, that’s a little much.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

City, County, State and Fed vehicles exempt from this requirement.

[jonascord]

Surprising how many people don't remember when the Double Nickle was started, and trucks would get side by side on the interstate and do precisely 55. The jams were 40 miles long.

Now they are going to digitally limit it with governors? By whose authority, and where is the nearest tree and about 6 feet of piano wire? I don't want that much bland, vicious stupidity to spill into the general population.

[Axenolith]

Elizabeth Dole was the architect of the 55mph speed limit IIRC.

[eyeamok]

This is Great, I propose we start with ALL TAXPAYER OWNED VEHICLES, Then ALL Public Employees shall be required to have them installed on EVERY Vehicle they own or USE.

Get back to me in 2 years and tell me how it works.

[eastforker]

I don’t know if Shaker out of L.A. is still on the road, but his black peterbuilt would do well over 140MPH. He blew my doors off one night coming out of Houston at 100.

[showme_the_Glory]

Technology is already on them. Many fleets already are set at 62 or 65. You’ll recognize them when 1 truck is running 65 and the other one passing it is running 65.1. You get to follow behind.

[liberalism is suicide]

There’s the irony...the government wants to do the thinking for us, but government thinking is so dysfunctional that the the idea of government thinking is a curiosity.

[Smittie]

That was one good thing about California highways - truck lanes.

[Amendment10]

A major constitutional problem with the Transportation Department’s proposed regulation is this imo. The Founding States made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide these clauses from Congress, to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in faceless, non-elected federal bureaucrats like those running the EPA and the Transportation Department.

So Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal regulatory / legislative powers whether it wants it or not. But by delegating legislative branch powers to non-elected federal officials outside the legislative branch, such power actually 10th Amendment-protected state powers which the feds have stolen from the states in this case, corrupt Congress is wrongly protecting such power from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of Sections 1-3 referenced above.

Note that corrupt lawmakers are letting non-elected bureaucrats get away with stealing state powers probably so that these bureaucrats can do Congress’s unpopular, unconstitutional legislative work for it so that lawmakers can keep their voting records clean. And by keeping their voting records clean, crook lawmakers can fool low-information patriots into reelecting them.

Noting that Congress is likewise letting the FAA get away with stealing 10th Amendment-protected state powers to regulate the INTRAstate use of drones, consider that both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had warned about the corrupt federal government unconstitutionally expanding its powers in little steps.

• ”I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)

• ”To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” —Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791

• ”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.

Remember in November !

Patriots need to support Trump / Pence by also electing a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support Trump’s vision for making America great again for everybody, but will put a stop to unconstitutonal federal taxes and likewise unconstitutional inteference in state affairs.

Note that such a Congress will also probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.

[PIF]

Passing will be illegal and have hefty fines attached

[Buckeye McFrog]

I used to live next door to a Teamster.
Those guys are operating at a whole nother level.

An evil sinister level. But another level.

[USMCPOP]

I rode in a really fancy Mercedes-Benz bus in Mexico many years ago, from Morelia to Guadalajara. It had a buzzer if it exceeded about 55 MPH, and the stewardess on board told us about it.

Brand-new, had first-run US movies in English and at least a dozen overhead video screens. Drinks in a cooler in back and a curtain between passengers and cab. First class all the way.

[Alberta's Child]

There are two different issues here. The first is the separation of Federal and state powers. The second is the role of Congress and the executive branch in regulatory matters.

I suspect the first would not be relevant here because the USDOT regulations would only apply to those vehicles that are already under legitimate Federal oversight -- i.e., commercial carriers who cross state lines. And many concerns about the second are a bit overblown. I am all for Congress doing its job, but I can assure you that you don't want Congress to get involved in every single decision related to Federal oversight. I have no problem with Congress legitimately authorizing the Executive Branch to oversee areas that Congress simply doesn't have the expertise to deal with. You'd never have things like uniform road signs or a standard railroad gage in this country, for example, if Congress operated that way.

[AFreeBird]

They call those governors.

Government is bad.

[SES1066]

So much for a redo of ‘Duel’, Steven Spielberg’s first (1971) movie. If the evil Tractor Tanker is speed limited, the fear is gone. Dennis Weaver can breath again!

[Amendment10]

"I suspect the first would not be relevant here because the USDOT regulations would only apply to those vehicles that are already under legitimate Federal oversight -- i.e., commercial carriers who cross state lines."

Hi Alberta’s Child. The situation is complicated and I decided not to make a long post trying to follow the tangents, especially since I haven’t arrived at a conclusion concerning the issue.

Regarding legitimate federal oversight of vehicles, one constitutional problem with Eisenhower’s interstate highway system is the following imo. Although the states did constitutionally authorize the feds to build postal roads (1.8.7) the states have never constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific power to build an interstate highway system.

In other words, and with all due respect to the family and supporters of the late President Eisenhower, Eisenhower first needed to encourage Congress to successfully propose a highway amendment to the Constitution to the states before building the thing imo, but which he did not do. The requirement for a highway amendment to the Constitution is evidenced by President’s Madison’s veto of a same-idea project proposed by Congress in 1817.

Veto of federal public works bill, 1817

Also, while Congress does have Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3), another possible constitutional problem concerning commerce and highways is this. I question the scope of 1.8.3 where vehicles that move commerce is concerned. This is because I see references to the legal term “contract of carriage.”

Contract of carriage

The question that legal contracts introduce to the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers is this. The Supreme Court had decided in Paul v. Virginia that Congress’s Commerce Clause powers to do not extend to regulating contracts.

4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract [emphasis added] of indemnity against loss." - Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate contracts.)

So because vehicles which arguably carry commerce under contracts which Congress may have no Commerce Clause control over, such vehicles moving commerce on a highway system which was arguably built outside the framework of the Constitution, I must question if Congress has the Commerce Clause power to require that such vehicles be equipped with speed-limit devices.

Corrections, insights welcome.

[Alberta's Child]

Very good post. My professional work involves the planning and design of transportation systems and facilities, so I've had a keen interest in the Constitutional applications of these topics for years.

The Constitutional role of the Federal government in transportation is the subject of much discussion. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to build and maintain "post roads," it's hard to imagine how this would translate to modern times.

All Constitutional questions aside, the fact is that Congress authorized the construction of the first National Road in about 1806. This wasn't just a haphazard decision that was made, either. The construction of a road connecting the Ohio River valley to the East Coast was established by the Ohio territory as a condition of Ohio's admission to the union. The importance of a Federal role in transportation should have become clear by the War of 1812. The Federal government had a compelling interest in establishing roads for military purposes. Without a link from the interior of North America to the established states along the Atlantic Ocean, the interior regions of North America would end up having closer physical and commercial ties with areas under foreign control (primarily what is now Canada, back then) than with other U.S. states.

The U.S. as we know it couldn't exist without some kind of uniformity and standardization in its transportation infrastructure.

[Amendment10]

”… aside, the fact is that Congress authorized the construction of the first National Road in about 1806."

Thomas Jefferson, keenly aware of the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, signed the National Road bill into law.

In fact, Jefferson was not only aware of the discussion at the Constitutional Convention concerning Dr. Franklin’s suggestion to add the word canals to the US postal roads clause (1.8.7). the delegates to the ConCon ultimately rejecting Dr. Franklin's suggestion, but Jefferson was also aware that the delegates had rejected the idea out of concern that the feds would ultimately be able to use 1.8.7 as an excuse to establish a national bank as evidenced by the following excerpt from Jefferson's writings.

“A proposition was made to them to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons for rejection urged in debate was, that then they would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the great cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on the subject, adverse to the reception of the Constitution [emphasis added].” —Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.

The significance about Dr. Franklin’s suggestion for canals is that I wouldn’t be surprised if President Madison was thinking back to the discussion of Dr. Franklin’s suggestion at the ConCon since the public works bill also provided for building canals.

Again, while Madison agreed in his veto letter that canals and roads for commerce purposes is a good idea, the Founding States did not want to give the feds any excuse to establish a national bank.

"The U.S. as we know it couldn't exist without some kind of uniformity and standardization in its transportation infrastructure."

Other than inexcusably epidemic ignorance of the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, post-17th Amendment federal lawmakers probably not having a grip on those limited powers any more than the low-information voters who elected them did, there has never been anything stopping the Congress of a later generation from proposing a roads amendment to the Constitution to the states.

In fact, I think that the states would have been more than happy to ratify a interstate highway amendment to the Constitution so that Eisenhower could authorize the highway.