There is no federal speed limiter mandate for trucks in the United States, and no proposal is pending. On July 24, 2025, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) withdrew the proposal to require speed limiting devices on heavy trucks, ending a rulemaking that began with petitions in 2006. What remains is provincial: Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia require most heavy trucks to be governed at no more than 105 km/h. Here is what the federal proposal would have done, why it was dropped, and what carriers on both sides of the border still have to follow.
Updated October 10, 2026: earlier versions of this article described the federal proposal as pending and said a final rule could arrive in late 2026 or early 2027. It was withdrawn on July 24, 2025, and this page now reflects that.
A Long Road: The Rulemaking History
The push for mandatory speed limiters on heavy trucks dates to 2006. On September 8, 2006, the safety group Road Safe America, joined by nine motor carriers, petitioned FMCSA. On October 20, 2006, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) petitioned NHTSA and FMCSA. Both petitions asked for trucks over 26,000 pounds to be limited to no more than 68 mph. NHTSA granted the petitions in 2011, and the two agencies published a joint Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on September 7, 2016.
That 2016 proposal drew 7,225 public comments by the close of its comment period on December 7, 2016, and no final rule followed. In May 2022, FMCSA published an advance notice of supplemental proposed rulemaking (ANSPRM) announcing a follow-up proposal aimed at motor carriers rather than truck manufacturers. That notice drew 15,638 comments, and more than 15,000 of them included statements opposing the rulemaking.
On July 24, 2025, NHTSA and FMCSA withdrew the 2016 NPRM, and FMCSA withdrew its 2022 notice. The agencies cited "significant policy and safety concerns and continued data gaps" that left the costs and benefits too uncertain, and concluded that the 2016 proposal lacked "a sufficiently clear and compelling safety justification" and raised federalism concerns. As of October 10, 2026, no new federal speed limiter proposal has appeared in the Federal Register.
What the Withdrawn Proposal Would Have Required
The 2016 NPRM would have required new trucks, buses, school buses and multipurpose passenger vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) over 26,000 pounds to be equipped with a speed limiting device and sold with it set no higher than a speed to be chosen in the final rule. FMCSA would have required motor carriers to maintain the devices for the service life of the vehicle. The agencies asked for comment on speeds from 60 to 68 mph and analyzed three settings:
- 60 mph: the lowest setting analyzed.
- 65 mph: the setting for which the agencies estimated 63 to 214 lives saved a year.
- 68 mph: the highest setting analyzed, and the cap the 2006 petitions asked for.
No speed was ever chosen. Among 2016 commenters who named one, preferences split almost evenly among the three. The 2022 ANSPRM described a different approach: motor carriers operating commercial motor vehicles of 26,001 pounds or more in interstate commerce would have had to set any engine control unit (ECU) already capable of governing speed to a maximum to be determined in the rulemaking, and keep that setting for the vehicle's service life.
Which Trucks It Would Have Covered
The 26,000-pound line sits between Class 6 and Class 7 in the federal vehicle weight classes, so both proposals targeted Class 7 (26,001 to 33,000 pounds) and Class 8 (over 33,000 pounds), the classes the Federal Highway Administration calls heavy duty. The 2016 NPRM applied only to newly manufactured vehicles. It did not propose a retrofit requirement for trucks already on the road, though it asked for comment on one. The 2022 notice would have reached existing trucks, but only those with an ECU able to govern speed, and the withdrawal notice says all recently manufactured heavy vehicles come equipped with one.
Because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations apply to commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce, which includes trips between a US state and a place outside the United States, a final rule would have reached Canadian and Mexican carriers on US roads. With both proposals withdrawn, no federal speed limiter requirement applies to any truck operating in the US.
The Industry Split
The withdrawal notice says the arguments made in 2022 were largely identical to those made in 2016. ATA, one of the 2006 petitioners, later urged a higher 70 mph setting for trucks equipped with and using automatic emergency braking (AEB) and adaptive cruise control, as did Road Safe America. Supporters of the 2022 notice included the National Transportation Safety Board, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Truckload Carriers Association and The Trucking Alliance, mostly on safety grounds. Some fleets did not wait for a rule: the withdrawal notice says various operators have set maximum speeds voluntarily, in part for the fuel savings and safety benefits they attribute to the devices.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) opposed both proposals. Its arguments, shared by many of the more than 15,000 comments against the 2022 notice, were that governed trucks create dangerous speed differentials with faster traffic, that FMCSA lacked the legal authority, and that slower trucks mean fewer miles, fewer pickups and deliveries, and lower pay for drivers.
Research does not settle the speed differential question. The agencies' own 2025 notice says research "varies on the topic of speed differentials and their impact on crash rates."
The Safety Data
For the 2016 proposal, the agencies estimated that a 65 mph setting would save 63 to 214 lives a year and produce $848 million in fuel and emissions savings, against annual costs that ranged from $209 million to $1.561 billion depending on the set speed. The safety estimate rested on crashes becoming less severe. The agencies could not estimate whether the rule would prevent crashes or cause new ones, including cars striking the rear of trucks held to a lower speed.
By 2025, the agencies judged even their baseline uncertain. Automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning, fitted to a growing share of heavy trucks, could prevent some of the same crashes, and NHTSA and FMCSA had proposed in 2023 to require AEB on heavy vehicles. The withdrawal notice concludes that regulation "should not proceed until a more certain assessment of the effect of advanced crash avoidance technologies can be made."
Canada's Approach: Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia Require 105 km/h
Canada's speed limiter rules are provincial, and the US withdrawal does not affect them. Ontario and Quebec have both required speed limiters on heavy trucks since 2009, and British Columbia has since April 5, 2024.
Ontario. Since January 1, 2009, section 68.1 of the Highway Traffic Act has barred driving a commercial motor vehicle on a highway without an activated, functioning speed limiter, and Regulation 587 requires it to be set at a maximum of 105 km/h (about 65 mph). The rule covers trucks and tractors built after 1994 with a manufacturer's GVWR of 11,794 kg or more and an electronic control module that can be programmed to limit speed. Buses, mobile cranes, motor homes, ambulances and fire apparatus are exempt; trucks plated outside Ontario are not. The fine on conviction is $250 to $20,000, and a law passed in June 2026 will raise the minimum to $1,000 once that change is brought into force. In a prosecution, proof that a truck was driven at 115 km/h or more is, absent evidence to the contrary, proof that its limiter was not working as required. Our Ontario trucking regulations overview covers the rule alongside CVOR and other provincial requirements.
Quebec. Section 519.15.3 of the Highway Safety Code bars an operator from letting a heavy vehicle be driven unless its speed limiter is activated, set at a maximum of 105 km/h, in proper working order and allows its programming data to be read. A ministerial order in force since January 1, 2009 applies the rule to heavy vehicles assembled after December 31, 1994 with a GVWR of at least 11,794 kg, except emergency vehicles, tool vehicles, buses, trailers, semi-trailers, detachable axles and vehicles used for personal purposes. The operator's fine is $350 to $1,050.
British Columbia. Since April 5, 2024, section 146.1 of the Motor Vehicle Act has barred driving or operating a heavy commercial vehicle on a highway unless it has a speed limiter that is activated and set to the prescribed maximum, which Division 7E of the Motor Vehicle Act Regulations sets at 105 km/h. A heavy commercial vehicle is one built after 1994 with a GVWR over 11,793 kg and an electronically controlled engine. Motor homes and emergency vehicles are excluded, and a truck whose engine control module cannot meet the requirements can be exempted on the owner's application. A ticket for a missing, deactivated or wrongly set limiter is $368, including the victim surcharge.
For a cross-border fleet, the provincial setting is the one that binds. A covered truck governed above 105 km/h for US highways is out of compliance as soon as it is driven in Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia.
The Fuel Savings Argument
Fuel savings were a central part of the case for the rule, and the 2016 analysis counted them among its main benefits. Aerodynamic drag increases with the square of velocity, meaning each additional mile per hour above 55 mph produces a disproportionate increase in fuel consumption.
The agencies also conceded what they could not predict: a rebound effect as fuel use per mile fell, and the chance that slower trucks would put more trucks on the road, which would reduce the overall fuel savings. For a single fleet the question is simpler. Governing remains a business decision, and its fuel effect can be measured on your own trucks and lanes.
Enforcement: How It Would Have Worked, and How the Provinces Do It
The 2016 NPRM would have required each truck's set speed, and its two most recent changes, to be readable through the on-board diagnostic (OBD) connection, so that FMCSA and its state partners could check compliance during roadside inspections.
Ontario and Quebec already check limiters at the roadside. Ontario's Highway Traffic Act lets a police officer or enforcement officer require access to a truck's computer system to read its speed limiter information, and Quebec requires the limiter to allow its programming data to be read. The 2016 NPRM described both provinces as using standard speed enforcement, backed by portable testing units connected to a port in the cab. British Columbia's Motor Vehicle Act lets a peace officer stop a truck and inspect, test and retrieve information from its speed limiter. All three provinces also prohibit devices that defeat the limiter: Ontario and British Columbia ban equipment that sends inaccurate speed or engine-speed data to the electronic control module, and Quebec bans any technology that lets a truck exceed 105 km/h despite the limiter or hides its programming.
What Carriers Should Do Now
With no federal rule to prepare for, the work is provincial compliance and fleet policy.
- Check every truck that runs in Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia. Unless one of the exemptions above applies, a truck built after 1994 with a GVWR of 11,794 kg or more and a programmable engine control module must be governed at 105 km/h or less in all three provinces, whatever its plates.
- Keep the settings readable and untouched. Officers in all three provinces can read the limiter's settings at the roadside, and all three ban devices that hide a higher speed.
- Treat a US governed speed as fleet policy. No federal rule sets one, and the withdrawal notice says operators remain free to limit the speed of their own vehicles. Weigh transit time, driver pay and fuel on your own lanes before choosing a setting.
- Train your drivers. Speed limiters change driving behavior, particularly on hills and during passing maneuvers. Drivers need to understand how to operate safely within a governed speed environment.
- Watch the Federal Register. A new federal speed limiter rule would normally begin with a proposal published there for public comment, so carriers would have notice.
The Bottom Line
The federal speed limiter rulemaking, one of trucking's longest-running debates, ended in July 2025 without a rule. NHTSA and FMCSA withdrew the proposal over safety, cost and federalism concerns, and no new proposal has been published. For US operations, a governed speed is a fleet decision. For trucks that run in Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia, 105 km/h is the law, and that is the setting cross-border fleets need to get right.