Mandatory speed governors imminent

A new law that will make “speed
governors” mandatory on every
commercial vehicle that exceeds a
gross vehicle mass of (GVM) of 3 500
kilograms is on track for a December
1, 2016 implementation deadline,
according to road traffic legislation
consultant, Alta Swanepoel.
“The speed governor must be
installed before the vehicle leaves
the factory floor,” said Swanepoel,
speaking at the Special Interest
Group (SIG) Transport Forum held in
Johannesburg last week.
She cited a Department of Transport
(DoT) notification stating that all
motor vehicle manufacturers would
need to fit a speed governor into
the vehicles before submitting their
models to be examined by the South
African Bureau of Standards (SABS)
for compliance.
“This means that there will be
no retro-fitting of vehicles after the
fact,” she said. Vehicles already on
the roads before the December 1
deadline will not have to have speed
governors fitted, although a DoT
insider told FTW on the sidelines of
the conference that the retro-fitting of
speed governors into old vehicles had
not been ruled out as a policy change
in the future.
Craig Uren, chief operating officer of
Isuzu Trucks South Africa, said he had
his doubts that all transport customers
fully understood the implications of
this amendment. According to him,
this would reduce certain customers’
delivery efficiency.
“There is going to be a lot of noise
from certain customers across all
brands when they see they can’t
actually move their goods in that
efficient way, which might be their
business success factor,” Uren said.
Quoted on Cape Talk Radio recently,
independent transport economist,
Andrew Marsay, questioned the
efficacy of the solution. “This is a
rather blunt instrument, and there
are other causes of accidents. Poorly
maintained vehicles for one, and poor
pedestrian discipline another,” he said.
In his view this new law could
potentially have a negative impact on
safety too. “A speed governor limits a
vehicle’s ability to accelerate out of a
troubling situation. Therefore trucks
will go uphill even more slowly as
they will no longer be able to get a run
down the other side.
Marsay has previously advocated
the segregation of truck and passenger
vehicles on potentially dangerous
stretches of road as a better solution to
road safety.