Fleets With Stability Controls Favor New NHTSA Mandate

This story appears in the June 4 print edition of Transport Topics.

Trucking companies that use stability control systems said they support the federal government’s proposal to mandate electronic stability control for all heavy vehicles, citing their own positive experiences with the systems.

Representatives of some fleets said they supported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s decision to propose an ESC mandate instead of the roll stability control, a cheaper system that prevents fewer crashes than ESC.

“I believe it’s one of the best tools that’s been implemented,” Neil Voorhees, director of safety and security for Trimac Transportation’s United States operations, told Transport Topics. “And for it to be pushed along even harder, I think that’s the right direction to go.”

Trimac, a bulk carrier based in Calgary, Alberta, uses stability control on about 65% of its U.S. tractor fleet, Voorhees said. Some trucks have ESC and some have RSC, depending on the truck’s use and its manufacturer, he said.

Both systems have brought major safety benefits to Trimac, Voorhees said. “I can tell you that rollovers on curves and ramps have reduced dramatically,” he said.

NHTSA said last month it wanted to mandate ESC for every new heavy vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating above 26,000 pounds. The systems would prevent up to 56% of rollovers and 14% of loss-of-control crashes, the agency said (5-21, p. 1).

Shortly after NHTSA published its proposal, American Trucking Associations expressed cautious optimism about a mandate, saying it would analyze the proposal closely before filing comments on it.

“We’re encouraged that NHTSA is looking at this important area of truck safety,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a May 22 statement.

Fleets such as Trimac and Prime Inc. already have expressed support for the mandate.

“We definitely support the rule,” said David White, safety supervisor at Prime. “We think it’s good for highway safety.”

Prime has stability control systems in all of its 4,300 trucks, with about 70% having RSC and the rest using ESC, said White. Comparing a three-year period when Prime’s trucks did not have stability controls and a three-year period with the systems, White saw that the fleet’s rollover crashes dropped by about 50%.

Despite the additional cost of ESC, White said he favors that option because of its added ability to prevent loss-of-control crashes.

“It’s just an extra feature that the roll stability doesn’t have,” he said. “I think it definitely helps, especially in snow conditions.”

White supports NHTSA’s choice of ESC over RSC because of ESC’s additional safety benefits, he said.

In its proposal, the agency said ESC costs about $1,160 per truck, compared with $640 for RSC. And though RSC had a lower cost for each life that a mandate would have saved, ESC would have had a higher economic benefit overall, NHTSA found.

“When compared to this proposal, RSC systems would result in slightly lower cost per equivalent life saved but would produce net benefits that are lower than the net benefits from this proposal,” it said.

Bulk carrier Kenan Advantage Group Inc. also agreed with the ESC choice, said R.J. Molder, senior vice president of fleet services at the carrier. The extra cost is worth it for the crashes it prevents, he said.

“It’s peace of mind; it’s an [additional] insurance policy to ensure the safety of your fleet,” Molder said. “It kind of baffles me, personally, that there are some carriers who are actually struggling with the concept of it.”

Kenan has purchased only tractors with ESC since 2005, Molder said.

He used an analogy to compare RSC to ESC: “It’s the hand tool versus the power tool. Both kind of get the job done in a way, but the power tool is an extra layer of protection,” he said. The cost differential is negligible if you consider it through the life of the truck, he said.

Fred Andersky, director of government affairs for Bendix Commercial Vehicle systems, said NHTSA’s cost estimates may have overestimated the actual price differential.

“I think the cost differential is really about half what they said,” he said.

Additionally, Bendix’s own research found a larger difference in the effectiveness rates of the two systems than NHTSA estimated.

“If the differential is lower, and the effectiveness is higher, the difference really starts to point more toward why ESC is a better system,” Andersky said.

Some fleets currently choose RSC over ESC, but ESC’s benefits are clearly superior, said Mark Melletat, director of field operations for Meritor Wabco.

“The data certainly demonstrates that, because it addresses these additional directional instabilities; you have further benefits,” Melletat said.