Editorial: Yes to the ESC Rule

Few things within trucking are scarier than a fully loaded, heavy-duty rig swerving uncontrollably or rolling over. Eagerness to avoid such nightmare scenarios has led many fleets to buy electronic stability control systems from their original equipment manufacturers.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has observed the technology, its performance and the purchases by truck operators. Last week, NHTSA issued a new rule, stipulating that this industry best practice should be made standard on nearly all new highway tractors in two years.

We like the rule that Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced June 3, and we consider it a model for how NHTSA and other federal agencies should develop regulations.

Proposed in 2012, the ESC rule is a well-considered, incremental step and not a radical leap into the unknown. Manufacturers have been touting the systems at truck shows for nearly a decade: first the vendors who developed the systems and then the truck makers who sold them as options.

Electronic stability control is the smart, younger brother of anti-lock air brakes. Sensors feed data into a control module and, if the truck is out of balance or skidding in the wrong direction, the processor makes thousands of calculations, figures out how to brake and then applies them.

This can eliminate an accident or lessen its severity, thereby reducing vehicle and other property damage and, most critically, saving lives.

“Ensuring the safety of America’s highways has always been ATA’s highest calling,” said American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves. “We’ve long known the positive role technology can play in making our vehicles and our roads safer. [The] announcement by NHTSA will reduce crashes on our highways and make our industry safer.”

This is a tremendously appealing package, and the cost is quite endurable. NHTSA looked at the additional money it takes to install an ESC system on a truck over a baseline of anti-lock brakes alone. The cost was not quite $550 per truck.

That figure is probably not accurate for a retail price, but $1,000 a truck is about right, and the potential for savings pays for the small investment very quickly.

Stability control is also an important steppingstone for active collision-mitigation systems, and even autonomous trucks and platoon configurations.

We hope the rule makes rollovers and jackknifing a thing of the past. That will contribute to a good night’s sleep for everybody.