Yahoo Finance Threat of a motorway speed limit sparks an emotional outcry in Germany
Germans are livid after a leaked working paper on cutting transport carbon emissions revealed a proposal for a 130kph (80mph) speed limit along all of the famously fast German autobahn.
A special transport committee, tasked with coming up with ideas on how to cut carbon emissions, proposed electric car quotas and a hike on fuel taxes. But it was their suggestion of a speed limit on the country’s beloved motorways that has sparked the heated debate that is still raging across the media and Twitter.
Environmentalists say imposing a speed limit is worth it. Deutsche Umwelthilfe (Environmental Action Germany), an environmental and consumer protection NGO, said that an all-round speed limit would protect the environment, make roads safer, and improve traffic flow.
Umwelthilfe boss Jürgen Resch said in an interview the NGO was demanding a speed limit of 120kph on all motorways and 80kph on country roads, which he said would save up to 5 million tonnes of C02 per year.
Around 60% of Germany’s nearly 13,000km (8,000-plus miles) of motorway is speed-limit-free, with occasional temporary limits imposed. Traffic accounts for around 12% of all the country’s CO2 emissions.
However, according to Reuters’ assessment of the data available to the transport committee, imposing a 130kph speed limit would save just 3 million tonnes of CO2 per year — and the transport sector needs to save 55 million tonnes by 2030 to hit climate targets.
One of the politicians to rubbish the idea of a speed limit was the transport minister Andreas Scheuer himself — despite the fact that his ministry commissioned the transport committee report. Scheuer called the proposals “completely exaggerated, unrealistic mind games” adding that “demands that provoke anger, annoyance and stress or endanger our prosperity, will not become reality.”
Any discussion of an autobahn speed limit quickly becomes emotional in the country that allows people to put their high-performance cars through their paces at face-warping speeds. Former Greens leader Cem Özdemir described what he called the “irrational” speed limit debate in Germany as “rather like discussing the right to carry arms with Americans.”
Car companies have long been firmly against an autobahn-wide speed limit. Stephan Weil, premier of the state of Lower Saxony—which holds a stake in carmaker Volkswagen—called a speed limit “unnecessary,” telling Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschlands that he drives a lot on the autobahn and finds that on average people don’t drive faster than 130kph anyway. Weil himself is a member of the is VW supervisory board.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday that there is still no political agreement on what the government wants for the transport sector, apart from a “coherent overall concept.” The committee is expected to deliver the full report at the end of March.
