Bunch of killyjoys, always trying to ruin everything for Other People
Climate rules could put brakes on Germany’s no-limit autobahns
The days of unlimited speeding on Germany’s famously fast Autobahn network could be over if the government adopts draft proposals on climate protection put forward by its committee on the future of transport.
Charged with devising recommendations on reducing the environmental harm caused by transport, the committee also proposed fuel tax hikes and electric vehicle quotas to help Germany finally meet European Union emissions targets.
The proposals, outlined in a draft paper seen by Reuters, could prove controversial in car-mad Germany, whose decades-old motorway network is famous for no-limit sections where drivers can put even the fastest cars through their paces.
Germany could be hit with heavy EU fines if it fails to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and poisonous nitrogen oxides. Transport emissions, which have not fallen since 1990, are a particular target for reductions.
Well, good luck with this, especially the taxes, of which Germans already pay quite a lot. They should take a look at their neighbor to the west, France (there’s a joke in there, but, I won’t trot it out), and see what happened when the frog (sic) noticed the water boiling, ie, taxation up the wazoo.
The paper says measures including a motorway speed limit of 130km/h (80mph) and fuel tax rises from 2023, the abolition of tax breaks for diesel cars, and quotas for electric and hybrid car sales could deliver half the greenhouse gas emissions cuts that are needed.
The committee has yet to finalise the recommendations. It is due to report its findings at the end of March, which will then be incorporated into a climate change law the government wants to enact this year.
But the committee is well aware that many of its suggestions could be controversial.
They should recommend that government employees and elected officials be the first to live the carbon neutral life, giving up their big fossil fuels usage ways and more. See how quick they all repudiate the Cult of Climastrology, like people do when they escape Scientology.
Most places on the autobahn were already restricted just because there is too much automotive congestion to safely operate at unrealistic speeds. The danger is not the speed, it’s the merging between fast and slow vehicles.