From The Daily Caller
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
Your chance to fly down Germany’s famous no speed-limit autobahns may be slipping away if the government decides to move forward with proposed regulations aimed at climate change.
A German government committee proposed fuel tax hikes, electric vehicle quotas and lower speed limits to meet European Union targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions. If targets aren’t met, Germany could face massive fines.
Germany, known for making high-performance and luxury vehicles, is also known for its autobahns, portions of which have no speed limits. While the recommendations aren’t final, they mirror proposals pushed by the neighboring French government as part of its climate agenda.
France’s government planned on raising carbon taxes on fuels at the beginning of 2019, but scrapped the planned fuel tax increases after weeks of violent protests. France also cut speed limits last year to reduce traffic fatalities.
French officials also touted lower speed limits as a way to reduce pollution and fight global warming by cutting auto emissions 30 percent. Drivers were not happy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (not pictured) hold a joint news conference at the Maximos Mansion in Athens, Greece, January 10, 2019. REUTERS/Costas Baltas.
Protests sparked in November over fuel taxes have since taken aim at lower speed limits. CNN reported in early January that 60 percent of France’s traffic cameras were vandalized. France is still plagued with riots over President Emmanuel Macron’s policies.
The German committee’s draft proposal suggests “a motorway speed limit of 130 kmh [about 80 miles per and fuel tax hikes 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,” according to an outline seen by Reuters.
The worry now is, will speed limits on autobahns anger the car-loving Germans as much as the French? What about when combined with increased fuel taxes? (RELATED: The Inside Story Of How Ocasio-Cortez’s Staff Came Up With The ‘Green New Deal’ Is Going To Surprise You)
“So it’s official, ‘climate’ activists ruin everything,” says the U.S.-based Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). ATR said the policies, if adopted, “will likely lead to a similar form of Yellow Vest protests as the most recent demonstrations against the attempt of French President Macron to raise fuel taxes.”
However, the city-state of Bremen put a speed limit on its freeways in 2008 over environmental concerns, and the region did not descend into mass rioting. Bremen already had speed limits on most highways to limit congestion and noise.
My personal wheeled speed record of 235kph was set on the autobahn north of Bern. Still havent gone any quicker despite doing occasional track days (short straights, less grunty cars). Sorry to hear it may be consigned to history.
Beware Yarpos, I know that region very well. A lot of plainclothes Passat/BMW 3 with what it takes to send you in jail for attempted premeditated murder and have your ride confiscated under the new madness, the ViaSecura set of laws.
Surprised no -one seems to have pointed out the sentence:
-“If targets aren’t met, Germany could face massive fines”-
Who has the authority , and the military might , to impose fines on a sovereign nation state ? China? Russia, President Trump?
Why are so many leaders of the West so abject? It would not be Germany that is paying fines to some mystical supranational power , but the people of Germany. We know Germans are immensely rich by general European standards but surely they do not yield up their income so nonchalantly. They must be a gift to scammers.
The would pay the fine to the EU …
They
Thank you Jaap, but that makes the situation more peculiar. I can understand that , if failing climate objectives leads to massive fines, they would want to implement the measures described. But it is generally thought (in UK anyway) that it is the French and Germans who set the rules of the EU. If so , why set up a system that would result in massive fines if they fail?
Either they have so much money that they simply don’t care or they never expected to fail climate objectives.
There is another possibility. France, with 95% low carbon power generation via nuclear and hydro know that they will not fail any system , so suckered the Germans into a system that they knew the Germans would fail. Is there not something about a dish best eaten cold?
(Am I trying to drive a wedge of distrust between France and Germany – definitely)
Sometimes EU is similar tu US, sometimes to USSR.
It’s a strange thing, because really sometimes it defends freedom, free and competitive markets, and so on.
Other times it forces stupid things, in a totally undemocratic way.
I think EU needs to change, and an important thing to change is its enviromental policies.
We are not free anymore to buy a normal incandescent light bulb (because “not efficient” in their head), vacuum cleaner power is limited to 900W, to make a couple of examples.
No debate about these: they are banned, and stop.
Hmmm…
the no speed limit thing applies only to some motorways/freeways/autobahns… half or less, I believe.
Most of Germany has very restricted speeds…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_Germany
Not really a big deal? seems more like a bit of a publicity stunt rather than climate action?
About from 50% to 66% of german motorways are without limits.
Due to variable limits in some parts.
Being there is really like to move into the free world from ddr.
Difficult to explain, but it’s a beautiful thing.
I pretty much learned to drive on the autobahn at 18yrs old.
as an MP I also saw what happens when rules of road not obeyed by idiots.
best training ever.
we rented a ferrari one day, 200+ MPH was a rush.
rode with polezei in supercharged opels too. fast as hell (high geared) on autobahn.
best training ever.
prob why I got a few felony speeding tickets after getting back here….
like 153 in a 25….
that cost me.
This is absolutely stupid p..nis size stuff all over again!
Why are people so obessed with size and power?
Chapman had a point.
He was right about accelerating small weights to high speeds could only done with brains not brawn.
Removing weight is the most beneficial thing you can do, yet here we have yet again the p..nis enlargement contest.
It’s a fact since 2005 most production cars have gained bloat worthy of a Microsoft OS.
500bhp for a German car was supposed to be the ultimate pr…k inflation contest.
Now it becomes 600bhp, the tyres are huge, the weight enormous, and ego even bigger.
None of this is going to end well.
The most impressive cars I ever drive are those the go round corners and brake.
(I make my living doing that kind of stuff).
How is that supposed to square with increased power and ever higher weight.
It’s utter stupidity, and it’s precisely this sort of stuff that “Deutschland uber alles” is promulgating.
POWER AND SPEED IS BORING, just for the same reasons TOP GEAR became infantile and boring.
I find the macho-4 exhaust-bling and blast current atmosphere utterly repulsive to the point I get on the side of limiting 4wd drive in cities (MUST BE BANNED), and motorcycles, especially German ones x25 flogging their crap around mountains anywhere but in Germany (REMOVE ALL THEIR LICENCES IF THEY GO OVER 87dBA)!
I said enough about the stupid sheer waste of throwing 85-95% of every tank of fuel away as waste heat, but there in 2019 we live in an absolutely obsolete life style anyhow!
I think you are boring. Transports and technologies evolve.
We have fast trains, we have cheap flights for everywhere, speed is fundamental for everything in our lives, but on car we must move at ridicolous speeds, slower than 50 years ago, with cars that look like starships when compared to those years. Germany demostrates no real safety issue.
It makes no sense.
The only sense is to force every person in a Trabant, like they used to do in DDR.
Why don’t they charge taxes on plane flights instead?
Because planes are anyway public transport, and so they are “good”?
Freedom is sacred, and it must be defended.
you need a hobby. I suggest m*sturb*ting.
Well said, dmacleo. The left/green illiberals always find ways to restrict others, just because they don’t like their habits. If it concerns their own interests, suddenly there are no restrictions at all. Take a look at the german landscape. Completely destroyed by windmills which can be built everywhere without any problems. Building new roads takes years for planning and end up blocked forever because that road might have touched the path of a green-yellow-striped-tail- frog from Kasachstan that somebody saw there some 20 years ago.
When Germans are in the mood to start a revolution in the RR station, the very first thing they’ll do is to buy platform tickets. Gilets jaunes in Germany? Nevah evah.
“The German committee’s draft proposal suggests “a motorway speed limit of 130 kmh [about 80 miles per and fuel tax hikes 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,” according to an outline seen by Reuters.”
I am always amazed at the complete lack of any logical thought from these Eco-Nazis.
Reduced speed limits may get some fuel savings from aerodynamic drag, but increased congestion from vehicles occupying the available road space for a longer period to go the same distance is likely to cancel that “savings.”
Abolition of tax breaks for diesel powered cars won’t affect emissions of those already on the road, which many will probably be for a decade or more. And anyone with common sense will still favor fossil fuel powered vehicles over EVs, given the inadequate range (not to mention its gross exaggeration – see the information about Nissan/Renault’s “conditions” for calculating EV range above).
And the crown of stupidity, the “quotas for electric and hybrid cars” will increase the amount of the transport energy mix coming from electricity, which, being generated mostly by coal, will probably mean a net INCREASE in CO2 emissions compared with gasoline or diesel fuel.
Dummkopfs!