The members of the Green Party came forward with the initiative to post a speed limit up to 130 km/h on all German highways. The petition was discussed during a meeting in the Bundestag, which took place last week on October 18.
«The implementation of a speed limit would be a reasonable obligation for the enlightened society of the 21st century,» the Green politician Cem Özdemir, chairman of the transport committee of the German federal Parliament, said in his interview to the German «Spiegel».
«This whole debate is similar in part to coming to terms with the US Republicans on the topic of gun control,» highlighted the former leader of the Green Party. He said that the Party wanted to proceed with a roll-call vote in the Bundestag.
Posting the speed limit up to 130 km/h is already a part of measures undertaken for climate protection, which was adopted by the party’s parliamentary group in early September. The move will obviously attract the attention of the whole coalition.
The Greens’ initiative has in its aim, which was set by the Federal Government in 2011, to reduce the number of deaths in car accidents by 40 percent by 2020. The goal is far from being reached as well as in terms of complying with the demands of the European Commission to cut the number of accidents by two within 2010-2020.
Moreover, the launch of climate protection package becomes more realistic with the introduction of a general speed regulation on motorways.
«A speed limit leads to lowering the amounts of CO2 emissions thus representing an efficient climate protection measure as it is,» the Greens say.
However, it is still questionable whether the application will succeed: the majority in the Parliament reject it. The heads of Social Democratic Party of Germany are planning to call on their colleagues to support coalition discipline and to vote against the proposal, says «Spiegel». On the other hand, Svenja Schulze, the Environment Minister, noted that she favours the implementation of general speed limits on German motorways.
Andreas Scheuer, the German Minister of Transport, has long been opposed to establishing a speed limit. The politician rejected all proposals at the beginning of the year as they «ran counter all common sense».
«Demands that provoke anger, annoyance, stress or endanger our prosperity will never be real and so I reject them,» he said.
The Free Democratic Party politician Oliver Luksic accused the Greens of leading an «obsessively green culture fight against cars and individual mobility».
Michael Mertens, vice president of the Police Union said in an interview with Handelsblatt that he supported the introduction of the speed regulations.
«Environmental issues are outside our competence, but we urgently need to post speed limits for transport security reasons,» he said.
«It’s wrong that the federal government refuses to give the go-ahead even on a trial basis.»
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