There’s no Limit…Yet!
The tragedy of the German Autobahn
Making use of the timid relaxations of COVID-19 restrictions, I recently went on a trip to Amsterdam. I went there by car and — as always when crossing the German border — had to reduce my speed as all our neighbouring countries have general speed limits of 140, 130 or even 120 km/h on their highways, while Germany is famous for its Autobahn with sections where there is no speed limit at all [1].
Having learned to drive in a country, where I could go faster than 200 km/h without breaking any law, I cannot help but feel unnecessarily limited, incredibly slow and mildly bored when crawling along in cruise control at 130 km/h.
I kind of like to drive myself and remain in control of the vehicle. I like the feeling of softly being pressed into my seat when I hit the accelerator and I probably also get an odd sense of power when speeding past other cars.
I guess that’s not very adult of me and — come to think of it — for the same reason of remaining in control and some ill-guided pride, I did prefer manual cars to those with an automatic transmission until I discovered the advantages of not having to shift gears myself.
To some Germans (and I don’t mean those weirdos that will proudly remind you that the first Autobahn was built in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich), the Autobahn and its promise of unlimited speed is an issue of national pride and almost has some kind of religious significance. So naturally, discussions about the introduction of a general speed limit are something very emotional in Germany.
Only recently, Robert Habeck of the German green party demanded just such a limit which should be set at 130 km/h [2]. Grinding my teeth, I have to admit that there are actually some very valid arguments in favour of such limits:
The Ecological Argument
Fuel consumption (and thus CO2 emissions) increases disproportionately with increasing speed. This causes insane fuel consumption at speeds around 200 km/h and above.
A study by the German Environment Agency (“Umweltbundesamt”) shows that a general speed limit of 130 km/h would annually save 1.9 million tons of CO2 equivalent [3].
Sounds good…but how much in relation to our climate protection goals is that actually?
I was curious and indeed found some numbers: Germany has committed itself to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of >40% by 2020 and >55% by 2030 as compared to the emissions of 1990 [4]. In 1990, Germany emitted a total of 1,251 million tons of CO2 equivalent [5]. So a reduction of 40% would mean emitting 500.4 million tons less, allowing us to emit no more than 750.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020.
I hate to break it to you, but it’s 2020 now and we emitted 811 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2019 [5]. So should we actually hit the target this year, then it’s probably only due to the special circumstances brought about by COVID-19.
Putting things in perspective (and not accounting for COVID-19 related reductions), we would need to reduce our emissions by 60.4 million tons of CO2 equivalent. 1.9 million tons is a respectable 3.15% of that enormous number and even 12.95% of the 14.67 million tons of reduction we achieved on average in the past 30 years. I’d say, it doesn’t solve all our problems, but it could be one not entirely insignificant step in the right direction.
The Safety Argument
Being the only roads without a general speed limit in the world [1] has earned the German Autobahn a questionable fame that even attracts what you might call “speeding tourists”, i.e. people who only come to Germany to experience going as fast as they want (and their cars can go) for a stretch of a couple of kilometres. As these people have not grown up with these conditions and been trained in these speeds and since they usually rent very powerful sports cars, they tend to be a threat for other road users.
However, “speeding tourists” aren’t the only danger on German roads: Going faster obviously means less time to react in case of unexpected obstacles, driving behaviour of fellow road users, etc. In theory, this should provoke more accidents.
In addition to that, higher speeds should also increase the average severity of accidents, leading to more deaths.
Having these thoughts in mind, I was astounded that Germany’s roads actually seem to be among the safest 25% within the EU with annually “only” 39 deaths per million citizens [6].
Now don’t get too exited you speeding enthusiasts out there. For one thing, most fatalities occur in cities (I guess because there are a lot more accidents with pedestrians and cyclists there). So comparing the number of fatalities alone is not enough. And then there are also a great number of other influence factors that may drive these numbers in other countries (What other traffic laws are in place? How well are drivers trained? How are road and weather conditions? How safe are the cars people drive? …). To get a real measurement, we’d ceterus paribus have to introduce the speed limits in our country.
Maybe the safety argument doesn’t hold — we cannot really tell. My subjective impression has always been that at speeds of 200 km/h and more, you automatically stay very focussed on the actual driving while at speeds below 130 km/h you tend to “relax” a bit too much sometimes.
I personally also find it very tiring to always see the same cars in front of, next to and behind me, which tends to happen when the general speed limit is so low that basically every car can reach it and no driver feels uncomfortable going that fast.
A lobby always arguing against general speed limits is, of course, the German automotive industry:
The Economical Argument
It may be argued, that the German automotive industry needs the German Autobahn as a “showroom” for the powerful and beautifully engineered German cars. What good is a car that can easily go 260 km/h if you cannot ever prove that it can actually do it?
That the automotive industry is one of the most important industry branches in Germany and that Germany heavily depends on it, is beyond any doubt. But do people from countries where they are not allowed to actually use the speed capabilities of their cars really buy German cars because their cars could theoretically go 260 km/h?
I really love our cars, might actually take some kind of national pride in them and have myself worked in the automotive industry. But if people across the world aren’t buying them for their exceptional quality, design and engineering, they most probably won’t buy them for a feature they cannot actually use in their country.
However, should Germany introduce a general speed limit of 130 km/h and the highest remaining general speed limit on earth be 140 km/h, it is a fair question to ask whether we actually need cars that can go faster than say 150/160 km/h at all…
Maybe speed limits become completely obsolete again once we have autonomous driving and “clean powered” cars. But for now, the discussion is worth its while at the very least.
When I returned to Germany from that Amsterdam trip, I wondered why there are no intermediate steps between the highest local speed limit of 130 km/h and the unlimited sections. Why are there no local speed limits of 140 / 150 / 160 / 170 / … km/h?
It almost appears to me as if no one has thought of introducing higher local speed limits as technology advanced and cars got faster.
And thinking of those intermediate speeds between 130 km/h and unlimited, couldn’t a general speed limit of e.g. 160 km/h be a compromise (or a first step)? We’d still have the “fastest roads on earth” but we’d maybe make them a little bit safer and we’d definitely save at least a proportion of those 1.9 million tons of CO2 equivalent!
