Row on EU driving speed control

Publication date: 07 April 2005

The European Commissioner in charge of Energy, Andris Piebalgs suggested in an interview on Thursday to introduce a general driving speed limit of 90 km/h. His suggestion is based on the fact that Germans drive extremely fast using a lot of petrol while the price of the oil is high. He said that the EU suffers from high oil prices that damage competitiveness and economic development. Piebalgs believes that not only the producing countries but also the consuming countries need to tackle the problem.

Piebalgs supports a proposal of the International Energy Agency (IEA), that suggested in a recent study a European-wide speed limit of 90 km/h in order to diminish the pressure on the oil market. Germany is one of the last countries of the EU that has not introduced a general driving speed limit yet, whereas most countries have already introduced a limit between 90 to 130 km/h.

The suggestion is meeting a lot of resistance in Germany. The ADAC doubts the sense of such a measure and believes that it is not possible to enforce it. The ADAC has done a lot to promote greener driving as well as the use of “appropriate” speeds in any given environment, with a view to optimising petrol consumption.