Speeders in Germany won’t brake for global warming

Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher, the Formula One champion.

Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.

Now, though, Germany’s love of speed is colliding with its fears about global warming, as its Sunday race-car drivers are spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
Earlier this month, the European Union’s environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas of Greece, set off a national debate by suggesting that the German government introduce a general speed limit on the autobahn.

To be sure, at least half of the 7,500 miles of autobahn already have either permanent or temporary speed limits.

But the autobahn’s anything-goes stretches are the world’s fastest public roads.

“Speed limits are useful for many reasons, and are the order of the day in most of the EU’s 27 member states and the United States,” Dimas said. “Strangely enough, it is only in Germany where they are controversial.”

Houston Chronicle