It is without great surprise that the government has decided to ignore a new ecological measure yet recommended by scientists and environmental associations.
Indeed, the Prime Minister has confirmed that she will not lower the speed limit on French motorways.
A common sense measure?
During the Citizen’s Climate Convention (which ended in June 2020), no less than 149 proposals were made with the aim of finding solutions to fight climate change. Among the projects rejected from the outset by Emmanuel Macron, we find the lowering of the speed on the highways to 110 km / h. However, a recent poll shows that 68% of French people are in favor of this proposal.
It must be said that the arguments lean rather in favor of this measure. First of all, it would allow a light vehicle to emit 16% less greenhouse gases compared to the same car traveling at 130 km/h. In addition, this drop in speed would have a positive impact on fuel consumption, which would also drop by 16%. Enough to give a little boost to purchasing power. Finally, the new limitation would only lead to a loss of time of 8 minutes every 100 km.
The fear of strong opposition
Despite all the reasons mentioned above, the Prime Minister (also in charge of ecological and energy planning) Élisabeth Borne has positioned herself against this measure. At the microphone of BFM TV, she explains that she is not going to “right way” and that the “time constraints” would be too much for the drivers.
In addition, several associations in the field of road safety had also expressed reluctance. They mentioned in particular the fact that motorists could decide to fall back on more accident-prone roads in the event of a reduction to 110 km / h on the motorways. However, these are quite logically guesses since the measure has not been tested on a large scale.
Anyway, after the stormy transition to 80 km / h on departmental roads in July 2018, the government seems to want to avoid yet another debate related to speed on the road network.
Source : What to choose
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