Speed on the autoroutes
You have to hand it to the Union pour la Democratie Francaise (UDF). With just thirty French MPs, their annual congress does not rate many column inches in the national press, except that is, when they lead the opposition to a highly unpopular government measure.
The UDF ridiculed government attempts to reduce the speed limit on autoroutes from 130 kph to 115 kph in order to reduce oil consumption: apparently, a car travelling at the present limit uses 20 per cent more fuel than one travelling 15 kph slower. Party spokesman Daniel Dubois called the proposal “The floating limit”. “What happens if the price of oil doubles,” he asked rhetorically: “Will the speed limit on motorways go down to 60kph?”
Even the majority party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), dismissed the proposal out of hand. UMP spokesman Luc Chatel said that “coercion” was not the way to get French citizens to reduce fuel consumption and the law would quickly fall into disrepute.
The French government hastily abandoned the proposal. The only real surprise is that they attempted to win support for it in the first place. Only a year ago, a more modest speed reduction of 10 kph was put forward as a means of meeting the target on greenhouse gas emissions and this also failed. Fifteen tears ago the then French prime minister Michel Rocard ran into a storm of protest when he tried to introduce a 110 km limit on motorways, in order to reduce the high road death level.
Article from our December 2005 e-newsletter
