Plans to limit speed on motorways threaten a cherished freedom, writes Derek Scally
Germany is the only country in the world where the need for speed is a basic right. Anyone with a fast car and strong nerves can push both to the limit on two-thirds of the country's 12,000km autobahn (motorway) network. The motorway is a playground for overgrown boy racers who take the boredom out of their daily commute by turning it into a white-knuckle ride. Then there are the so-called Geisterfahrer or ghost drivers who, either to avoid traffic or to end their lives, race at speed down the wrong side of the autobahn, but that's another story.
In Germany, speed is a sacred freedom, like the right to bear arms in the US. No sane politician would try to come between a driver and his accelerator. Until now. Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) have, in their new party programme agreed last weekend, called for the current "recommended" speed of 130 km/h to be made mandatory on all stretches of the autobahn. The party says that the plan will be implemented if it wins the next election.
"It will help the environment and aid road safety," said Christoph Matschie, a member of the SPD party executive. At present though, not even the SPD environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, is impressed. "I have no problem with a speed limit," he said. "Some 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be saved, but the truth is we need to save 270 million tonnes."
The road safety argument is also a moot point: around 600 people died on the autobahn last year, but critics point out that the other 4,200 road deaths last year happened on normal roads with speed limits.
THERE'S NO CHANCE of the SPD pushing through a speed limit under their current grand coalition with the Christian Democrats (CDU), scheduled to run until 2009.
"Not with me" was the response of CDU chancellor Angela Merkel, which was not surprising, considering her close ties to Germany's powerful car lobby.
Porsche, BMW, Audi and Daimler make some of the fastest cars in the world and their managers have no problem telling politicians what to do.
The head of Germany's motor lobby is senior Christian Democrat (CDU) politician Matthias Wissmann. He described the limit as "of little ecological use and purely symbolic".
Germany's ADAC, the equivalent of the AA, said that politicians would be better off improving traffic circulation to reduce the amount of time that cars spend in traffic jams, belching out fumes.
In the 1970s, this battle was fought and won by the speed freaks with the slogan "Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger" - roughly translated as "free driving for free citizens".
It's an odd argument, but one that continues to strike a chord in German society. So why has the SPD decided to put its foot down on the speed limit? Its politicians are betting that there are votes to be had on the environmental argument - and it appeals to its former coalition partners, the Greens.
Whether a blanket speed limit will ever be imposed however, is anyone's guess: in seven years of SPD-Green rule, the two parties never got around to it.
One group that is hoping that the ban will not happen are the thousands of tourists who come to Germany each year from as far away as China to rent a Porsche to pelt down the motorway. Their favourite stretch? The Nürburgring racing track near Cologne that is open to visitors on weekends for €19. Twenty eight km at 280km/h: the only way to travel.