German environmentalists remove motorway signs in stretches without speed limits

The German highways they are famous all over the world for being among the few streets public without speed limitsexcept in sections where the maximum speed is limited due to the geometry of the route, the weather conditions or works in progress on the section. For the Germans, the hypothesis that speed limits could be introduced on all motorway sections has for years been a cause for heated discussion comparable to that on gun control in the USA. But speed means millions of tons of CO₂, and German climate activists are no longer in it. So some activists of the group Extinction Rebellion they dismantled, according to their own statements, about 250 road signs which signaled the end of a maximum speed limit on stretches of highway across the country, particularly around Berlinin Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse, Baden-Wurttemberg and in Ruhr regionas they wrote on Twitter.

Signs indicating that you can start driving at your preferred speed without risking penalties. The activist Amelie Meyer commented the action thus: “We no longer wait for transport ministers who make politics only for the car lobby, now we ourselves make the citizens’ wish come true”, and Florian Zanderspokesman for the campaign, asked the Minister of Transport Volker Wissing: “Why, by continuing to do nothing, are you forcing us to implement the necessary climate measures ourselves?”. In times of climate and environmental crisis, he added, there are no more excuses for highways where anyone can put their foot down at will.

The activists delivered 18 of the removed road signs to the German Ministry of Transport in Berlin, precisely on the occasion of the two-day meeting in Aachen of the Transport Ministers of the 16 Lands to discuss the 49 euro ticket which should be the successor to the successful 9 euro ticket for travel on all public transport in the countryand public transport aid.

The road signs deposited in front of the entrance to the ministry, were accompanied by the ticket in which Extinction Rebellion activists demand that Germany finally decides in favor of speed limitsotherwise they will be forced to continue implementing them on their own with actions like the sensational one just completed.

Recently, the Federal Office for the Environment, which shares the demands of climate protection activists, launched a campaign in favor of the speed limit of 120 km/h on motorways and 80 km/h on German country roads to reduce polluting emissions in transport faster.