More Restriction Coming to Autobahn?

Come to Michigan and drive our Autobahn (I-696) just north of Detroit with a "suggested" speed limit of 70mph. Average speed outside of morning and evening rush hours is 80-90mph, and with state and local city budget cuts for police, that average will just climb.

Yes, we should be worried. Only in the last 15 years or so of my driving life have speed limits been bumped up to a reasonable level here in Texas. All of the interstates and even some smaller highways are at least 70mph and in far west Texas even faster. All it will take is a few environuts getting together and starting a campaign to lower speed limits....they can no longer use "safety" as an excuse since highway deaths are at their lowest point since the 60's. Those of us over 35 can distinctly remember the frustration of taking a long trip @55mph....do we want to go back to that?

If vehicles cause 30% of emmisions perhaps they should be more concerned where the other 70% is coming from.

Doh... I'll be in Germany picking up a new car in August/September. Hopefully Bavaria will remain unscathed.

@ergsum,

The 696 Autobahn is really only unrestricted between 275 and Telegraph. Beyond that the traffic from the Lodge seems to slow everybody back down, going east at least.

I suspect a lot of the average consumers of government propaganda don't even know or even think about what CO2 really is and where it really comes from. To class it as a pollutant is ludicrous but makes it a perfect tool to advance the socialist and Marxist agenda of the movement which is supposedly about environmentalism - that is just how they cloak it because they can't otherwise persuade people to go along with their goals.

Much of the carbon dioxide comes from the excessive hot air from the greenies. It's preposterous that human and animal life on this planet pollutes the air by exhaling.

@bimmer - doing ED?

Loved driving the autobahn and look forward to doing it again one day.

@ cwc1,

To avoid stirring up politics, I am just going to say, please don't post your one-sided political views -- your particular post has nothing to do with speed.

Regarding "should we be worried all the way back here in the USA?" -- I say "NO" because the requirements for a licensed driver are very much tougher in Germany, and they actually commit more to driving safely. We have too many idiots who put chains on their Genesis front wheels etc. that even Montana could not persist with their "unlimited" highway speeds.

speed limits are silly things.

Meanwhile, the Greens are irrationally killing emissions-free nuclear power without investigating technologies like LFST and pebble-bed reactors that either can't melt down or have a remotely small chance of doing so. Germany, despite the push for solar power in a country that's mainly overcast and where the wind doesn't blow with enough regularity to be anything other than a supplemental source is forcing itself back to coal-power, which emits toxic fumes every day, not just when a disaster occurs. Smart. Fusion is the real answer, but expect another 30 years until it is viable.

@blueguydotcom,

I'm probably going to merge a business trip with an ED pickup. Then my company can pay for the $8/gallon premium fuel. :-)

I have 2 2010's. I'm thinking of either replacing one and keeping the other or getting rid of both and just sticking with one car. If I do the latter I'll need to find something else to hold down the other side of the garage floor.

@bimmer - lol.

My wife's trying to get me on the hook for an ED trip next year. She just wants to go back to Europe and is trying to lure me there with a car.

There are cheaper ways...

@BDC,

Your wife is a keeper.

@greenpony,

Who are you really? Captain Obvious?

@cwc1

I'm definitely not for imposing speed limits on the Autobahn in the name of shaving off a few percentage points of CO2 but what you're arguing is disingenuous at best. CO2 is being registered as a pollutant when there's too much of it and the rate of CO2 production far exceed the rate of CO2 being taken out of the air. That leads to global warming (in the scientific sense, not the political one).

NOOOO... The last place one earth where we can drive our cars to a meanignful place without government restiction. On the other hand, maybe if they impose a limit, there will no longer be governors on german cars. Then again they's probably all drive like c*** like the F10 5er.