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Netherlands reduces speed limit to 100 km/h in daytime

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radamfi

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Pollution is so bad now that the speed limit will be reduced to 100 km/h between 6am and 7pm. Bizarrely, the limit was increased to 130 km/h not too long ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50396037

The daytime speed limit on Dutch roads is to be cut to 100km/h (62mph) in a bid to tackle a nitrogen oxide pollution crisis, according to cabinet sources widely quoted by Dutch media.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was a "rotten measure" but necessary. The existing limit of up to 130km/h will still be permitted at night.

The new limit is set to come in next year along with several other measures.

Ministers have been grappling with ways of responding to the emissions problem.

"No-one likes this," Mr Rutte told a news conference. "But there's really something bigger at stake. We have to stop the Netherlands from coming to a halt and jobs being lost unnecessarily."
Can other countries justify their higher limits, such as the UK's 70 mph?
 
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bramling

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Pollution is so bad now that the speed limit will be reduced to 100 km/h between 6am and 7pm. Bizarrely, the limit was increased to 130 km/h not too long ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50396037

Can other countries justify their higher limits, such as the UK's 70 mph?

A lot more pollution could be avoided by teaching drivers how to drive efficiently (in other words maintaining a constant speed instead of slowing down and speeding up unnecessarily), and clamping down on poorly maintained vehicles.
 

AM9

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A lot more pollution could be avoided by teaching drivers how to drive efficiently (in other words maintaining a constant speed instead of slowing down and speeding up unnecessarily), and clamping down on poorly maintained vehicles.
But which cars produce less CO2 and other pollutants at 70mph than 55mph, - constant speed or otherwise?
 

tony_mac

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55 was said to be the most efficient speed in the past, but wasn't that with 4-gear cars?
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/how-to/fuel-saving-tips/
Generally speaking, there is no one driving speed which is optimum for fuel economy.

Over the years the speed of 56mph has often been talked about as being the optimum speed. This was due to the old fuel consumption test being run at three speeds: urban, 56mph and 75mph – and 56mph was always, unsurprisingly, the most efficient of these. Typically, cars are most efficient at 45-50mph.
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Pollution is so bad now that the speed limit will be reduced to 100 km/h between 6am and 7pm. Bizarrely, the limit was increased to 130 km/h not too long ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50396037

Can other countries justify their higher limits, such as the UK's 70 mph?

So the Dutch are going back to the former limit. Given how much public transport has been (further) improved in recent times it really shouldn't be a problem for anyone other than the egotists who use higher speed driving in their large sports saloons as a form of willy-waving. How about we do something similar here?
 

underbank

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Of course, Holland is a relatively small country, so reducing driving speeds won't really impact as much as they would in a much larger country where distances (and hence journey times) are far greater.
 

DerekC

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But which cars produce less CO2 and other pollutants at 70mph than 55mph, - constant speed or otherwise?

The following chart suggests that common sense applies and there aren't any. It is a recurring thought that if governments were serious about climate change they would apply a blanket 55mph speed limit and if people were serious about it they would accept it!
Link to chart: https://www.mpgforspeed.com/

different_cars.png
 

thejuggler

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I doubt it would be an issue in the UK. Between those hours it is difficult to drive at the current limit on most UK motorways.

The only time I have any chance of going long distance at a constant 70 or so is either early Sunday morning, or the M6 after Kendal!
 

radamfi

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So the Dutch are going back to the former limit. Given how much public transport has been (further) improved in recent times it really shouldn't be a problem for anyone other than the egotists who use higher speed driving in their large sports saloons as a form of willy-waving. How about we do something similar here?

The limit used to be 120 km/h.
 

radamfi

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Of course, Holland is a relatively small country, so reducing driving speeds won't really impact as much as they would in a much larger country where distances (and hence journey times) are far greater.

They can easily cross borders though. If you look at a typical trip length distribution for motorway traffic you will see that most trips are relatively short.
 

DerekC

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I doubt it would be an issue in the UK. Between those hours it is difficult to drive at the current limit on most UK motorways.

The only time I have any chance of going long distance at a constant 70 or so is either early Sunday morning, or the M6 after Kendal!

Hmm - I drive regularly on the M3/M27/A31 and you still get passed at 70 by a procession of heavy 4x4s and big crossovers doing 80-85. I wonder if any of the election manifestos will promise such a thing? Maybe the Greens.
 

cactustwirly

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I doubt it would be an issue in the UK. Between those hours it is difficult to drive at the current limit on most UK motorways.

The only time I have any chance of going long distance at a constant 70 or so is either early Sunday morning, or the M6 after Kendal!

I don't know what motorways you've been using, but unless it's the M25 or M6 through Birmingham, it's relativley easy to hit 70mph (or even 80-90mph if you're brave/stupid enough)
 

TRAX

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Oh because of course the Planet is dying because of its citizens’ tiny cars, it’s never the corporations and the factories, is it.
 

AM9

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Oh because of course the Planet is dying because of its citizens’ tiny cars, it’s never the corporations and the factories, is it.
There's no emoticon so are we to assume that you actually believe what you have written.
 

Bayum

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Wasn’t a proposed increase to the U.K. motorway speeds partly scuppered by a similar situation? The carbon footprint for increasing the speed limit to 80mph was ‘too significant’
 

Bletchleyite

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So the Dutch are going back to the former limit. Given how much public transport has been (further) improved in recent times it really shouldn't be a problem for anyone other than the egotists who use higher speed driving in their large sports saloons as a form of willy-waving. How about we do something similar here?

We kind of have done. Smart motorways with cameras have reduced the prevailing speed on UK motorways from around 80-90mph to around 70mph, at least on those stretches but I've noticed it on others too.
 

py_megapixel

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Oh because of course the Planet is dying because of its citizens’ tiny cars, it’s never the corporations and the factories, is it.
It's both. Many drivers have no actual reason to drive, but at the same time, corporations could do more.
That's not to say that these drivers are entirely responsible for the pollution they cause - it's also a fundamental flaw with the way the country is set up, encouraging people to live a long way from where they work, allowing public transport companies to cherry-pick profitable routes, and charging too little for petrol & too much for other modes of transport.
Change needs to happen. And that change will almost certainly involve far fewer car journeys than now.
 

GRALISTAIR

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Oh because of course the Planet is dying because of its citizens’ tiny cars, it’s never the corporations and the factories, is it.

Slightly hyperbolic but I do agree that we concentrate too much on small cars and not enough on short range Boeing 737/Airbus 320 series etc. A 777 across the Atlantic sure puts out some carbon footprint. Huge trucks in the UK do too.

There's no emoticon so are we to assume that you actually believe what you have written.

I would suggest that although the OP was a bit emotive and used hyperbole, there is some substance to what he is saying.
 

GRALISTAIR

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It's both. Many drivers have no actual reason to drive, but at the same time, corporations could do more.
That's not to say that these drivers are entirely responsible for the pollution they cause - it's also a fundamental flaw with the way the country is set up, encouraging people to live a long way from where they work, allowing public transport companies to cherry-pick profitable routes, and charging too little for petrol & too much for other modes of transport.
Change needs to happen. And that change will almost certainly involve far fewer car journeys than now.

I agree with your sentiments - but it will not be easy- which ever government is in power. Fuel duty is a great source of tax revenue and lets be fair all governments need it because thy all like to spend in one way or another. Even in Germany - they encourage no speed limit autobahns I believe.

In the UK we are a tiny island with a lot of cars. Something has to change even without climate emergency IMHO
 

radamfi

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The Dutch have gone on a binge of road building in the last few years. This includes widening between Utrecht and Amsterdam to 5 lanes each way. But once widened, this section of road has had a 100 km/h limit with average speed cameras to limit emissions.
 

Lucan

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They could do a lot to reduce pollution, in cities at least, by getting some competent people to program traffic lights. They seemed to work better when they had the old simple pneumatic-mechanical controllers. There are traffic lights I regularly pass (eventually) where half the time they are showing red in all directions with nothing moving, or showing the green man to non-existent pedestrians, or showing green to a lesser road* with nothing on it while dozens of cars are ticking over on the main "flow".

I was recently stopped on the Portway in Bristol near the P&R for an old man using the pedestrian crossing. Fair enough, and he must have been in about the 0.01 percentile of slowness because the stride of the poor guy was actually less than the length of his own foot. Yet he crossed the road and had gone about 25 yards along the pavement afterwards, far more than the road width, before the lights went green. Meanwhile dozens of cars had accumulated with engines ticking over.

There are certain Bristol traffic lights which, late at night, with no other traffic about, I can see green from the distance, but change to red when I get within 100 yards. As soon as I stop by them they change to green again. It is obviously deliberate : called "traffic calming" I believe but no good for emissions.

* The road joining the "up" A4 by the Alexandra Rose pub in Bristol, where the topical proposed Bristol diesel ban is being justified on NOx pollution grounds, is a case in point.



was about could not even
 

MotCO

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Iencouraging people to live a long way from where they work

I agree that commuters travel greater distances to work than in previous eras, but I am not sure people are encouraged to. Yes. it is too expensive to live in the centre of London, so people commute many miles to work. But it is also the case that the economy is changing and people probably change jobs more often than they used to, and do not feel willing or able to move house - for example, their spouses may also work but have not changed jobs, their children may be settled in a good school etc. So yes, people commute further than they used, but I'm not sure they are 'encouraged' to.
 

bramling

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I agree that commuters travel greater distances to work than in previous eras, but I am not sure people are encouraged to. Yes. it is too expensive to live in the centre of London, so people commute many miles to work. But it is also the case that the economy is changing and people probably change jobs more often than they used to, and do not feel willing or able to move house - for example, their spouses may also work but have not changed jobs, their children may be settled in a good school etc. So yes, people commute further than they used, but I'm not sure they are 'encouraged' to.

Depends how one defines ‘encouraged to’. Massively rising property prices in London and in what was hitherto the commuter belt have certainly provided a stimulus for people to move further out. Likewise a perceived decline in London living standards thanks to increasing densification.

Much of the housebuilding over the last couple of decades has concentrated on the areas further out, presumably simply because there’s more space to build. So on something like the GN route the places north of Hitchin have seen the lion’s share, although there’s been cramming further in (so far) construction has not been on the same scale.

A potential government who could offer a solution to all this that isn’t just “we need to build more houses” would I think do very well indeed electorally.
 

bramling

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But which cars produce less CO2 and other pollutants at 70mph than 55mph, - constant speed or otherwise?

Using that logic one could argue that a car at 55 mph is inferior to one at 0 mph!

Just going on fuel economy I can drive from Hertfordshire to outer London via the A1, and with a clear road the difference in fuel economy between 85 mph and 60 mph is fairly minimal. The figure will be affected far more by harsh acceleration, and adopting fuel-efficient practices like allowing speed to drop over the top of summits and building up momentum in troughs to give a run up at the next incline.

At the end of the day the purpose is to get from A to B, and one has to draw a line somewhere.
 

DerekC

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Using that logic one could argue that a car at 55 mph is inferior to one at 0 mph!

Just going on fuel economy I can drive from Hertfordshire to outer London via the A1, and with a clear road the difference in fuel economy between 85 mph and 60 mph is fairly minimal. The figure will be affected far more by harsh acceleration, and adopting fuel-efficient practices like allowing speed to drop over the top of summits and building up momentum in troughs to give a run up at the next incline.

At the end of the day the purpose is to get from A to B, and one has to draw a line somewhere.

Building up momentum on downhills and not maintaining high speed up hills is good practice, but what wastes energy is braking - so taking your foot off the loud pedal early is highly recommended. And it's simply untrue to say that "the difference in fuel economy between 85mph and 60 mph is fairly minimal". At high speeds aerodynamic drag predominates and that increases in proportion to speed if your car is highly aerodynamic so that laminar flow is maintained - worse if it isn't. You can expect to use somewhere around 40% more fuel at 85mph than 60mph - and that's borne out pretty accurately by the charts posted above (post#9). What tends to mask this stark difference, I think, is that it's actually quite hard to drive at a steady 60mph - you are continually being overtaken by trucks, having to get out of the way of joining traffic at on-slips etc etc, so in reality speed varies a lot and tends to edge upwards (at least, mine does).
 
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