In the run-up to the German Traffic Day in Goslar accident experts support the demand for a general speed limit. This should increase road safety and reduce the number of road deaths.
"If we do not want to put up with the fact that every year about 3200 people are killed in road traffic, we have to come up with something," says Deputy Federal Chairman of the Union of Police (GdP) Michael Mertens.
The debate about a speed limit has been raging since SPIEGEL published proposals by a government commission for more climate protection in transport. These include a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour on highways, higher fuel costs and a quota for electric cars.
According to the police, a speed limit could further reduce the number of road deaths. "If someone is on the way with Tempo 180 and before him a vehicle with speed 90 shears in the fast lane, that goes quickly wrong," says Mertens of the GdP. The accident researchers of the insurers (UDV) look the same. "The speed differences between the lanes are increasing more and more," says UDV head Siegfried Brockmann. That often has bad consequences.
More safety through speed limit is controversial
Whether a speed limit provides for more security, is little explored and therefore controversial. However, the latest survey by the German Road Safety Council (DVR) in 2016 revealed that on sections with a speed limit per kilometer, around 26 percent fewer people were fatally injured than on routes without a speed limit. The number of seriously injured persons on routes with a speed limit of 17 percent is also lower. "At lower speeds, fewer accidents happen," says Julia Fohmann from the DVR. "Above all, however, the consequences for the accident are smaller."
This is also because the braking distances at high speeds are significantly longer. At a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, the reaction and braking distances together amount to around 250 meters, according to traffic experts. At speed 130, the car comes to a stop after about 118 meters.
ADAC is against a general speed limit
The ADAC, on the other hand, sees no greater danger on routes without a speed limit and advocates speed limits at danger points and accident areas. "The real weak point in terms of traffic safety are still the highways, where almost 60 percent of all road deaths are registered," it says at the ADAC.
Motorways are by far the safest roads in Germany. The number of those killed on motorways in Germany is currently 1.6 per billion vehicle kilometers. The ADAC relies on an investigation by the Federal Statistical Office from last year.
According to the figures, over one third of highway accidents in 2017 were due to driving too fast. This killed 181 people, 2478 were seriously injured. That was 44.3 percent of all fatalities and 41.5 percent of all seriously injured on German highways.