- A post on Facebook suggests that the French are in favor of speed limits to 150 km / h on the motorway.
- This publication echoes the proposal of the members of the Citizen's Climate Convention to reduce the speed on motorways to 110 km / h (against 130 currently).
- We have decided to take stock of this debate which crystallizes tensions.
In a context marked by the debate around the speed limit to 110 km / h on the highway, born from the proposal made by the members of the Collective Climate Agreement, a Facebook post went viral in a few hours (it was seen more than a million times) sparked our interest.
Having visibly little taste of the idea of this restrictive measure for motorists, a man, a sort of mixed between Fangio and Greta Thunberg, tells us that "the French [are] in favor of switching to 150 on the highway" and that "this measure will make traffic flow smoother and therefore limit pollution, shorten travel times, stay focused while driving. ” In fact, arguments to analyze. Three, two, one, ready? Go!
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First of all, no matter how hard we looked, not the slightest trace of such a survey of the French in recent years. If they seem to be attached to the current speed limit on the highway, we want to prove this Odoxa-Dentsu consulting * poll for Franceinfo and Le Figaro (74% of French people are opposed to the speed limit of 110 km / h), impossible on the other hand to get hold of another study which would attest to their will to bomb more than what is already allowed today.
Then, if the argument of travel time necessarily holds, that of the greatest concentration behind the wheel seems to us much more wobbly. Finally, with regard to the potential greater fluidity on the highway at 150, not sure there either that the demonstration is relevant.
"Often we adapt a physical model, that of fluid mechanics, to explain that it is better to have constant flows at lower speeds, rather than a rapid flow which will lead to a bottleneck and traffic jams “, Explains Pierre Chasseray, general delegate of the association 40 Millions of Motorists. “In addition, there is nothing to say that we improve safety when driving at 150 km / h and it is obvious that driving faster, at 150 km / h, will not improve emissions at all. pollutants in the air, ”he continues.
Limitation to 110 km / h, drivers are not hot
That being said, let's now broaden the debate to the proposal made by the 150 members of the Collective Climate Agreement, set up by Emmanuel Macron the day after the movement of "yellow vests" born in part, ironically, after the decision government to lower the speed limit from 90 to 80 km / h on national roads. What do these 150 citizens who have gathered to discuss the state of the planet tell us? That by lowering the speed limit to 110 km / h (against 130 currently), we would reduce "greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 20%". To advance this, they relied in particular on a report from the Ministry of the Ecological Transition of March 2018 and that of the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) dated 2014.
Problem, this measure does not pass, but then NOT AT ALL, with motorists, as shown in the survey mentioned above. For Thomas Bourdrel, radiologist specializing in air pollution and member of the Association Santé Environnement France, “it is an interesting measure but it is complicated to make it accepted by motorists. They tell themselves that it is always on them that one types and it is not false. This measure should have been a minor measure accompanied by other major measures, such as limiting air traffic, limiting pollution from large industries. I think it would have been easier. "
Useful reminder to all those who say that a speed limit of 110 km / h would be "liberticide" and "punitive":
in the United States, a country of dangerous Khmer Green autophobes, speed on the highway is limited most of the time to 65 or 70 miles / h, i.e. 105 to 113 km / h ...
This proposal prompted the association of 40 million consumers to draw up a petition entitled "No to 110 km / h on the motorway". "The decrease in speed on highways would neither improve user safety nor reduce polluting emissions," the authors say. Pierre Chasseray explains to us why he questions the relevance of this measure. "The pollution curve makes an inverted U. That is to say that from 0 to 30-40 km / h a car will emit a lot of polluting particles, between 50 and 80-90 we are in the optimization of both fuel consumption and emissions pollutants, and beyond, you have a gradual increase in polluting emissions. So, in reality, a vehicle will both consume less and pollute less at 110 km / h than at 130, it is undeniable from a scientific point of view, "he admits at the outset.
Difficult to predict the behavior of motorists if the limitation is adopted
The problem, because there is one according to him, is that when we do a study of this type, we must also take into consideration the fact that today the highway responds to a cost ratio of 'usage (fuel consumption and cost of tolls) / time benefit. Many motorists rely on it to choose whether or not to take the highway. ”
"Tomorrow, if you change the speed limit setting, these same people will be asking the question of the benefit of this report again." It is not impossible that some are tempted not to use the motorway any more and refer to the secondary axes (national, departmental), which are more dangerous in terms of accidentology and which induce a certain number of decelerations / accelerations, therefore an increase in polluting emissions, he explains. Until a traffic carryover study is done, no one can say what will happen from a behavioral point of view if this measure is adopted. "
A speech validated by Isabelle Coll, professor at the University of Paris Est Créteil who works on air quality modeling and on the mobility of people: "The postponement of traffic is something much more complex than it does not appear since it integrates at the same time the offer of the network, the financial aspect, the comfort, and a lot of cognitive parameters related to that. There, without study, it is very difficult to predict what people will do. You have to rotate the models to see what it can do. This does not prevent him from having a personal opinion on the question.
"I'm not sure there is a massive shift towards small roads," she thinks. On the national, there is also discomfort: we go from 70 to 50, then to 70, then to 90, etc. Not to mention the red lights, intersections, roundabouts, which are all binding parameters. It is therefore not certain that people will choose to leave the highway even if the speed is limited to 110 km / h. "
A referendum to decide the question?
What is certain is that for such a measure to be effective, it must be accepted by the greatest number. "If it is so that there are only 10% of drivers who respect it, it is more damaging than anything else because it could also create even greater speed differences on the road which are all completely detrimental to safety and the environment, warns Isabelle Coll. However, I think it is a good measure. " Why ? Because, she says, science has gotten to the point where technological improvements in vehicles and engines have reached a sort of plateau.
"We can no longer say 'hey, we're going to improve such an engine and we're going to halve emissions', no. It is therefore necessary to multiply the small levers to have 5% effect here, 10% effect there. I understand that the unions or associations that represent motorists have the feeling that we are very focused on this sector, but it is because there are simple levers that allow us to act and to have results. ", She defends.
Has the Citizen Climate Convention transcended its members? https://t.co/mNouGn1G17
- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) February 9, 2020"If it can bring, in a certain, verified way, after a phase of experimentation, convincing results, then we keep it," concludes the author of the petition for his part. Otherwise we go back. Only in this scenario will you have the support of people, because you will give them the impression that you are working at the same time to improve their fluidity, the quality of their movement and the quality of air ”.
For the time being, the government has not definitively expressed an opinion on this measure - even if on a personal basis the Minister for the Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne is rather favorable to it - and it is not excluded that he is considering holding 'a public consultation to decide this question. However, this proposal should not monopolize public debate alone and make us forget that other measures have been mentioned by the Citizens' Convention to make the world of tomorrow a more breathable place. After all, it's not like there's no emergency…
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