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Comment by Cockbrand | Hacker News Reader

Haha, in terms of intellectual and rational quality, the debate regarding a possible speed limit on the Autobahn is comparable to the 2nd amendment discussion in the US.

It’s been going on for decades, there's really no good reason not to do it, and due to powerful lobbying, it’ll just never happen.

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I think the key difference is that Germany doesn't have an excessive or unusual number of traffic deaths[1]. I personally (as a German) do not support a speed limit and worry that there could be second order effects that they don't keep in mind. But I don't hold a strong opinion as I drive 3-5 times a year in Germany.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/statis...

There are more accidents on the Autobahn due to trucks than due to excessive speed.

Not being snarky, honest question. Is it something inherent with truck drivers or is it because they go faster and/or get caught off guard by speeding cars around them?

> Is it something inherent with truck drivers

Truck drivers aren't necessarily dangerous, but trucks are larger, slower to react, and have longer stopping distances. Truck drivers are more likely to have driven for longer, and may not be as familiar with the behaviour of either the cab they're driving or trailer they're pulling if they have to break/swerve etc.

It has nothing to do with the other cars, even if you desperately want it to.

It's truck drivers not keeping enough distance and are distacted by their phones. Watch that accident in Great Britain where the driver looks up from his phone too late and killed a whole family. If there is a traffic jam on the autobahn, NEVER approach it on the right lane with your car.

I'm outside of the 2nd amendment debate as I'm not a citizen of the US, but the 2nd amendment is one of the most powerful civil liberties in existence in the world for the common person. The right to bear arms is at its core the most pure one, because the one definition of a state is that it has a monopoly on violence, which it enforces to collect tax. A state giving its own citizens the right to bear arms in case its own government becomes tyrannical is philosophically one of the most pure "common person" freedoms there is because it takes power away from the state in a place it really might matter.

There's horrible externalities of course, which I don't deal with myself, but it's got nothing to do with a speed limit on one road in a country with speed limits on many roads already (can't even make a freedom of movement case).

> A state giving its own citizens the right to bear arms in case its own government becomes tyrannical is philosophically one of the most pure "common person" freedoms there is because it takes power away from the state in a place it really might matter.

Philosophically, I guess, but in actuality it's completely pointless.

If the state is taken over by a tyrannical dictator and the military themselves are complicit (don't attempt a coup/rebel against it) then someone owning a handgun is going to be scant resistance.

> If the state is taken over by a tyrannical dictator and the military themselves are complicit (don't attempt a coup/rebel against it) then someone owning a handgun is going to be scant resistance.

It's work keeping in mind that the amendment was written when the military and civilians had the same "hardware": muskets and cannons. In those times, protecting against a tyrannical government was entirely feasible with a large enough group. In fact, that's exactly what the USA did ~350 years ago. Granted, they had help from places like France, but they still did it.

This is largely, but not strictly, true. It's worth remembering that field artillery was in use in many battles prior to this period, and, in fact, had been a major component of the ability of the British government to put down the Jacobites earlier in the 18th century, in the form of movable mortars. (Rebels did have access to some fields guns, but they weren't as useful in the terrain of Scotland, where the high angle of fire of a mortar was particularly valuable.)

Moreover, what if the tyrant has the support of the people and that support is drawn rather plainly down political lines? What if, then, the 2nd amendment is actually used to defend the tyrant?

At best the 2nd amendment will just lead to another brutal civil war as the weapons are turned away from the government and to the people on the ‘wrong side’. Like the average Joe would ever stand a chance against a militarised police force anyway.

Philosophically pure, maybe, but philosophy needs to be messy if it aims to cover edge cases. Otherwise, too much is open to interpretation.

There are various levels of tyranny.

The county I am in (Ghana), had a spree of military dictators for over 30 years but the military didn’t go on a killing spree. Guns are available and the military had the weakest amount of influence in the countryside where many farmers had weapons.

Having the half the population armed with handguns would have been a huge restraint on the army since they wouldn’t have been able to operate safely in cities either.

While it’s true that it wouldn’t stop indiscriminate genocide committed by the government, most counties are factional and the military is made of people who have relatives in the general pop.

Thanks for illustrating the point I was trying to make. Sure any government could "nuke itself" or kill you in easy ways, but if you look at Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq I think you realize what an armed resistance that believes is fighting for their home can do, and how long they can last. Without guns this changes the balance quite a bit.

You should really ask anyone who has ever served in the US military what they think would happen if they had to fight the US public. There's a lot more to worry about than "someone owning a handgun". A lot of people think that the tyrant would just nuke parts of the country, but that's not how it would go. You need boots on the ground to occupy an area, and those boots would encounter a lot of resistance.

Also, do you remember what just happened in afghanistan?

This argument doesn't get any more compelling when you use expensive words to say it. Go make this argument to the warlords of Afghanistan or Vietcong. To use the parlance of my opponents, this theory has been debunked.

How do you feel about alcohol prohibition? Marijuana prohibition? Outlawing recreational intercontinental flights?

I'd argue there's plenty of things that we do that have negative effects on society or on the climate, which aren't really necessary to do, and which we allow only because people enjoy them.

I had an opportunity to drive on the German autobahn for the first time this year and quite a significant distance, close to 2,000 km in total. What I personally experienced is the road quality being sub-par for unlimited speeds, most cars driving close to 200 km/h that have no business doing that due to their technical capabilities (think 15 year old Volkswagen Passat), a lot of stress driving at night because sometimes you just cannot see anything approaching behind you and a few seconds later someone just passes by you.

There are reasonable middle-ground solutions, such as limiting the speed to 150 km/h if 130 is considered too low for majority but unlimited speed is just crazy because people tend to overestimate their driving skills and cars' capabilities.

There should be a good reason to add any legal restrictions. We should not regulate everything unless there is a good reason not too...

As such, if the autobahn isn't a death trap, is there a good reason to impose a speed limit where there isn't one?

"There's no reason not to" is a rhetorical trick but not an argument.

> There should be a good reason to add any legal restrictions

The title of the article states the reason for restrictions the study is making: "Autobahn speed limit would cut carbon and bring €1bn in benefits, study says"

Check the article on which you're commenting to find, in fact, more than "one" reason :)

Not saying the pros weigh against the cons, for anyone or for everyone, just that claiming there is not one reason is patently false in light of the submitted article which this thread is about. One could say, in response to your edited-in last sentence, that pretending there's no reason for it is a rhetorical trick!

> just that claiming there is not one reason is patently false

I don't know who that is directed to but that does not correspond to my comment.

> that pretending there's no reason for it is a rhetorical trick!

Well, good thing that I neither claimed nor 'pretended' that there is no reason, then...

Now, "emissions" is a weak reason that is used to justify about anything and everything these days, and as already mentioned in another comment, in this case that argument disappears with EVs... so I would not count that as a persuasive reason.

It is really saddening that your comment gets downvoted. People really seem to enjoy limiting the freedom of others.

Why would you want to take the fun out of the Autobahn?

Q.E.D. (regarding the mentioned intellectual and rational quality of the debate)

You are either German are never driven a German autobahn. Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

I'm in Germany for many years and drive tens of thousand kilometers across western Europe every year.

It is a rare sight that you even cross someone going at 200 km/h. First there are continuous construction works on the roads. Then you need to remember the constant traffic jams just about everywhere.

The picture on that article is from the autobahn in Frankfurt with direction to Darmstadt. It is one of the few places with 4 lanes where you can speed at your hearts content for about 10 kilometers and then slow down. This if you are lucky that slow drivers go the right-most lanes, often that doesn't even happen so you have to slow down again.

The only exception are fridays when driving to East Germany and Poland. On those roads you can speed and the large majority of them are just trying to get earlier home and enjoy more time with family.

Quite frankly, the most dangerous road in Western Europe have got to be French highways. In those you get young kids doing all kind of dangerous moves and speeding right behind you without respect. German drivers are noticeably more mature, you drive fast but with experience without thrills.

I'd take the French highway over the Autobahn any day. Yes it costs money, but people are driving in a much more civilized manner and they are well maintained.

I'm sorry but you certainly never had to cross France from one side to the other in recent years.

My favorite highways are the Spanish ones. You can drive for hours completely calm without a worry in the world. Very long straight roads with calm people driving. It is a complete breeze to drive for hundreds of kilometers without stressing you. The only problem is when driving close to urban centres over there.

If you look on statistical data, you will see that France keeps increasing the death on the roads since the past ten years, whereas Germany keeps lowering: https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/

Thanks for the statistics, that's interesting. It can also be misleading, from what I could find, less than 10% of traffic deaths occur on motorways vs. rural/city roads and motorway deaths have actually been decreasing in France steadily since 1990 (this is only from a quick Google search).

Edit: According to the OECD itf (random source I found on the internet ;)) Germany had 317 deaths on motorways vs 201 in France in 2022.

https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/germany-road-sa... https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/france-road-saf...

> You are either German are never driven a German autobahn. Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

I am not German, but I drive in Germany frequently and I find it liberating when you see the all restrictions lifted sign and I can just floor it for the pure fun of it.

At first I found it pretty intense, but then when I saw space wagons doing 200+ with kids in the back I calmed down and its business as usual now. I just need to remember not to flash slower drivers to signal them to get out of the way.

And this is what upsets me, the no limit Autobahn is part of Germany and now under the guise of climate fight someone wants to take this away from people that actually enjoy it.

> Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

Funny that this only happens to people who are advocating for a speed limit. Maybe you should stick to the center of your lane which should be at least 2.50m on the Autobahn. With an average car with a width of 1.80m (VW Golf for example), there should be even 35cm space to the left side of your lane.

there excesses but it is great to drive your own velocity. I feel comfortable at 150km/h other drivers with sportier cars drive safe at 180 km/h

But I have to share the same street at my usual 120 max speed I am used to.

I can just say for me German autobahn with its rasers and semi hidden police vehicles around every other corner is always a scary experience. I honestly felt more safe in Bangkok on a scooter than some of these public racing tracks near Munich.

Because it is meant to be for save transportation not a track for speeding sports cars.

Why not drive at any speed, if behavior is consistent with the speed and safety? There are people driving excessively fast or near other vehicules or switching lanes dangerously on any roads: that should be the focus, not people driving faster but also respecting others on the road

because it isn’t consistent with speed and safety. there is no need to have opinions on this, there are statistics and comparisons made with any other country and they are 100% not if favour of no speed limit, easy. it’s simply a lobbying issue by car makers in Germany and that’s all there is to it.

I wouldn't consider a BMW 3 Series or a Mercedes C Klass sport cars by any definition.

I'm not a car person so I had to look it up. Wikipedia says the former can do 0–100km/h in 3.9 seconds and tops out at 302 km/h (depending on which version you get within that series of course).

There's F1, race cars, and street-legal sports cars. To me, this sort of performance is on par with the latter category (as one never needs either of those specs in regular driving) and I can definitely see someone calling them a car capable of behaving like a sports car.

I would.

cause it’s a public facility financed by my money and it should serve the society and the country. go pay a ticket for a race track and enjoy your version of fun if that’s your thing.

It is also financed by my money. Driving faster or slower should be the responsability of drivers according to their needs.

There were votes on this topic, your opinion is a minority which by large portion does not even drive cars at all.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-majority-want-autobahn-speed-l... one from 2021, this year the surveys I saw in two different places said over 67%.

Be factual, there were dozens of surveys on the same topic that voted opposite to that, and this since decades.

Then try to get only people with drivers license to vote and you get a clear opposition to limits.

would you say flying airplanes faster or slower should also be responsibility of the pilots? what about speed boats within the city, should they be allowed? why on earth moving tonnes of metal at high speeds should not be regulated? considering 1,5 million people die per year from moving this metal boxes at hgh speed (comparable to the amount of people who died from pandemic that stopped the world for a year btw).

Commercial passenger plane speeds are not dictated by regulations. They fly in the most economical way for the company. Private planes fly as fast as they need to. Airplane speeds are only dictated by ATC when you're on approach or departure to maintain separation in a busy area or for noise abatement regulations.

Buses will not do 200kmh not because nobody can build a really fast bus, but because it will not be great for passengers to go from 200 to 50 really fast :) Basically same as with planes, passenger confort is the priority.

Anyway, if you would read up on Autobahn death statistics, very few deaths are related to over speeding.

If you mean vehicles transporting hundreds of people, regulations on speed are very similar to them on the road. You won't see a bus speeding at 150 Km/h.

If you mean private vehicles, you'd be surprised how even more lax are the regulations for private-owned airplanes. It all depends on the class of your airplane. Speed limits apply mostly on air traffic control direct indications and things like being on the vicinity of airports/corridors.

So yes, flying faster or slower is responsibility of pilots to a great extent of their own travels.

It is not lobbying, people just do not want to get rid of it. I do not want it to be abolished. I do not want to be bound to a 130km/h speed limit if there is not much traffic. We are in 2023, cars have to go to inspection every 2 years in Germany, a driver's license is 3500€. I want something back for all that effort and money.

Stop interfering with other people's life. Noone prevents you from driving 130km/h or taking the train.

> Stop interfering with other people's life.

Exactly. The faster you drive, the more stuff you are emitting. Be it gases, particles, noise.

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