France: Highway speed limit is being softened

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France: Highway speed limit is being softened
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France: Highway speed limit is being softened

Speed ​​limit France
Tempo 80 on country roads is softened

With a speed limit on country roads reduced to 80 km / h, France wanted to reduce the number of road deaths. The new regulation has been in effect since 1. July 2018. Now it is being softened.

Uli Baumann

06/14/2019

France is grappling with an increasing number of road deaths. Most fatal accidents happen on country roads. The French government wants to take countermeasures with a new speed limit.

For this purpose, the maximum speed on country roads was reduced from 90 to 80 km / h. It applies to two-lane roads with no structural separation and thus to around 400,000 kilometers of rural roads. The new regulation came into force on July 1, 2018. There were no changes on four-lane country roads. France would like to precisely examine the effects of the reduced maximum speed on the development of accidents. Detailed results should then be presented in July 2020.

The majority of the French are against it

While Germany, for example, recently recorded an all-time low in road traffic deaths, the number of fatal accidents in France has risen for three years in a row, to just under 3,500 in 2016. With the new regulation, the number of road fatalities is expected to drop by 350 to 400 per year sink. In addition, there will be tougher penalties in the future against those who use the cell phone while driving or ignore the crosswalk.

Before the introduction of the speed limit, many motorists had hoped until the end that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe would shy away from such an unpopular decision. According to opinion polls, 59% of French people oppose the new speed limit. The motorist lobby doubts that a lower speed limit can actually reduce the number of accidents.

Regionally 90 km / h possible again

After the speed decrease, there were numerous protests in France. The decrease from 90 km / h to 80 km / h in the past year was also one of the triggers of the protest movement of the so-called yellow vests. At the beginning of June 2019, the French parliament reacted and voted to relax the speed limit of 80 km / h introduced last year. The new regulation that has now been adopted allows cities and departments to increase the maximum speed regionally to 90 km / h again.

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