If traffic emits less nitrogen, then the road will be paved for major construction projects in the fight against the housing shortage. For this reason, the cabinet introduced a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour during the day two years ago. But that has hardly yielded any benefits for the environment, says professor Bert van Wee of TU Delft. Nevertheless, government parties D66 and ChristenUnie want the limit to also apply in the evening and at night.
If it is up to coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie, we will soon be driving a maximum of 100 kilometers per hour throughout the Netherlands after 7 p.m. This is in addition to the speed limit that The Hague introduced two years ago: a maximum of 100 kilometers per hour during the day and a maximum of 120 or 130 kilometers per hour on some routes in the evening.
The argument used two years ago had everything to do with nitrogen emissions. If motorists slowed down a bit, the light could go green for important construction projects.
In reality, the reduction in speed has hardly brought any benefits to the environment, says professor of transport policy Bert van Wee on the website from TU Delft: “If passenger cars, vans and motorcycles drive at 100 kilometers per hour instead of 120 or 130, the deposition of nitrogen compounds (the precipitation of nitrogen on the soil and in the water) decreases by only a few tenths of a percentage Nature doesn’t notice the difference.”
A maximum of 100 kilometers per hour is safer
The ruling party D66 now puts forward more arguments than just nitrogen emissions. Member of Parliament Raoul Boucke does not only talk about the current energy crisis, but also about road safety and combating traffic jams.
Professor Van Wee agrees with these arguments: “Cars drive about 25 percent more economically at 100 kilometers per hour than at 130 kilometers per hour”, he says in conversation with NU.nl. “The lower the fuel consumption, the lower the greenhouse gas emissions. Now that the coal-fired power stations are running at full speed again to spare the natural gas power stations, this must be compensated somewhere. The changes to the traffic law can be implemented quickly and easily.”
Van Wee agrees that lowering the speed limit also improves road safety. “The mutual speed differences between passenger cars and trucks are becoming smaller, so that the risk of accidents decreases. In the unlikely event of an accident, the impact at 100 kilometers per hour will be much less hard than at 130 and the risk of injury is smaller. speed limit, cars are also a lot quieter, so that less noise is experienced in densely populated areas.”
Motorists save money with it
Although the introduction of the lower speed limit in 2020 caused annoyance to many motorists and initially not everyone wanted to stick to it, it appears from research that we have all started to step on the accelerator less deeply. Due to the skyrocketing fuel prices of recent months, many motorists have chosen to take it easy. It is true that you lose more travel time, but that is more than made up for by the considerably lower consumption costs.
from a practice test of AutoWeek it turned out that you can quickly achieve attractive cost savings over a distance of 220 kilometers if you drive a maximum of 100 instead of 130 kilometers per hour. Calculated from the mean fuel prices on Friday 15 July (2,308 euros for 1 liter of E10 petrol and 2,152 euros for 1 liter of diesel), the savings over this distance can amount to more than 10 euros. On a whole tank, that quickly becomes 30 to 40 euros.
The result is of course partly dependent on the type of fuel you use, the way you handle the accelerator pedal (in a fixed position or frequently pressing and releasing the gas) and the specifications of your car, such as size and weight.
Drivers of electric cars also benefit from it
And it is not only cheaper for petrol or diesel cars to drive a maximum of 100 kilometers per hour instead of 130. Recently AutoWeek a number of electric cars tested and measured what energy they consume at a speed of 130 kilometers per hour.
This shows that with an electric car at 100 kilometers per hour you can also achieve a nice saving in consumption: a 35 percent greater range is up for grabs, which means that energy costs are reduced by 35 percent. In cold weather conditions, the difference is even greater.
