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The first federal state in Austria to abolish the 100km/h speed limit!.

The province in question is Styria. It is removing the signs that have caused a lot of confusion. The most important roads affected are the Brenner motorway to Italy (A13) and the Inntal motorway, which is of particular interest to holidaymakers.

Why the popular holiday destination is in a state of confusion may not be immediately clear to everyone.

If you look at the road signs, you will see a small "IG-L" at the bottom. "IG-L" is the abbreviation for "Immissions Protection Act Air". This means that the speed limit only applies to vehicles with internal combustion engines. Vehicles powered by electric batteries, or even hydrogen vehicles, were not affected by the limit. However, this is no longer the case on motorways in Styria. However, this should be noted for the other provinces.

A change in the speed limit has been under consideration for some time and has now finally been implemented. However, it has been criticised in some quarters. The Austrian Transport Club weighs up the time savings against climate protection. The time saved may be greater in theory, but not in practice. The trade-off would be higher fuel consumption, more noise, higher CO2 emissions and much more. The balance would be lost. Nevertheless, the state government has rejected the limit. It points to statistics for the period after 2020, which show that the limits will not be exceeded by a long way and that road safety will not be jeopardised.

Styria is now the first federal state in Austria to take this step. It remains to be seen whether other provinces will follow suit.

Source: Pixabay/road-2795160_1280