Spain cuts speed limit and turns out lights - plus wow!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-cuts-speed-limit-and--turns-out-lights-881401.html


Spain has seen the future and it is slow, dim and uncomfortable. A swingeing series of energy-saving measures announced by the Spanish government may be a foretaste of the kind of policies which will be forced upon an energy-hungry industrial world in the coming decades.

To protests from motorists and mockery in parts of the press, the Socialist government plans to cut motorway speed limits to 50mph and town speeds to 25mph. New austerity rules will be imposed on the air conditioning and heating of all public buildings. Street-lighting will be cut by half.

Almost 50 million low-energy light bulbs will be handed out by the government in an attempt to drive high-consumption bulbs out of the market in the next four years. The government will also sponsor a project intended to introduce a million electric or hybrid electric-petrol cars on to Spanish roads by 2014.

The sweeping plans, intended to reduce Spain's huge dependency on imported oil by 10 per cent, were mocked by one newspaper as an "operation light bulb" which was doomed to fail. However, the Industry Minister, Miguel Sebastian, adopted the celebrated exhortation to patriotism and self-sacrifice of the US President John F Kennedy when he took office in 1961. It was time, he said, for Spaniards to "ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
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and thermostat cops. Maybe chavez could send some free oil to his brethren in Spain
to help out a brother in need.

...President Carter began the program, it saved gas and lives

And I believe it was Nixon that instituted the 55mph bullshit limit. Carter should
have tried to repeal it. If someone wants a nanny state there is Spain and many other
hand holding governments out there. We don't need to butcher up America any more than it is.

We are 50% Moran.

We all have to start somewhere...it does not have to be dramatic, but gradual, like in Spain.

In some ways..

A 50 mph speed limit is one thing in Spain, entirely another in the US.

I drive 55 most of the time, but there are occasions when I go faster to save time, I would like to have that option legally.

Here is Spain overlaid on the US at the same scale from the same map.

That they were going to drive out on a day trip to see the Grand Canyon and be back in GA the next day.

No concept at all really.

nt

Most of our country can't be reached any way except by car.

We need to rebuild our rail system!

Imagine if I-35 in Texas from Dallas to Houston was made 50 mph, and strictly enforced. People wouldn't be happy about that at all, and that fits in the same scale as things in Spain (comparing simply Texas to Spain).

In addition as another poster mentions, their high speed rail is superior to the point that my friends who live in Spain often will take the train to another city, rather than drive there, because it's quicker (unlike here in the states where it's slower and more expensive on top of that).

is a good way to piss people off. If you aren't going at least 75 you are almost a hazard to yourself and others because you are going so much slower than everyone else. At least that is my experience on the Dallas to OKC portion. I guess that is what happens when you live in a state that gets wealthier as gas prices rise.

But even back when the speed limit was 55 nationally, you pretty much had to drive 80 on it or not get blown off the road.

I routinely drive 55 even where the speed limit is 70 and I've had no problems, my work truck with a 5.4 and towing package sucks gas when I'm towing so I go at the most efficient speed which happens to be around 55.

Of course, I also blast along at 90 or more on my FZR400 crotch rocket with the laser/radar detector and still get over 60 mpg. :evilgrin:

containing most drivers to 75 MPH.

It has been that way as long as I have lived in Texas, regardless of price of gasoline.

it makes you look stupid

although I would venture to guess that cities such as Houston who have a populance working in the oil industry they can afford to get around much easier.

it goes back down at 70, but 50 is ludicrous. So is 25, that's terrible for mileage.

that cruise control really manages the fuel nicely. I can go all the way to Little Rock on one tank, and it is barely 13 gallons.

I disagree with the lowering of the speed limits though, even if I drive 55 on the freeway. Generally I just stay in the right lane, and people just go around. If they want to use the gas, that's fine, but I drive too much to be wasting it.

Senor Hagar!

Ask what you can do for your country. OR what the government will force you to do. They are two entirely different things.

Voluntary action to help your country is one thing. Restrictive government policies is another.

America will never tolerate 50 MPH, or restrictions on how hot/cold we make our homes.

:rofl:

Good analogy to arbitrary speed limits though.

Imposing a 55 mph on the interstate would be hostile.

I was recently driving out in rural Missouri. The speed limit out there is 70. And the roads are so open that you can comfortably put your cruise control on 78 and just glide along with no worries.

To drive 55 out there would be a monstrous pain in the ass.

I might have believed that in the pre-Bush years, but I've seen Americans tolerate far worse than restrictions on their speed.

It would hardly go over well anywhere, but I certainly know it will not stick in Spain. 100km/h (60mph) on their main roads and highways has always worked well, and is efficient in its own right.

At least, that's how it always plays out in the US.

from population growth and the momentum of the Chinese (and Indian) economy, these sorts of measures will undoubtedly begin to manifest in more and more industrial countries.

Horses & mules don't gallop along all that fast.. Is there really such a need to "get there fast"...to whiz through a town at 45-50 mph?

And is it really necessary to be assaulted by LIGHT, 24-7?

Maybe the "rationing" of energy will make us all slow down a bit.. :)

The faster you CAN go soon evolves into the faster you NEED to go.

Not just travel but everything. Can you imagine not being able to get your glasses made in about an hour?

We did double-nickels before, we'll be doing it again. It's pretty much inevitable.

Except drive slower, bump up the thermostat in summer, bump it down in winter, or use more efficient light bulbs.

I do pretty much try to drive where the car says I get the best mpg which is around 80 (swear). As for bumping up the thermostat in summer, I live in Oklahoma, I want to be cool somewhere and outside it isn't happening.

It is a sad state of affairs sometimes.

Never had a pair made on the same day, let alone within an hour.

But then, my prescription doesn't change often or much. I can put on glasses from fifteen or twenty years ago and see pretty well with them.

sadly in the cities it's either that or get assaulted by muggers, thieves and rapists
in the darkness.

:shrug:

:sarcasm:

The Spanish government is forgetting the most important factor in stopping Global Warming...psychology.

Until and unless people begin to take PERSONAL responsibility, any government action to control them is doomed to failure.

Even here, people complain about the US government inaction on Global Warming, but if everyone cut their own personal carbon footprint in half, they would solve the issues without government action.

Cutting it in half is doable too. You may not be a comfortable without the A/C running, your car may be much smaller, you may have to adjust your schedule to follow the sun (bed soon after sunset, up just before dawn), but everyone can do something.

People need to stop waiting for the governments to act. Governments need to work on getting people to care about acting, not forcing them too.

The government absolutely cannot control the way you feel about something, but can control, or at least affect, actions in various ways, by taxing things (like fuel), illegalizing things (like not wearing a seatbelt) or regulating thiings (like fuel efficiency). Be honest, if instead of enforcing the wearing of seatbelts and use of car seats, the government had simply encouraged their use, the percentage of people wearing them would be far lower than it is. Everyone is not going to voluntarily do their bit, it's just not going to happen.

The government didn't suddenly pass seatbelt laws. That wouldn't work. For years and years, the government did simply encourage their use. In the 50's and 60's the usage was around 2%. After many years of campaigning the usage got up to around 25% and the peoples attitudes towards seatbelts had changed to the point that passing laws was acceptable.

If todays seatbelt laws had been passed in 1970, there would have been outrage and zero compliance. Same with global warming laws. When a majority of people in this country don't even believe it's due to man made causes, then any laws to force behavior changes will be met with hostility.

65, at 55 it would cost our fleet at least 15% more in fuel cost.

turned on until May and it was turned off in Sept. Even on the tour busses.

remember when you used to be able to see stars in the sky? Light pollution sucks and makes the world an uglier place. I remember when President Carter asked us to be thrifty with our thermostats and I don't recall suffering much with that. Speed limits, however, well slowing down might be good except we're all so fracking spread out in the US. I see it as yet another way businesses are fucking us over, they consolidate operations to a few locations which may save them money but it makes people have to commute more and, if you think about it, could have long term dangerous ramifications. If all our industry is condensed it makes it a hell of a lot easier to take out in a military situation. I sometimes think the US has gotten a little too complacent on that. We're so invincible (except on an airplane where a bottle of shampoo could be the end of the world :sarcasm: ) that we don't even care about strategics any more.

Mostly rooftop solar hot water heating.