No-limit speed signs have been stripped from Germany’s famously fast autobahns by Extinction Rebellion protesters.
Climate activists claim to have taken down 250 signs across the country in recent months.
“We are in the process of introducing speed limits across Germany in order to create more safety on our streets and as an immediate action against the climate crisis,” one activist said.
Police in Berlin have confirmed that 15 signs have been illegally dismantled on the city ring road in recent weeks and left by the side of the road.
On Wednesday, the activists delivered 18 of the signs to the transport ministry in Berlin.
Florian Zander, a spokesman for Extinction Rebellion said that “in times of climate and environmental crises, there are no more excuses for limit-free motorways.”
Germany is one of the only countries in the world that has no general speed limit on its motorways.
Almost half of the country’s 7,000-mile motorway network is free of speed limits.
The transport ministry is controlled by the liberal Free Democrats, the smallest party in Olaf Scholz’s centrist coalition.
Disparaged by opponents as the “Porsche driver’s party”, the Free Democrats staunchly fought against efforts by the Green party to commit to a speed limit in the coalition agreement signed in late 2021.
The party insists that a speed limit isn’t a long-term solution to cutting carbon emissions because Germany expects its cars to be primarily battery powered in the future.
But the country’s own environmental agency has calculated that a speed limit of 120 km/h (74 mph) would immediately achieve around a sixth of Germany’s target for emissions reductions in the transport sector.
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