Negotiating parties want to restore 130km/h daytime speed limits

The parties negotiating a new right-wing cabinet want to restore the daytime speed limit of 130 km/h on motorways, sources have told AD.nl.

The limit was reduced to 100 km/h between the hours of 6am and 7pm four years ago as part of a package of emergency measures to reduce nitrogen compound emissions.

Prime minister Mark Rutte described it as a “really rotten measure”, but argued it was a necessary trade-off to enable the construction industry – another source of nitrous oxide emissions – to keep building.

The four parties at the negotiating table – PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB – have asked the infrastructure and agriculture ministries to analyse the consequences of lifting the measure.

Wim de Vries, professor of environmental systems analysis at Wageningen University, last month calculated that the lower speed limit had reduced emissions by just 0.2%. “That does nothing, or hardly anything, to help nature,” he said.

Caretaker nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal told parliament last month that the outgoing cabinet was not prepared to relax the rules. “We can’t afford that luxury,” she said. “The nitrogen bath is so full that it can’t take even a tiny drop more.”