Video footage of Czech millionaire Radim Passer driving a high-powered sports activities automobile as much as 417 km/h on a German autobahn has not gone down effectively.
Prosecutors might file felony prices later this week.
However the 58-year-old businessman might quickly have his urge for food for pace higher accommodated again house within the Czech Republic.
The new authorities in Prague just lately dusted down an previous concept to extend the pace restrict on sectionsof motorway from 130 to 150 km/h.
That might give the Czech Republic one of many highest pace limits in Europe.
It has left many scratching their heads as to why the transport ministry would resuscitate an concept it had opposed again in 2015 when MPs proposed an identical pace restrict change.
On the time, the modification was rapidly killed off by the Senate, the higher chamber of parliament, and President Milos Zeman publicly declared he would by no means signal such a become legislation, even when parliament agreed to it.
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“Czech drivers don't respect the legislation, so rising the pace restrict will result in much more dangerous conditions as a result of no person will cease at 150,” mentioned Ondrej, a commuter in Olomouc.
“I can think about when a minister has a driver and a limousine it seems like a pleasant concept, however the actuality is totally different.”
Highway high quality considerations
Security was the principle concern in 2015, as was the easy query of why the Czech Republic wanted such a change.
It got here 74th on the earth for high quality of roads — belowEl Salvador, Iran and Gambia — in a 2018 research part-conducted by the World Financial Discussion board. It fell to 76th within the 2019 research, making it the fifth-worst within the European Union.
The nation’s longest motorway, D1, connecting the capital Prague to Brno, was began in 1967 however many years of modernisation work solely completed late final 12 months.
The brand new coalition authorities that took workplace in December is raring to rapidly flip issues round. The brand new transport minister, Martin Kupka, says he'll convey ahead 5 main items of laws to parliament this 12 months, together with amending the Highway Site visitors Act to extend motorway pace limits and enhancing the standard of the nation's roads.
Based on an area media report from final 12 months, funding in street infrastructure fell from round 1% of GDP in 2010 to 0.6% by 2020. But, there was a ten% improve in visitors on all Czech roads since 2016, and a 15% improve on highways, in response to the just lately launched Nationwide Site visitors Census 2020, a survey taken each 5 years by the Transport Analysis Centre, a public analysis establishment.
A small ballot launched on social media by the transport ministry this month discovered that a slight majority of respondents supported a rise to the pace restrict, though it was hardly an exhaustive survey and lots of the opponents to the change in 2015 have resurfaced.
The previous transport minister, Petr Moos, informed native media this month that the proposed reform would primarily improve the pace restrict to 170 km/h, given the tendency of Czech drivers to skirt the foundations.
The police have additionally chimed in with a protracted record of necessities. Earlier than any modifications are made to hurry limits, a prolonged security inspection of sections of motorway would first must be carried out, police spokeswoman Hana Rubášová informed Euronews.
On a newly constructed stretch of the motorway, “a street security audit would should be carried out throughout the precise design of the development to take account of the proposed pace”. None of those inspections are more likely to be fast.
The plain concern is security, particularly as enchancment has been made lately. Highway visitors deaths (per 1,000,000 inhabitants) fell from 141.5 in 1999 to 86.3 in 2009 and 57.9 in 2019, in response to the OECD.
Any change to the pace restrict will “improve the distinction between the quickest automobiles and the slowest ones”, Rubášová defined.
Because the minimal pace restrict on Czech motorways is 80km/h, the present pace differential is 50 km/h, she famous. However a change of the utmost pace would improve the deferential to 70 km/h, which means the quickest vehicles might be driving at almost twice the pace because the slowest.
Conscious of those criticisms, the brand new suggestion put ahead by the five-party coalition authorities has watered down the 2015 proposal. A cupboard assertion mentioned the pace restrict would solely be elevated on “new sections of motorways geared up with fashionable telematics”, which means the utmost pace might be robotically lowered relying on situations. On present sections, it will solely be utilized the place related security considerations might be addressed, equivalent to on routes with three lanes.
Based on native media reviews, just a few stretches of the present motorway community have to this point been recognized as appropriate: the longest, between Prague's Spořilov and Mirošovice junctions, is 21km; the shortest is a 2km stretch of motorway close to Brno, within the southeast. The transport ministry didn't reply to questions from Euronews.
Distraction tactic?
Politics may be at hand, some suspect. The primary champions of this modification are the Civic Democrats (ODS), the most important celebration within the five-member coalition authorities, mentioned Lubomír Kopeček, a political science professor at Masaryk College.
A lot of its voters are middle-aged entrepreneurs and merchants for whom a speed-limit improve could be well-liked, he added.
Later this 12 months, Czech political events and alliances will compete in tight municipal elections the place points like street building and transport are inclined to dominate.
Some within the Czech press have additionally intimated all this will likely merely be an train in political distraction. The transport ministry has just lately made a sequence of unpopular bulletins, together with a discount in fare reductions on trains and buses for college kids, seniors and the disabled from April, a coverage in step with the brand new authorities’s promise to chop state debt and expenditure. Naturally, the difficulty of fare reductions was pushed out of the headlines by the speed-limit debate.
Kopeček, the political scientist, reckons there's a good likelihood of it passing parliament. Criticism is more likely to come from ANO, the most important opposition celebration, whose voter base is often older folks extra cautious about rushing, he mentioned. However the coalition authorities controls an eight-seat majority in parliament, so the modification would cross until there's main dissent within the coalition ranks.
President Zeman, who in 2015 vowed by no means to enact the become legislation, might be out of workplace after the presidential election subsequent January.
Kupka, the transport minister, has steered he'll ship this proposed modification to the Chamber of Deputies for debate both this 12 months or in early 2023.
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