German Court Rules Cities Can Ban Diesel Automobiles


The courts of Germany have ruled that cities can ban the use of diesel vehicles to battle the issue of pollution. This raises many red flags for me, not only for the economic health of German cities, but for the chaos that it will cause in traffic, and the negative effect this will have on the value of diesel automobiles. 
When I think of Germany, and their effect on the world of transportation, the biggest thing I think of is Volkswagen. The German car company makes cars that are diesel, and not a whole lot of car companies do that. Most are just normal gas cars. So when the courts rule in favor of banning these cars in cities, I can't help but wonder if this will have negative effects on the country itself. The article that coincides with this said that this ruling will impact around 12 m vehicles. That is a huge amount of vehicles that people will not be able to drive, and get to places that they need to be, including work, and to buy things. This to me means that businesses will be getting less income, and that the public transportation is going to have to be improved immensely or they will be extremely busy.
Greenpeace activists outside court in Leipzig Though this might have some negative impacts, not everyone is going to be upset, in fact, the environmental activists who promote the ruling are quite pleased with this. “It’s a great day for clean air in Germany,” Jürgen Resch, of the DUH, said about the ruling, and is one of many who are welcoming the change. Experts estimate that excessive amounts of nitrogen oxides in the air kill between 6,000 and 13,000 people in Germany every year, causing a range of health conditions, from strokes to asthma. This change will be in hopes of eliminating this drastically. 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/german-court-rules-cities-can-ban-diesel-cars-to-tackle-pollution

Comments

  1. ElizabethDomkeMarch 1, 2018 at 2:49 PM

    I also read about this on BBC! Great blog post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Seth WeilandMarch 21, 2018 at 10:04 AM

    Thanks for the response Elizabeth! Do you think that the new law will be helpful or not to the society as a whole? I think it is important to make sure that the new laws do not disrupt the daily life of everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matt KlahrMarch 21, 2018 at 10:12 AM

    It is very odd that Germany wants to ban diesel vehicles in their major cities. Most of the working world runs off of diesel such as trains, semi trucks, public transit buses and even some container ships. So if they ban diesel vehicles in cities, all of the buses could not operate there. Unless they are excluding buses, which in that case how much of a difference will it make if diesel passenger vehicles are not allowed in cities? Also, this change can not make an immediate effect on the air quality especially if this ban will only fix a small portion of the air quality problem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seth WeilandApril 9, 2018 at 9:52 AM

    I thought the same Matt.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mary SpaethMay 10, 2018 at 6:42 PM

    Different grades of diesel now, however. EU is regulating them all differently. https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/eu/fuel.php

    ReplyDelete

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