SPAIN IS to cut its motorway speed limit to 110km/h from 120km/h to save petrol following the rise in crude oil prices and fears of a supply crisis caused by upheavals in Libya and other Arab states.
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, deputy prime minister, announced the speed reduction – from March 7th – as one of the energy-saving measures agreed by ministers on Friday. The initiative suggests rising oil prices could have a direct impact on consumer behaviour.
The move recalls similar measures taken during the 1970s oil crisis. The US reduced the speed limit on freeways to 55mph (88.5km/h) and Britain imposed a maximum of 50mph for a few months at the end of 1973.
Mr Pérez Rubalcaba said the limit was temporary and would be linked to the duration of the “emergency situation” in north Africa. He insisted, however, that it was to save money rather than because of any expected disruption to fuel supplies in Spain.
He said the change would cut consumption of petrol by about 15 per cent and of diesel by 11 per cent, in a country where every $10 rise in oil prices costs an extra €6 billion a year.
“We’re going to go slower and, in exchange for that, we’re going to use less petrol and we’re going to pay less money,” Mr Pérez Rubalcaba said.
Alongside the lower speed limit, Spain will cut the price of commuter and short-distance rail tickets by 5 per cent and increase the proportion of bio-diesel used in diesel fuel from 5.8 per cent to 7 per cent.– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)
