Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-19-Speech-4-012"
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"en.20080619.2.4-012"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, whom I greet as a newcomer to our Chamber, ladies and gentlemen, we have here a report with an abundance of suggestions. I can certainly compliment Mrs Gurmai on the wealth of ideas that been incorporated into this report with a view to enhancing the technical sophistication of the vehicles on our roads.
By way of introduction, however, I cannot resist a remark on the expressions ‘intelligent vehicle’, ‘intelligent infrastructure’ and ‘intelligent safety devices’. As I have already said in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I consider it downright unacceptable to apply this term to cars and roadways.
these Latin terms have to do with discernment, perception and understanding. They refer to the cognitive capacity of human beings, their ability to understand, to abstract, to solve problems and apply knowledge. From a purely linguistic point of view it is utter nonsense to speak of intelligent vehicles and intelligent roads!
In the statement explaining her report, Mrs Gurmai writes, ‘Ever-increasing road traffic generates serious social and environmental problems: congestion of road networks and urban areas, damage to the environment and to public health, energy wastage, accidents and, above all, the needless loss of lives’. I wholeheartedly agree. Nor do I seek to deny that cleverly conceived technology of the kinds with which this document abounds can help to make road traffic less dangerous and kinder to the environment. It only goes a limited way, however, towards solving the real social and environmental problems.
I have recently been in quite a few school classrooms. During these visits, I have taken the opportunity to ask several pupils from intermediate and senior secondary schools what they considered to be the main causes of the numerous road accidents. The first answers were always ‘too fast and dangerous speeds and drink-driving’. The solutions we are coming up with here, however, are almost exclusively the kind advanced by the motor industry, which seeks to sell more and more new and technically sophisticated vehicles.
If rising fuel prices are a problem, if there is an urgent need to reduce energy consumption in general, if the irresponsibly high levels of CO
emissions need to be lowered, and if we want to do something to combat climate change, we shall not put these things to rights with a philosophy of more and more, higher and higher, faster and faster, ever more sophistication and ever more mobility but much rather by adopting a different lifestyle, in which slower, more modest and thriftier are the order of the day.
There is one point I must dispute. The rapporteur writes, ‘For the consumer affordability is a key issue. Many consumers simply cannot afford the systems in question. It is therefore important that intelligent transport systems become affordable and widely available as soon as possible’. The Heidelberg-based Environmental and Forecasting Institute (UPI) calculated a few years ago that, once all direct and indirect transport costs have been taken into account, the average car in Germany is subsidised by the government, in other words by the taxpayer, to the tune of some EUR 3 000 a year. It is unacceptable that destruction of the environment and risks to public health should be subsidised. On the contrary, those who cause the damage should pay in accordance with the principle of cost transparency.
Road construction and maintenance are not the only cost factors. There are also the use of land and the many forms of damage to nature and human health. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not opposed to better technology, but I am opposed to this blind faith in technology. If we want to subsidise mobility, we should primarily support rail travel, local public transport, cycling and walking. That would be more intelligent, healthier, safer and greener."@en1
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