Europe

1388 readers

262 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].

founded 3 months ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

anzo

117

Mandatory speed limiters come into force in the EU and Northern Ireland (eandt.theiet.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

59 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nobody is free to do whatever they want. Never had been.

There is a balance between freedom and security. Rules restrict your freedom but provide you with security.

It is childish to expect absolute freedom. When there is a new rule coming up, you have to think to yourself "is it worth it the freedom I'm giving away for the security it provides?". There are some rules 99+% of people can agree on, like "should people be free to murder other people?" The answer is most of the time "no".

For example, in Spain a recent law is introducing a "wankport". So soon we'll have to ask for our government for a key to access porn. With a limited 30 accesses per month. Their reasoning is "porn is bad for children!". Do I think that that is worth it? Absolutely not. It's completely baseless and it punishes adults to restrict the kid's behaviour.

There is an endless list of reasons why cars being too fast is bad though. They emit more noise, the emit more CO2 and other harmful gases, they release more microplastics, and so on. They also increase both the chance of accidents and their lethality. They wear more the roads and a miriad of other reasons.

What is the freedom you give away for cutting off all of those harms? Arriving 5 seconds later than usual to your workplace. Saving 5 minutes on your multi-hour trip. Is it worth it? Yes.