“We can get by without driving bans” – Lower Saxony environment minister

Driving bans would fall short of what’s needed to make transportation more sustainable, according to Olaf Lies, social democrat environment minister in Lower Saxony, where carmaker VW is based. “I am sure we can get by in Lower Saxony without driving bans,” Lies said in a statement on the Federal Administrative Court hearing on driving bans, with reference to software updates to make cars cleaner and efforts to renew vehicle fleets. “We need a real transport transition,” Lies said, calling for government support to make public transport more attractive and introduce carsharing programmes. He said it was high time the federal government decided on legal questions and the financing of hardware retrofits for polluting cars, and that more flexible traffic light systems could make traffic more efficient.

Read the statement in German here.

For background, read the CLEW article German top court postpones ruling on diesel driving bans and the factsheet Diesel driving bans in Germany – The Q&A.