Safe Speed Forums

"All cars on the road today contribute to climate change because their engines burn fuel and therefore produce carbon dioxide (CO2) every time we drive"

Driving at an appropriate speed reduces CO2
Speed limits are the maximum lawful speeds which may be driven in ideal circumstances. Drivers should never exceed the speed limit. Staying at or within the speed limit increases driver safety. It also reduces CO2 emissions and saves money on your petrol costs. At 70mph you could be using up to 9% more fuel than at 60mph and up to 15% more fuel than at 50mph.

At 70mph you could be using up to 9% more fuel than at 60mph and up to 15% more fuel than at 50mph.

ASA upholds complaints about Lexus’ green advertising
A magazine ad for the Lexus RX 400h car headed "HIGH PERFORMANCE. LOW EMISSIONS. ZERO GUILT" , accompanied by text stating "RX 400h. The world's first high performance hybrid SUV ... category-leading low CO2 emissions. A combination without equal. Or compromise". The text at the foot of the ad stated "... CO2 emissions 192g/km", attracted ten complaints from readers who believed the claims "LOW EMISSIONS" and "ZERO GUILT" misleadingly implied the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in comparison with other vehicles. They argued that the "192g/km" emissions figure was high when compared to the emissions of all cars.

Lexus told the Advertising Standards Authority that they had sought approval from the CAP Copy Advice team before launching the ad and explained that, at 192g/km, the CO2 emissions of the RX 400h were very low compared to those of core competitors within its category. They submitted a chart, which compared the fuel emissions of the RX 400h with other vehicles they said were in the same class and showed that the emissions figure of 192g/km was the lowest of all those cars.

Lexus argued that the prominence of the illustration of the vehicle in the ad clarified the type of car the headline claims referred to and also the class of vehicle to which they applied. They believed readers of the ad would understand that the claims were made in relation to sports utility vehicles (SUV) only.

In its adjudication, the ASA acknowledged that, based on the evidence submitted, the CO2 emissions rate for the RX 400h was low compared to other cars in its class. It considered, however, that the headline claim "HIGH PERFORMANCE. LOW EMISSIONS. ZERO GUILT" implied the vehicle's emission rate was low regardless of category and readers were likely to understand from it that the car caused little or no harm to the environment, which was not the case, and had low emissions in comparison with all cars, which was also not the case.

Accordingly, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness), 19.1 (Other comparisons) and 49.1 (Environmental claims), and the ASA told Lexus not to imply in future that a car caused little or no harm to the environment and had low CO2 emissions in comparison with all cars if that was not the case.

49.1 The basis of any claim should be explained clearly and should be qualified where necessary. Unqualified claims can mislead if they omit significant information.

49.3 Where there is a significant division of scientific opinion or where evidence is inconclusive this should be reflected in any statements made in the marketing communication. Marketers should not suggest that their claims command universal acceptance if that is not the case.

49.5 The use of extravagant language should be avoided, as should bogus and confusing scientific terms. If it is necessary to use a scientific expression, its meaning should be clear.

Does it????

Yep. For an example, try driving at 100mph down your street.

(Please don't give me the one about deserted motorways in the middle of Middleonowhereshire at 3am on a Bank Holiday, nobody cares.)

Which quite clearly means that driving at higher than the speed limit would be even more suicidal. The caveat was "staying at or within"

And if you need to stay 'well within the speed limit', as is extremely common, the speed limit is once again completely irrelevant. It's no help at all in achieving a safe and appropriate speed. So much so that it (the speed limit) isn't even worth mentioning.

Why? Because it is inconvenient to your argument?

Essentially you are saying that our current range of speed limits are not broad enough to cover all roads and eventualities (duh).

Do you therefore suggest, if the speed limit is so 'irrelevant', that we should abolish them entirely and allow drivers to do as they please?

In fact you could reduce fatalities to almost zero quite easily by hard limiting all vehicles to 10mph.

Absolute rubbish. There would be all sorts of horrible crushings, cars driven off cliffs by sleeping drivers and gawd knows what.

Not to mention people dying because of, for example, poor food supplies, doctors not being able to get to hospitals on time and the knock-on economic consequences of crippling commerce. The crippled commerce couldn't pay wages or taxes at anything like present levels and the government couldn't afford to fund the health service or social security.

In short, you must be bloody joking!