The City of Hamburg, Germany receives the May 2018 BAN Award for being the first city banning certain Diesel cars from some of its main streets. The Consumer Choice Center’s Managing Director Fred Roeder explains that only a few municipal governments have managed to discriminate that many consumers at once:

“Over 200,000 local Diesel drivers will have to find their way through Hamburg without being allowed on two of the main traffic arteries of the bespoke city. For decades consumers were incentivized to buy Diesel cars and now suddenly get punished by regulators for following their recommendations. The war against Diesel drivers is a war against consumers and will not help the environment. Health experts such as the previous president of the German Society of Pneumology even question if Diesel emissions play a significant role in affecting people’s health,” said Roeder.

“By awarding Hamburg with the tongue-in-cheek BAN Award we want to highlight how much the Diesel driving ban is an infringement on consumer choice.”

Every month the Consumer Choice Center awards an institution, person, or organization with the Bureau of Nannyism or short BAN Award. The BAN Awards recognize the work of an individual or organization that has made major contributions to advocating limits on consumer choice. This award serves to recognize extraordinary abilities in disregarding consumers and evidence-based public policy. The award was created by the Consumer Choice Center to draw attention to the important role politicians, lobbies, and advocates play in limiting consumers’ choice and ignoring them in the policymaking process.

Selection criteria: The Bureau of Nannyism (BAN) is a group of consumer choice advocates that discuss nominations on a monthly base and award the nominee with the most innovative or most blunt actions against consumer choice with the BAN award.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org