Spain has broken records for the reduction of road deaths over the last 30 years: it has gone from 4,630 deaths in 1993 to 1,145 in 2022. It represents a 75% decrease in deaths, a figure that is unparalleled in any other country and that awoke international admiration. The road safety policies that became a matter of State with the first government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with the arrival at the DGT of Pere Navarro that meant a revolution in the way of preventing accidents. Navarro is back in the General Directorate of Traffic but the fall in victims has not only slowed down but is beginning to pick up. For almost a decade the number of deaths on interurban roads has remained practically stable at around a thousand, a figure that was only not exceeded in the atypical 2020 due to mobility restrictions derived from the pandemic.
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During this time, the Penal Code has been tightened, the point card has been reformed to further punish behaviors that generate the greatest risk, speed limits have been reduced, millions of euros have been invested in awareness campaigns and technology has improved. of new vehicles… but the victims on the road have continued without falling below a thousand. And to this figure we must add, in addition, those who died in the cities, that in 2021 there were 417. Do these data mean that the reduction in road accidents has reached its bottom? Is there room for action to limit fatalities?
Experts consulted by elDiario.es admit that it will be “very difficult” to reduce this figure much more, but they agree that this is not the time to lower our guard. Above all, to prevent this trend from being reversed. They stand out as one of the main priorities to protect the so-called vulnerable users —pedestrians, cyclists and mopeds— whose mortality has increased by 6% in the last decade. They also emphasize the importance of improving roads and the vehicle fleet, while continuing to support road safety education and awareness, with specific awareness campaigns and educational and reinsertion measures.
In its last appearance in Congress, last October, the director of the DGT, Pere Navarro, warned of the existence of a “certain relaxation” in compliance with traffic regulations after the pandemic. “After two years of prohibitions we are installed in the ‘today is today and tomorrow we’ll see’. It is not a problem related to any specific issue, such as speed. It’s a widespread issue,” he stated.
The points-based license, implemented in 2006, marked a before and after in road safety policy. It helped open up the debate on accidents and drew citizens’ attention to the relevance of their driving behaviour. This and other measures have made Spain have one of the lowest driving death rates in the European Union: 32 deaths per million inhabitants, ahead of countries with a long tradition in road safety such as Finland (40), Austria (40), Belgium (43) or France (45). The average rate in the EU is 44 deaths. Almost two decades later it continues to be a useful instrument, but it must be complemented with other initiatives, the sources consulted agree.
“Coercive measures are necessary, but they are not the only ones. You could only get off that ground by transversally attacking the three aspects on which European and global accident reduction strategies focus: driver, vehicle and road”, explains Fernando Minaya, professor of Civil Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and expert in mobility and road safety.
The human factor is also decisive for Javier Llamazares, president of the Fesvial Road Safety Foundation, who calls for “serious and continuous measures over time” to address two phenomena that he continues to consider essential: alcohol consumption and repeat offenders. “It is something that must be worked on in a very defined way with education and awareness campaigns”, maintains this expert, who regrets that road safety “is passing to a third or fourth level”. “We have the feeling that many citizens don’t even know about the latest reforms that have been made, like ending the 20 km/h margin when overtaking,” he says.
Llamazares draws special attention to the situation of vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists and mopeds) who already outnumber those who use four-wheeled vehicles. And he calls for specific policies focused on the urban distribution of goods, which is increasingly gaining importance in the management of traffic and mobility in cities after the boom of electronic commerce. “Road safety at work is one of the great challenges of the coming years. And that’s where the companies have to collaborate”, says the president of Fesvial, who recalls that there has been a change in trend in recent years and that currently the largest number of claims take place on weekdays.
seat belt use
The increase in online purchases or the “relaxation” with the rules are not the only consequences that the pandemic has left. Minaya affirms that after the stoppage due to the coronavirus, many citizens have lost the habit of taking the car, to which is added that the population is getting older, which makes driving more clumsy. “And that influences the fact that the accident rate cannot be reduced,” says this expert, who defends the generalization of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems or ADAS (for its acronym in English, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). These are devices such as the reversing camera, the emergency braking signal, the black box or the anti-start breathalyzer.
Since last July, all new passenger cars that register in the community space have to incorporate eight of these electronic assistants as standard. Many of them were already included by the manufacturers, but since then they are mandatory. According to a study by the European Parliament, these devices will prevent up to 25,000 deaths and more than 140,000 serious injuries in Europe in the next 18 years. But its generalization is still a long way off in a country like Spain, where the average age of the vehicle fleet is 13.5 years.
The DGT defends that the objective of these devices is to protect vulnerable users and avoid frontal collisions, lane departures, crashes due to not respecting the safety distance or speeding. But in some of his recent campaigns he has insisted that the best technology is still human capacity to think about when to stop for a break, lift your foot off the accelerator or pay attention to the road so as not to invade the next lane.
In fact, the official figures leave other worrying data about the little responsibility of drivers in the use of well-established safety accessories, such as seat belts or helmets. Last year, one in four deaths in cars and vans was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident. And this despite the fact that the DGT has been campaigning for more than fifteen years about the importance of its use. Precisely with the aim of insisting on this idea, the latest reform of the card by points raised from three to four the points that are lost for not using the seat belt, child restraint systems, helmet and other protection elements. The penalty of 200 euros was maintained.
“It seems incredible that there are many people who still do not assume that the three anchor points of the belt save lives. It is crucial, it is not something we use just to avoid a fine”, affirms Fernando Muñoz, vice president of Stop Accidents, an organization with two decades of experience in advising victims of traffic accidents.
This latest reform also increased the punishment for risky behaviors such as holding the mobile phone with the hand, which became penalized with the withdrawal of six points from the card, instead of the previous three. According to the DGT, since 2016, distracted driving is the leading cause of fatal accidents, with the mobile phone being one of the most harmful elements while driving as a result of the proliferation of social networks and the dependence on these devices.
awareness campaigns
In addition to the human factor, which is responsible for many accidents; and the age of the car fleet, the experts consulted affirm that the state of the roads also plays a relevant role in the accident rate. The focus should be placed, according to his criteria, on conventional races, which concentrate three out of every four deaths that occur on interurban roads.
“It is not only taking care of the asphalt, but everything in the environment”, affirms Fernando Minaya, who insists that the probability of having an accident increases considerably if the road is not in good condition. A report from the Spanish Highway Association, the employers’ association of construction companies, puts the deficit in conservation accumulated by Spanish roads at 10,000 million euros.
But if there is one element that all the analysts consulted give relevance to, it is the importance of promoting education, training and awareness in society. Either through campaigns aimed at all citizens or from educational centers, where road safety is included from this course in the educational curriculum. In addition, experts like Minaya say that the secret is for these campaigns to be in traditional media, but also in powerful social networks among the younger population such as Instagram or TikTok. “The sanction works, but you have to find a way to avoid reaching the sanction,” says this engineer.
“We must promote self-responsibility and maintain initiatives and campaigns that make us aware that a traffic accident is something that can happen to all of us with minimal distraction. In a few seconds a vehicle can travel many meters. And in those meters anything can happen ”, adds Muñoz, who lost one of his children in a traffic accident 15 years ago.
