Spain Ends The Year With The Lowest Number Of Road Deaths

SPAIN will close 2019 establishing a new record with the lowest number of fatalities in traffic accidents. The government estimates that the number of deaths on intercity roads is around 1,100, down from 1,188 last year. Improving on the previous record in 2015, when 1,131 people died.

The reduction of the maximum permitted speed from 100 to 90 kilometres per hour on secondary roads is one of the main causes of the drop in fatal accidents after several years of stagnation with a slight upturn in fatalities.

2019 will replace 2015 as the year with the least number of deaths on intercity roads since the beginning of road traffic data collection in the 1960s.

The Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) finalises the year with the following emotive message:

“This year we count less. Less tears, less emergencies, less ambulances called out. Fewer orphans and fewer tragedy. Fewer absences. Because this year the number of victims on the road is less again”

The Ministry of the Interior agrees that the data are not the result of chance: “There is a consistency behind it”. Stressing that the “consistency” and improvement of road safety has a name and surname, that of Pere Navarro, the director general of traffic since July 2018. And previously from 2004 -2012.

Navarro’s implementation of the points-based drivers license provoked a dramatic reduction in traffic fatalities. The result was immediate, with a progressive fall in the number of deaths between 2004 and 2011 (from 3,464 to 1,484).

As Euro Weekly News understands, the next major reform that the current government has prepared is to reduce the speed limit in the city from 50 to 30 kilometres per hour. In 2018 there were 489 deaths on urban roads, of which 237 were pedestrians. Sixty-six per cent were 65 years old or older.

Reported road casualties in Great Britain in the year ending June 2019 shows, at 1,870 reported road deaths, at a higher casualty rate than Spain.

 

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Cristina Hodgson

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