"I'm burned with the 30 km / h". This is how emphatic Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, showed yesterday about the delay in the approval of a measure -reduce from 50 to 30 km / h the speed in one-way streets in the city- that he has been chasing for a long time . "I would have liked it to be approved at the end of last year," he said, and in fact, last fall, the Traffic Director was convinced that this initiative would become a reality as soon as there was a new government. "Instead, now we have seen that with the pandemic, a royal decree has been approved in just 24 hours," he lamented.

"It is on the table of the State Council," Fernando Grade-Marlaska, Interior Minister and direct boss of Navarro, had stated minutes earlier during the press conference in which the special Traffic device for this summer was presented. The measure has been requested by several large cities and the minister noted that this decrease in speed "would significantly reduce the number of deaths" in a city accident. Especially, as regards the so-called vulnerable users: pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

This group is one of the most worrying in the DGT for the months of July and August, since last year they represented 43% of fatalities in road accidents. "In 2010, they accounted for 30%," said Grande-Marlaska, for whom "just as this summer the holidays will be different for everyone, the operation will also be different." So much so that until the end of July there will be no forecast of the number of trips that can be made this summer.

SHORT TRAVEL TRIPS

"In 2019, which was the summer with the fewest deaths on the road (215) since there are statistics, 91 million trips were recorded. This year, in June there have still been 20% fewer trips than in the same dates of 2019 and we believe that most of them during July and August will be short-haul, concentrated during the weekend or in the surroundings of big cities destined for leisure places, " said the minister. The concern is that behaviors such as excessive speed (during the pandemic increased the percentage of complaints over the total number of concentrated vehicles) or the consumption of alcohol linked to celebrations and reunions with family members.

"It would be shocking to me that we have assimilated behaviors such as the use of the mask, social distance or hygiene measures, and that this does not later take to the road in cases such as wearing a belt or maintaining a safe distance. If we have Once the most acute phase of the coronavirus has passed, we cannot spoil it on the road ... we have been driving for months and now, we cannot forget the responsibility that this entails and confuse having regained freedom with running excessively ".

NEW AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

It is precisely this spirit that inspires the traditional Road Safety campaign of these months. She has been baptized. This country cannot bear more deaths. When driving extreme caution and has been shot right at the Ice Palace in Madrid, the emblematic morgue in Spain during the pandemic. It stars Javier Fernández, the Spanish skater who has repeatedly won the world and Europe.

Then, the effective control of the roads will fall on the conventional means: the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard, which this year has an 'artillery' never seen before. More than 1,300 radars (including 548 mobiles), 12 helicopters (one for each sector), 216 cameras that monitor the use of seat belts and mobile phones at the wheel, 11 drones (three of them with the capacity to sanction) and 15 camouflaged vans. "

TRADITIONAL CONTROLS ARE BACK

These data represent, as Navarro pointed out, some 60 more radars than there were last summer, especially those of a mini size that can be transported on board a motorcycle and installed on a tripod. Although he wanted to make it clear that "we are one of the countries with the least active radars. In France they have 4,000 and in the United Kingdom, 8,000." And as for the camouflaged vans, which began to be tested more than a year ago, the director of the DGT recognized that "due to their height, they are much more effective than a patrol car in monitoring behaviors such as the use of mobile, especially when chatting. "

Likewise, surveillance campaigns suspended during confinement will be resumed, in the event of specific speed controls or the consumption of alcohol and drugs at the wheel . But they will not be part of the special device of the summer "those of masks or occupancy of vehicles," said Minister Grande-Marlaska. Instead, it once again put the bikers in focus, "the only group that persistently increases its accident rate" when the general continues to decrease. "This year, we have already 60, which are many considering that there have been two months during which they have not been able to circulate."

On this point, Navarro insisted that they have "perfectly identified the 100 most dangerous sections of road" for these users and that soon they will begin to signal them. "Although we have failed to communicate this information," he admitted.

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