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Report Galicia is the region where there is the greatest risk of dying in an accident;
Madrid, where least
A couple of years ago, a Race survey of 1,300 drivers left it black on white:
nine out of 10 interviewees admitted that, at some point, they had encountered an animal on the road,
domestic, but mostly wild.
And faced, therefore, with a significant risk of accident.
A few days ago, the Ponle Freno-Axa Road Safety study center confirmed this perception: according to internal figures from the insurer itself,
claims involving animals skyrocketed last year, reaching 6,676 claims of all kinds.
In other words, without personal injury and with them, which are the only ones collected by the DGT and, therefore, are much less numerous (see attached graph).
INCREASE OF 39.5% COMPARED TO 2019
Specifically, the Axa data indicates that the increase was not only compared to 2020, when there were restrictions on mobility due to the coronavirus pandemic:
the increase compared to that year was 60.5%, 39.5% versus 2019 and 67.7% more if the reference is 2018.
Most of these claims were caused by hunting species (game animals) with
wild boar standing out from the rest (35% of the total), followed by roe deer (one in four cases).
In third place, the dog appears, with almost 20%.
And all animals, except the hare, increased the number of collisions with vehicles.
Sheep, for example, doubled them.
Burgos, the most dangerous province
Not all roads are equally dangerous either, having to pay special attention if we travel through
Burgos or the four Galician ones.
In fact, this CCAA is the second in which more incidents of this type occur, 17.6% of the total, only surpassed by Castilla y León (25% of the cases).
In both regions there are very similar circumstances: a great extension of the road network and an orography and terrain specially prepared for the life of wild animals.
The third CCAA with the most claims of this type is Catalonia (10.6%)
In Galicia and Catalonia, the species with the most abuses in 2021 was the wild boar, due to the roe deer in Catalonia.
And in the three Autonomous Communities, the time of year with the greatest risk of finding a bug on the road is November.
The reason: together with October and December, they are the hunting season months.
If we look at the days of the week, the differences are very small in the percentage of accidents.
The driver guilty
In addition to the occasional pressure of hunting activities, the pressure that urban planning exerts on the natural habitats of game species also influences.
Thus,
it is becoming more and more common to see images of wild boars -complete herds or loose animals-
searching for food on the outskirts of cities.
To all this we must add the legislative change that occurred in 2014.
Until then, in the event of a collision with a wild boar or a deer, the responsibility of the same was endorsed almost automatically to the owners of the hunting reserves for the that the road ran.
With one exception, which began operating in 2005: when the driver had committed an infraction.
The overturn was total and the current law states that any motorist "who suffers an accident due to the running over of a hunting species will be responsible for damage to people and property."
This means that the insurance will always cover damage (physical or material) to third parties, but not your own.
So, in an extreme case and even if they were not at fault, the driver would be left without compensation, suffer a broken arm or mouth or be seriously injured.
And his family will also be left without that money if he dies.
As a silly consolation, the value of the run over bug can never be claimed in these cases.
When does a coto respond?
For the fault to fall on the owner of the reserve,
it is necessary that the incident is a direct consequence of a hunt for big game
(rabbits are not used, for example): or if it occurs within 12 hours after that.
While, to endorse the responsibility to the
Administration that owns the road, it will be necessary to demonstrate failures in its enclosure or that it had not placed the appropriate signage.
The disproportion is so great that the Supreme Court itself has referred to a "helpless" driver, while attacking another undesired consequence that the new law has brought.
And it is that with it "the pattern of rigorous diligence in the conservation of bounded land.... has ceased to be applicable."
Likewise, the balance of the populations of these species is no longer taken care of so much, so there are more animals on the loose.
Domestic animals
The picture is less bleak if dogs, cats, sheep or cows are involved.
That is, domestic or agricultural animals.
Here we must comply with the regulation of the Civil Code (article 1,905) which states that
"the owner of an animal, or the one who uses it, is responsible for the damage it causes, even if it escapes or is lost."
For the fact that an animal is loose on the road, its owner will already be sanctioned with 91 euros.
But it can end in prison sentences of one to four years in case there are deaths and there has been negligence or recklessness on your part.
As in the case of game species,
the Administration will be responsible for the damage that a domestic animal may cause
on a high-capacity road that should be correctly delimited.
Take out insurance
Given the above, it is advisable to have specific coverage.
Most insurers offer it as an optional guarantee of basic policies, without it being necessary to take out an all-risk policy.
They do it for wild animals and for domestic or farm animals.
Likewise, there have been Savings Banks located in areas affected by this phenomenon that have expressly designed these policies.
And it is that, according to Ponle Freno-Axa,
4% of these accidents cause personal damage, more expensive if they are hunting animals, which also break the car more: the repair bill increases by almost 50%.
The new security assistants
Due to its age, the car used by the ADAC in the test that you were able to see at the beginning, did not have one of the most common safety assistants today and ideal for this type of accident.
It is about emergency braking, which the European Union requires to mount on all newly approved vehicles from July 6 this year;
and that all new registrations must carry from July 2024.
These devices are capable of stopping the car by itself when they detect a risk of a crash, avoiding it or minimizing the damage.
Initially, they could only identify pedestrians and cyclists, but many can do so with animals.
Although less frequent, there are also night vision cameras
that, thanks to infrared sensors, detect the heat that a body radiates and issue an early warning;
or directly activate the vehicle's braking system.
How to act in an emergency
No one is free from an animal jumping onto the road, so the speed at which we drive will be key.
At 60 km/h, it takes 35 meters to brake, and more than double that at 80 km/h.
So the first advice is to slow down in those sections that are marked by this type of danger.
Nor should you use the horn or lights to scare him, since his reaction is unpredictable.
If the run over is unavoidable, we must avoid giving a very sharp swerve as we can end up leaving the road and overturning.
It's best to hold the steering wheel tight, bring the car to a controlled stop and, at the last second, lift your foot so that the nose of the car goes up and the animal doesn't end up crashing into the front windshield.
Do not try to touch the animal: if it is injured, it can react violently.
Or be contagious by some kind of disease.
pets in the car
12% of Spanish drivers travel with their pets incorrectly, according to a study carried out by Race and Royal Canin in 2020. It is not an issue to be taken lightly.
In simulations made with dog dolls of different weights (4.8 kg, 12.8 kg and 25 kg) inside the cabin, in different positions and using different retention systems, it was shown that
the smallest is already a real danger if it is loose, as it transforms into a projectile with a mass equivalent to 280 kilos
when an emergency brake is made at 100 km/h.
The study concludes that the safest place to carry our pets is the trunk and the rear space in the footwell.
But always with a suitable fastening system, such as safety harnesses, transport boxes or carriers attached to the vehicle, or separation barriers from the trunk.
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