The Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, and the provincial head of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) in Las Palmas, Eva Canitrot, have reported today in Gran Canaria, accompanied by the provincial coordinator of the Association of Spinal Injuries and Major Physically Disabled Persons (ASPAYM), Ana Margarita Rodríguez, on the specific control campaign carried out by the DGT for speed monitoring as one of the key risk factors in road accidents.
The campaign, in which ASPAYM collaborates through raising awareness among drivers of the serious risk involved in driving without respecting speed limits, runs until next Sunday and is part of the Global Plan of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 and the Spanish Road Safety Strategy 2030, which seeks to halve the number of fatalities by the end of the decade.
The agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard, as well as the other local police who join it, will monitor both on urban and interurban roads the risk sections associated with speed, as well as those points where the circulation exceeds the established limit and there is a high accident rate, all following the recommendations of international and European organizations that urge the agencies responsible for road safety in the different countries to monitor that the established speed limits are met.
Considering its preventive nature, through this campaign, which seeks to focus on the fact that inadequate speed is the third most common concurrent factor in traffic accidents, drivers will be announced the existence of controls through circumstantial vertical signage.
“Respect for traffic signs and speed limits saves lives, those of drivers, those who accompany them in vehicles, but also those of other people and animals on the roads, both urban and interurban. This is the message in which we must continue to insist: speed limits have their meaning, they have their reason, and complying with them prevents many human tragedies. That is why the Government and the DGT promote this type of controls, to raise awareness and prevent,” says Anselmo Pestana.
“In this work of awareness, the collaboration of associations such as ASPAYM is also very important, where they know very well what the tragic consequences of overspeed and traffic accidents are. Driving a vehicle is no joke, it is one of the activities of our day to day that require a greater exercise of caution and responsibility, particularly in summer when we tend to greater relaxation. The government will not tire of remembering what the rules are, what is the responsibility with which we must comply all and everyone at the wheel,” he adds.
In this sense, the provincial head of Traffic points out that the risks and dangers in driving are still there, despite the improvement of vehicle technology and the conditions of the roads through which it is driven, “fundamentally because driving is a human activity: without responsibility at the wheel and without respect for traffic rules and speed limits, everything else can be useless to avoid accidents.”
Compliance with speed limits set
The DGT calls on all drivers to respect speed limits, thus contributing to saving lives and reducing accidents on our roads, through the following messages:
- Having an adequate speed could prevent a quarter of the deaths on sinister roads.
- From 80 km/h it is practically impossible for a pedestrian to be saved in a run, while at a speed of 30 km/h, the risk of death of the pedestrian is reduced to 5%.
- Speed affects the risk of being involved in an accident. The faster it is, the harder it is to react in time and prevent an accident.
- Speed affects injuries resulting from an accident. At higher impact speeds, more energy is released when colliding with another vehicle, road user or obstacle.
- There is a very close relationship between speed and risk of accident, and between speed and severity of injuries resulting from an accident
According to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) study, if average speeds fell by just 1 km/h on all roads in the European Union, it is estimated that 2,200 road deaths could be prevented each year.
Variable compliance
Based on the results of the European Baseline Project, in terms of speed, the level of compliance with the speed limit established in Spain varies depending on the type of track.
While on motorways 63% of passenger cars travel at the permitted speed, on motorways this percentage drops to 51%. In the case of conventional roads, which present the greatest risks, compliance with the established speed limit is 43%, a low level, similar to that recorded by Belgium (46%).
On urban roads with a limit of 50 km/h, the level of speed compliance by passenger cars is 65%, the third highest value of the 13 countries with which we share a limit.
On the other hand, in the streets of 30 km/h, the compliance level is 32%, the highest value of the three countries for which data are available. It should also be noted that the average speed of passenger cars on 30th Street is 11 km/h lower than that on 50th Street (36 km/h versus 47 km/h), a difference that greatly reduces the risk of a fatal or serious accident.
Technology as an ally
Since July 6, all new registered vehicles in Spain must have a series of advanced safety functions, the so-called ADAS, among which is the Intelligent Speed Assistant (ISA).
This system, made up of the vehicle’s navigator, which shows the speed limit on the road on which it travels, and a signal recognition system that complements digital cartography and detects temporary speed limitations, helps the driver to know and respect the speed limits, thus contributing to the improvement of road safety.
An essential collaboration
The National Federation ASPAYM collaborates once again with the DGT in this campaign involving volunteers with spinal injuries who will accompany the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard in their roadblocks in different points of Spain, with the aim of raising awareness with their presence of the irreversible consequences and consequences that can have a small distraction at the wheel.
The collaboration is part of the awareness campaign “Don’t run, don’t drink, don’t change wheels” that they have been carrying out since 2007 and which includes different initiatives that have personal testimonies as a central axis, since it has been proven effective in complementing awareness campaigns.