This week, the Directorate-General for Traffic is launching a new surveillance campaign, which will focus on the construction sites on the interurban traffic routes.
This control campaign, which starts today and will last until Sunday, June 9, is inscribed in the importance of compliance with the limits established in the sections of works, one of the main factors of fatal accident of the operators working on the roads open to traffic.
The Spanish Road Safety Strategy 2030 identifies as a strategic area the safe roads in line with the approach of the integrated safe system and assumes among its lines of action in this field to enhance design solutions and procedures of infrastructure safety management, as well as safe, sustainable and intelligent traffic management.
In particular, it stands out as a relevant action to anticipate in real time the warnings of the proximity of works in execution with the aim of having enough time to adapt the driving to such circumstances.
For all this, the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard in Cantabria will especially monitor the works on all types of interurban roads that affect the road and/or modify the layout of the lanes, including tunnel sections, with the aim of contributing to reduce the behaviors that involve risks in those sections while driving, such as inadequate speed, distractions and overtaking.
ACCIDENT IN CONSTRUCTION AREAS
According to provisional data from the National Registry of Victims of Traffic Accidents, in 2023 there were a total of 131 traffic accidents related to the maintenance and conservation work on the roads, of which 21 involved operators working or walking on the road or in its vicinity (pedestrians), while the other 110 involved maintenance and conservation operators inside their vehicles.
Although it is true that there are no univocal variables in the statistical sources of traffic accidents, nor of work accidents in this regard, there are technical studies and academic research from which some fundamental ideas are concluded, such as that most accidents in the works of maintenance of the roads are atrocities, most of which occur by vehicle outside the work itself and while the signaling of these works was proceeding. In addition, the most influential factor in this type of accident is speed.