The General Directorate of Traffic, through the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard and those of all those regional and local police who want to join, is starting today Monday a new specific surveillance campaign that will last until next Sunday, October 13 and that, on this occasion, will be focused on distractions at the wheel.
As has already happened in previous editions, the campaign is part of the Operation Focus on the Road developed at European level by the association RoadPol (European Roads Policing Network).
Distractions at the wheel are the first concurrent factor in fatal traffic accidents. In 2023 alone, it was present in 30% of the total of these accidents, a percentage that has increased by two points compared to 2019, so this type of campaigns are still essential to warn of the risks involved in distracted or inattentive driving.
To this end, the agents will monitor both interurban and urban roads. To this roadside surveillance must be added the automated means available to the DGT with 253 cameras installed on the roads, through which it can be seen, among other things, whether the driver uses his mobile phone while driving.
In Cantabria
Up to 180 agents from the traffic sector of the Civil Guard participate in this campaign and three control chambers are available in Cantabria.
All municipalities with local police have been invited to participate in the campaign.
In the campaign of the year 2023, 175 drivers were reported, 74 of whom were driving while using the mobile phone.
Throughout 2023, a total of 1446 people were reported in Cantabria for driving using the mobile phone.
RISK FACTORS
Distractions at the wheel are a significant risk factor in traffic. Distracted driving is a frequent phenomenon that occurs when attention is diverted from the tasks necessary to drive and at the same time other activities are carried out outside the driving itself, diverting the gaze from the road for a few seconds.
The nature of the distraction and its duration also have a direct impact on the increase in the risk of loss. And, in that sense, it has been proven that activities that force the driver to look away from the road for longer and/or perform manual activities combined with cognitive activity significantly increase the risk of collision.
The use of electronic devices, precisely, in their various functionalities is recognized in various studies as one of the most common distractions with severe consequences for attentive driving, since it is one of the distractions that causes disturbances in almost all the capacities necessary to drive at the same time: cognitive, visual, manual, auditory…
In addition, the impact and risk of collision vary depending on the nature of the activity causing the distraction and its time of duration, it also varies depending on the context of the circulation and traffic at that time and the driver’s own characteristics.
In the reality of traffic, the higher the speed of the vehicle itself and/or of the other vehicles, the less the reaction margin the driver has against unforeseen events and the more convenient it is for the driver to concentrate fully on the tasks of driving and avoid all kinds of distractions, especially those that involve looking away from the road for longer, such as the manipulation of the aforementioned electronic devices.
Distraction and speed thus become a binomial that very significantly increases the levels of risk during driving. The most frequent type of accident due to distraction is the exit of the road, along with the collision with the previous vehicle and/or pedestrian run.
On that route out of the driver’s control, at a greater distance, much greater probability of colliding against an obstacle, against another vehicle, or against a pedestrian, especially in urban areas.
LAST CAMPAIGN RESULTS
Misuse of the mobile phone while driving continues to be the most common punishable distraction.
In fact, in the last campaign of surveillance and control of distractions at the wheel, carried out from 9 to 15 October 2023, and which was joined by 360 municipalities in 41 provinces, 38% of the complaints were due to the use of the mobile phone at the wheel.
In the following link you can download videos with distractions at the wheel https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kM6iUms1NkRcrYn36Toi-AGG0SgDM4Lv?usp=drive_link