The General Directorate of Traffic will begin tomorrow a special campaign of surveillance of trucks and buses on the roads of Galicia. Throughout the week, the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard will intensify the controls on this type of vehicle on the Galician roads, counting on the collaboration of numerous local police, who also join it.
For the development of the campaign, which will be coordinated by the provincial traffic headquarters, the maximum number of human and material resources available will be used. Furthermore, whenever possible, drivers will be warned of the upcoming existence of controls, both through the variable signalling panels and the alphanumeric screens of the vehicles of the Traffic Group located in the immediate vicinity.
The agents will have a special impact on verifying aspects such as the technical conditions and safety elements of the vehicle, its weight, the conditioning of the load, the condition of the tyres or the proper functioning of the lighting.
They will also carry out administrative checks, examining the documentation of the vehicle and the drivers’ licence; they will check driving and rest times, as well as alcohol consumption; they will also monitor the speed and maintenance of the safety distance.
This campaign has a special impact in Galicia due to the volume of regular passenger, school and freight transport lines that circulate daily on the roads of the Community. According to data from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, as of January this year in Galicia there are 15,765 companies authorized to carry out both types of transport, mostly logistics of goods.
In addition, in Galicia alone, public passenger transport moves 2.5 million passengers per month, to which should be added the passengers of urban buses, school routes and discretionary transport, which would significantly raise this figure.
In 2022 in Galicia three people died in three accidents related to trucks (in Ourense: 2 deaths in 2 accidents in trucks of more than 3500kg, and in Lugo: 1 deceased in 1 accident in a truck less than 3500 kg) and seven people in a bus accident produced in the province of Pontevedra.
Previous campaign data
During the seven days of the same campaign last year (between February 7 and 13), agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard controlled 3,108 trucks and 187 buses in Galicia. In these controls, 759 truck drivers and 22 bus drivers were reported for not complying with some of the precepts of traffic and road safety regulations. These denunciations materialized in 1,067 sanctions related to trucks and 27, linked to buses.
The most relevant are the reports of excessive driving hours, followed by those related to administrative irregularities in the documentation or overweight and poor load disposition.