The subdelegate of the Government in A Coruña, María Rivas, this morning called on people who travel on the roads of the province to “not lower their guard at the wheel” to avoid that the number of lives that are lost without sinister traffic continue to increase. He made this reflection during the presentation of the campaign that the General Directorate of Traffic carries out until Sunday, April 21 to control the speed and that will especially affect the conventional roads (those that have only one lane in each direction) and the urban roads of the Galician community.
María Rivas indicated that, so far this year, 15 people lost their lives on the roads of Córdoba, compared to the seven that were registered in the same period of the previous year. “Almost half of the most serious accidents and victims in Galicia occur on roads in the province of A Coruña, very worrying data that show that we are relaxing and paying for it with lives on the roads.” In this regard, he pointed out that one in five accidents that occur in the province have as a determining factor the speed “hence the importance of this campaign, which seeks to raise awareness of the close relationship between inadequate speed and accidents”.
In this same vein, he stressed that the results of the last traffic campaign, focused on the use of safety and restraint systems, “give an account of that relaxation that we talked about, because, despite warning that the lack of use of these systems was behind half of the deaths on the roads of the province, more than 300 people were sanctioned for not using the belt,” he lamented.
Respecting the campaign now under way, he reported that it is coordinated by the provincial traffic headquarters and will use the maximum possible means, with the notification, when possible, of the existence of controls through the variable signage panels and on the alphanumeric screens of the vehicles of the Traffic Group located in the vicinity.
In addition, in these controls DGT will have the support of the different local police of the municipalities in its field of action, a very important collaboration to unify the message of respect to the limits of speed established regardless of the route through which it is circulated.
The controls shall ensure compliance with the generic and specific limits for speed, speed in overtaking and distances between vehicles. In this regard, it should be remembered that, in March 2022, it entered into force a rule that prevents drivers from passing the speed at 20km/h to advance on conventional roads.
In addition, controls will be strengthened on those more dangerous sections of conventional roads where there are more accidents and deaths with speed as a concurrent factor.
The government sub-police said that in the same campaign last year, a total of 45,631 vehicles were controlled on the roads of the province, of which 1,912 ended with a complaint for the person who was driving.
“It is absolutely necessary to adapt the speed, not only the regulations, but also the circumstances of the road and the weather conditions because, I insist on an adequate speed saves lives,” concluded Rivas.