The Government Delegation, through the Local Traffic Headquarters, has commemorated one more year the World Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Traffic Accidents, with the aim of raising public awareness about the personal and social impact caused by road violence.
Thus the Local Head of Traffic, José Carlos Romero, has proceeded to read an institutional manifesto, in which he explained that, with this act that has been commemorated since the adoption in 2005 of a United Nations resolution, it is intended to remember the millions of people who have died and have been seriously injured on public roads around the world and to recognize the suffering of all the victims, their families, friends and relatives.
A cumulative number of victims, he said, “truly tremendous and unacceptable”, so he pointed out that this World Day has an important role “to help achieve the goal of reducing 50% of traffic accident victims”.
In addition, this act, he said, has become an important tool to ask governments and all those whose work involves preventing road accidents or providing an adequate response to the consequences of such accidents, to adopt all the necessary measures to address this reality, which adds up to 50 million deaths and hundreds of millions of injuries since the first death on the road.
“This is a real pandemic, which mainly affects our vulnerable and our young people and which, in addition to the trauma of the injuries and the enormous pain they cause, also has a devastating economic impact,” said Romero.
An event that also aims to pay tribute to emergency teams, traffic police and health professionals who face the traumatic consequences of road accidents on a daily basis
Avoidable accidents
Romero, in statements to the media, recalled that last year, in Melilla there were a total of 437 traffic accidents with victims, which did not involve but of which 21 were seriously injured and 513 were slightly injured.
“It is always bad data, minus zero deaths, because from the moment there is an accident or a victim, even if it is not fatal, we cannot be satisfied at all,” he said.
With regard to this year and according to the data as of yesterday, there have been a total of 380 accidents with victims in our city that, unfortunately, have already caused a mortal victim, with 10 seriously injured and 460 slightly injured.
In addition, almost all of the serious and deceased victims are people belonging to the vulnerable group. That is, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, bikers… and now, he added, the scooters are also being incorporated.
In the whole of Spain, last year, there were a total of 101,306 traffic accidents on roads and urban roads that led to 1,680 fatal accidents, which in turn accounted for 1,806 deaths, 9,265 serious injuries and 124,266 minor injuries.
“Figures that are unbearable because, to a large extent, the fact that these accidents do not occur depend fundamentally on compliance with traffic rules,” he stressed, and that is that he assured that, when we talk about the world of traffic, “we talk about three fundamental elements: the vehicle, the road and the human factor.”
In this regard, the Local Head of Traffic has emphasized that 90-95% of accidents are caused by inappropriate behavior of the human factor. “Road safety is a shared responsibility and in the hands of each and every one of us is preventing a large percentage of these accidents from happening,” he said.
In addition to the pain caused by these accidents, Romero has referred to the economic impact that this entails, given that the cost of traffic accidents is estimated to be around 1% of GDP.