Just read the first line: “speed killssays physics, the higher the speed, the greater the impact in the event of an accident and the injuries are more serious. Therefore, measures that help reduce speed save lives.” Traffic Accident Prevention Association (PAT) has shared this Wednesday through a statement its disappointment at the intention of the Barcelona’s town hall from guillotine their own radar deployment plan inside the city. They were going to be 48 (submitted a year ago) but finally there will be only 21: four stretches, 12 in school settings and five at specific points where there is too much running. These last ones were going to be 32, but it will start with a few for, later on and if necessary, expand.
PAT considers that this decision launches “a message of understanding and complicity towards offenders”, and recalls that the population should not fear anything if they drive according to traffic regulations. “This change of criteria it will cost lives and tragedies to hundreds of families, who will have to suffer losses and accidents with limiting consequences for their future due to avoidable events such as traffic accidents”. This entity, created in 1968, recalls that in the years before covid, the annual average number of injured was 11,000, with which, they maintain, “there is no understands that measures are cut that seek improve road safety of all the people who move around the city.
The statement, which claims to recover the initial plan of 48 security checkpoints within Barcelona, has the support of Barcelona Walkthe Asociation Promotion of Public Transport and the Bicycle Club of Catalonia. Or what is the same, the bulk of non-profit entities that work for and for the sustainable and safe mobility in the Catalan capital. By contrast, the RACC considered the plan excessive and recommended to the council to install the radars only in the school and tunnel environments. The automobile club believes that the initial proposal went too far given the significant drop in the number of victims and serious injuries in traffic accidents during the last decade (in which it has gone from 304 in 2010 to 178 in 2021).
investment in life
Who has also expressed her indignation has been the Councilor for Mobility in the previous mandate, Mercedes Vidal. Through its Twitter profile, in addition to sharing the PAT statement, the former mayor of Barcelona in Comú maintains: “In Barcelona the danger for people continues to be the private vehicle, which runs too fast. All the data supports it. If we know this, why is this investment in life and health cancelled? The role of Barcelona City Council is incomprehensible“.
In Barcelona the perill per les people continues to sit on the private vehicle, which runs massa. Ho vouch for all you give.
If we know how, why is this investment in life and health canceled? Incomprehensible the role of @bcn_ajuntament . Molt bona feina de denúncia de l’@APAT_PAT. https://t.co/pPRXcjYlmt
– Mercedes Vidal (@mvidal80) March 2, 2022
Change of plans
The Councilor for Mobility, Laia Bonetwho replaced the also socialist in office Rosa Alarcon in September of last year, seems to go in the line of contention suggested by the RACCbecause in its revision of the roadmap it maintains those that were planned near schools, the four sections in which Badal, Rovira, Ronda Litoral and Glòries tunnels plus another five (32 were planned) at specific points where excessive speed is the cause of traffic accidents. They are the following: Aragó between Urgell and CasanovaGran Via with Sant Roc (next to Plaza de Espanya), Bonanova between Anglí and Iradier in the Llobregat direction and two in the Diagonal (Pius XII direction Llobregat and Numància direction Besòs). In the transfer of powers in the Mobility portfolio, by the way, Alarcón left a record on Twitter that he had given Bonet the speed control program presented in March 2021. “Evidently!” he said, when asked about the matter.
Evidently! https://t.co/nD88OIIN8a
– Rosa Alarcon / ❤️ (@rosaalarcon) September 25, 2021
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In its statement, PAT recalls how different an accident is depending on the speed of the vehicle: “According to the DGT, only 5% of those hit at 30 kilometers per hour suffer fatal consequencesa percentage that rises to 50% if it goes up to 50 km/h”. The Association Prevention of Traffic Accidents gives as an example the 2021 loss balance, which was presented on the same day that Bonet redrew the municipal roadmap for radars. According to his calculations, 87% of serious injuries or deaths occurred “in the urban context of car and motorcycle use.” A figure, they consider, that is “intolerable and that does not allow the use of this type of vehicle in the city to be removed from the focus of attention”.