A tragic year on the roads of Malaga
Despite a reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads, the incidence of fatal accidents is on the increase
Every one hour, 41 minutes and 20 seconds somebody is involved in a traffic accident on a road in Malaga province. The vast majority of these people suffer injuries but the smallest part of this survey by the Insurance Business Association (Unespa) is also the most tragic. It is occupied by those who lose their lives on the road and there have been about fifty of them in Malaga in the past year.
After a historic year in 2009 in which the number of deaths in traffic accidents fell by 36 per cent, the provisional figures for 2010 fall like a shower of cold water on the accident statistics. Up until 25th December a total of 49 people had died, which is three more than the total number of victims in 2009. This, say experts in road safety, may signify a changing trend which is motivated, among other factors, by the loss of impact of the driving licence points system and legal changes which were established in the previous reform of the Penal Code.
The year began with good prospects but unfortunately things began to go awry in September. Until August, the overall number of deaths on the roads of Malaga was 24, which is eleven fewer than in the same period in 2009. However, with the arrival of autumn, this trend was reversed to such an extent that ten people died in the month of November alone and this was one fifth of the victims which had been registered so far during the year. This annual balance, in which more than one thousand people were injured, was expected to rise again in the final days of December, during a period in which the consumption of alcohol traditionally increases because of the Christmas celebrations.
Nevertheless, the breathalyser tests which were organised by the police to coincide with the festive lunches and dinners organised by companies for their employees did not produce many positive results.
The increase in the number of deaths is even more worrying when compared with data about journeys by road. The economic crisis, unemployment and the cost of fuel has considerably reduced the number of vehicles which travel on main roads, yet still the accident rate increases. On the access roads to Malaga city alone, the amount of traffic dropped by 10 per cent in 2009. This is the equivalent to a reduction of 17,000 cars a day on average, according to the indicator of Daily Average Intensity (IMD).
The organisations involved in the battle against road accidents are analysing the possible causes for this reversal of a lowering trend in Malaga province, but it is something which is also occurring at a national level. In the past decade, the number of fatalities on the roads of Malaga has dropped by more than half from the 123 deaths which were registered in 1998. In 2009, for the first time, the number of deaths dropped to below 50, but this number is likely to be exceeded again this year. The consecutive reduction in the number of deaths was interrupted in 2008 with an increase of four, but this can be explained by the serious bus crash which occurred that year in Benalmadena, in which nine Finnish tourists died.
Road safety experts speak of various factors which can explain the increase in fatal accidents in the past twelve months, and which will mean that controls will have to be intensified. They put the changing situation in the last three months of the year partly down to weather conditions which made driving difficult. The intensive rain, for example, could be behind one of the most serious accidents, which resulted in the deaths of three people in a collision between two cars in Arenas on November 26th.
The deterioration in the state of the roads, especially secondary ones, because of the adverse weather, and cutbacks in the maintenance of the roads which affect surfacing as well as road signs, have also played a part in the reversal of the trend, according to the president of Automovilistas Europeos Asociados (AEA), Mario Arnaldo. He attributes the change to another three factors: reduction in expenditure on car maintenance; the loss of impact of the advertising campaign about driving licence points; and the lack of guidelines regarding action to be taken, the measures to be carried out and objectives to be aimed for in connection with this matter.
“The previous reform of the Penal Code did not contain real measures, they were propoganda measures aimed at instilling fear into pepole and they don’t work any more. The proof of this is that another modification has just been approved this week”, says Mario Arnaldo, adding that the same thing happened with the driving licence points system: “We warned them this would happen. People have relaxed”, he says.
Guidelines
In the matter of road safety, according to the president of AEA, “We have spent two years like a boat adrift”. In his opinion, the fact that no review had been carried out and no renewal drawn up of the Traffic Department’s Road Safety Strategy Plan, which was finished in 2008, has meant that “instead of being activists in the fight against lack of road safety, we do no more than count victims and deaths”.
On the tarmac, the main causes of accidents are driving at excessive speed, drink driving and driver distraction.
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