The agency has drawn up a plan until 2030 to halve the number of traffic accidents
The Road Safety Strategy 2030 aims to reduce the number of road deaths by 50%. This was expressed by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, who, together with the General Director of the DGT, Pere Navarro, took part in the presentation of the lines that this department must follow in order to achieve this goal.
According to Grande Marlaska, “Spain is an international benchmark for road safety, but the statistics still leave too many dead, too many seriously injured and broken lives on our roads.”
Marlaska recalled that at the international level, the United Nations has included road safety in the 2030 agenda as “one of the most important public health issues to be addressed through the Sustainable Development Goals”. He also referred to the adoption yesterday by the European Union plenary of the strategy to ban the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2035 “which will undoubtedly also lead to significant changes in the forms of mobility”.
“For years we have blamed motorists for road accidents because they drink or drive at high speed. In our 2030 strategy, we want to ensure that if an accident occurs, it has the least consequences”, and the application of new technologies is also very important, the minister explains.
The Road Safety Strategy 2030 sets the target to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries in road accidents by 50 percent compared to the figures for 2019, the year in which 1,755 people died, 8,613 were seriously injured and 130,000 injured. These figures show a rate of 37 deaths per million inhabitants, below the European Union average of 51 deaths.
The plan will intervene in things such as road safety education, the introduction of a new driving license for children under 16 who use vehicles for personal mobility. For example, from the age of 16, a new B1 driving license is regulated for electric vehicles with a maximum speed of 90 km/h and a maximum weight of 400 kilos. “It is already being applied in countries such as France with good results and will promote the mobility of the youngest in rural areas,” he emphasized.
In addition, the Ministry of the Interior will order the use of passenger cars – such as electric scooters – with a reform of the General Traffic Regulations and the compulsory civil liability insurance for these vehicles.
Other measures stand out, such as the mandatory use of the airbag for motorcycle driving tests in driving tests for an A licence, ie for motorcycles with a high power output. “We are committed to promoting the airbag for motorcyclists because it should be a step forward in their protection,” said Marlaska.
The plan also aims to promote the driving license exam in automated vehicles. Currently, 98% of driving tests are carried out in vehicles with manual transmissions, so Traffic will change the driver’s regulations to promote and facilitate the use of cars with automatic transmissions “to familiarize new drivers with the electric vehicle.
The DGT will also review and update the protocol for psychophysical proficiency testing in medical research centers for drivers, which has remained unchanged since 2007. “Fifteen years later, a reasonable period of time for review has passed,” Marlaska said.
Reviewing and updating the renewal periods for driving licenses to be longer for the young and less for the elderly, promoting the connected vehicle via the DGT 3.0 ‘app’, a new Historic Vehicle Regulations and a new catalog of vertical and horizontal signals (urban and interurban) complete the measures planned by DGT.
As part of this strategy, the Directorate-General for Traffic will soon purchase airbags for the drivers of the Civil Guard Traffic Group and promote investigations involving automatic transmission in cars.
It sets the objectives to promote and improve traffic, road safety and sustainable mobility, as well as to promote convergence between the different government departments and entities carrying out activities in these areas.
In the field of training, education in safe and sustainable mobility will be promoted in the school curriculum, the launch of the title of senior technician in safe and sustainable mobility in vocational training, safe and efficient driving courses for motorcycles and cars and subsidized courses by the State Foundation for Employment (Fundae) for motorcycle workers are other measures included in the DGT plan for 2022 and 2023.
Source: La Verdad
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