New Year
Barcelona, Final 2021
2021 is over, another atypical year. Few comments are heard about the citizens we have lost through violent actions – not even those who have died from the pandemic of this new wave, which seems to have no end.
Newspapers, televisions and radios are full of comments about Covid, most without content on how to stop the virus’s attack on humanity.
Something similar has been seen in Road Safety, which in its more than one hundred years of history, it seems that no solution has been found, as well as in gender violence and other types of violence. When will we understand that war against other humans is not justifiable?
It is not justifiable to make and sell machines that can kill and injure other human beings. It may be more comfortable and faster to take a trip by car, but this is not enough to justify the killing and assault resulting from these small gains.
A great sadness emerges when seeing and feeling the ignorance that almost everyone (leaders and citizens) shows with respect to the thousands of people killed by Covid – but not in enough people to stop the indifference that large groups show to the loss of lives of fellow citizens. If you have to stop earning more money – you stop. If you have to stay home – you stay. The same could be applied in the case of mobility: you can leave the car at home and thus avoid accidents and aggression to the planet due to air and noise pollution.
That in 2021 almost 1,000 people have died in Spain due to traffic accidents (provisional data from the DGT) – it does not seem to worry the leaders. The reality is that there are more cars on the streets and highways. The welfare of citizens is not achieved by spending part of your life on a strip of asphalt and also with a high probability of dying or being injured.
We ask our leaders (elected or not): firstly, to protect our physical integrity, and secondly, a reasonable distribution of wealth among citizens. Accumulating more money does not mean that you have to have more privileges.
A more powerful vehicle does not mean that the owner has the right to impose himself on another and irresponsibly overtake others on public roads. Let’s see if we can enforce a way of behaving that obeys a “give way”. To those who abuse: we will call them out!
P (A) T wishes you a good new year
Ole Thorson, Board Member of P (A) T
