The fog obscures the view

This January is a month of fog, maybe this year a little more than the previous ones: a changing climate, a climate emergency and a change of management by the motorways in Catalonia.

It can be said with a bit of irony that it seems that the fog has reached the ministry responsible for highways and long-distance roads. The fog makes you lose visibility and you have to go slower due to poor visibility. It is what can happen on state highways. They follow the rule – slow down in fog.

If low visibility protocols are not activated and users, and especially truck drivers, are not warned aloud, this is what happens: multiple collisions with many injuries.

The change of direct responsibility for the motorways at the end of the toll concession has claimed its first victims. There has been time to update the protocols in the state highway departments, but the changes always seem to catch the departments by surprise.

The zero vision does not mean that the problem should not be seen, it means that we all have to be more vigilant so that accidents do not happen in the fog with a significant number of trucks involved.

We want to know who has not exercised their responsibility. Weren’t the variable signals in fog beware gear – slow down and increase attention?

Fog related acidents have been declining sharply for quite a few years now. It was difficult to control the poor visibility, but ACESA and the Servei Català de Trànsit achieved good results. Haven’t those from State Highways and the DGT learned? In twenty years technology has advanced.

The disastrous results of the fog in the land of Lleida should set the thinking and acting machine of those responsible for the roads – we do not want the numbers of injuries and deaths to increase in this year 2022.

 

Ole Thorson
Ex-President of P(A)T