Road Safety Assessment of the year 2021
The "data" says that there is a decrease in deaths on the roads, but there is no mention of the nearly 30,000 victims injured in total mobility in Catalonia. It is as if the data is only presented to make the institutions look good.
In recent days we have seen some information about road safety on the roads of Catalonia in the year 2021. As usual, it is a limited information – it only talks about rural roads and fatalities. A minimal part of the citizens affected during the year by road violence, traffic accidents and driver aggression.
From P(A)T it has been commented, for more than 30 years, that it is a statistic that seems to want to make look well those responsible for traffic, but without assuming the seriousness of the road safety problem.
They say there is a decrease in deaths on the roads (188 in 2021) – considerably less than in 2010 (239 in 2010), but the nearly 30,000 injured victims in total mobility in Catalonia are not mentioned. It is as if these more than 30,000 injuries have not occurred and as if the pain of the victims themselves and their families does not exist.
These days there has been a shameful debate about the new radars in the urban streets of Barcelona and an attack on the decision of the DGT to eliminate the strange tolerance of being able to overtake a vehicle by eliminating the speed limit and exceeding it with 20 km/h (also act of the DGT, to which PAT wants to congratulate).
It is clear that the automobile and construction sectors only care about speed, and contracts for new roads, but the health and life of citizens is much lower in their assessment of priorities. Foment de Treball is also negatively implicated in this debate.
Social values in our society must rise above economic values. Society demands an open debate on the values that should govern in the 21st century.
By the PAT board
