The General direction of traffic starts up today and until next Sunday a new campaign of monitoring and control of alcohol and drugs on the road, whose main objective is to prevent drivers who have ingested any of these substances from circulating on the road.
During this week the agents of the Traffic Association of the Civil Guard (ATGC) will increase the preventive controls, being able to reach the 25,000 daily tests that will be carried out on any road and at any time of the day.
The controls on interurban roads will also be added to those carried out by the local and regional authorities in their jurisdictional avenues, since the DGT has invited them to participate in this campaign. The idea is that any driver may be required to undergo an alcohol and drug test, regardless of the route through which they circulate.
On this occasion, the surveillance and awareness campaign crosses borders and any driver traveling through Europe may be required by any traffic police to carry out such tests since the campaign is also carried out at European level.
According to data from the European Observatory for Road Safety (ERSO), around 25% of all road deaths in Europe are related to alcohol, while, approximately, only 1% of the total kilometers traveled are driven by people with alcohol. 0.5 g / l of alcohol in the blood or more.
Controls that save lives
The reasons that lead the DGT to carry out this type of intensive campaigns are:
- In the driver, alcohol appears as a factor in 26% of fatal accidents, assuming the third risk behavior in the accident. Although there is a high awareness in society of the dangers of alcohol, 1 in 4 people killed by traffic accident was present at the time of the accident.
- The performance of preventive controls has been demonstrated as the most effective action to remove from the circulation drivers who have drunk and who put at risk not only their lives, but the lives of others, as established by the WHO, the OECD or the European Commission among other bodies.
Last year, the Guardia Civil Traffic Association carried out more than 5 million alcohol and drug control tests: This measure, together with citizen awareness, are two of the factors that are contributing to reduce the percentage of preventive positives from BAC, from 5% in 2001 to 1.3% in 2018. Even so, more than 95,000 drivers tested positive for the ATGC agents.
- Alcohol and drugs are not only related to increased accidents, but also involve higher mortality and more severe injuries.
According to Pilar del Real, head of the Strategic Intervention area of the Road Safety Observatory of the DGT, "this campaign allows us to intensify not only the controls, but also the prevention messages, with the idea of transmitting that each one of us We can act as agents of change in our immediate environment, and raise awareness of the danger of driving while having ingested alcohol or drugs. " "Therefore, education, awareness and vigilance are essential measures to reduce the number of deaths on the road."
A message that arrives
For the twelfth consecutive year, the Association of Spinal Cord Injuries and Physically Handicapped People (ASPAYM) collaborates with the DGT, making drivers aware of the serious risk involved in driving alcohol and other drugs.
Under the slogan "Do not run, do not drink … do not change the wheels", the volunteers with spinal cord injury victims of a traffic accident will accompany the traffic agents in charge of carrying out the controls. At that moment, the ASPAYM volunteer will approach the detained vehicle, transferring the common message of the campaign and demonstrating at the same time with its presence, the consequences and irreversible consequences of traffic accidents.
On this occasion, there are 20 provinces where Aspaym will collaborate with the DGT: Albacete, Ávila, Alicante, A Coruña, Burgos, Cádiz (Jerez), Castellón, Córdoba, Cuenca, Granada, Jaén, León, Madrid, Málaga, Mallorca, Murcia, Oviedo, Toledo, Valladolid, Valencia.
The thin line between the offense and the crime
Driving having ingested alcohol or drugs has fatal consequences; in the best of cases, with an administrative penalty, but in many others with prison sentences. In 2017, according to the data of the Public Safety Office, 62% of convictions for road crimes were due to driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
To these normative punishments we must add the most important and that the life of a person who has killed another / s in a traffic accident for having committed the imprudence of driving having ingested alcohol or drugs is not the same again. The latest issue of the magazine Traffic and Road Safety collects the testimonies of several drivers convicted of road crimes
Remembering the regulations
The Road Safety Law sets the maximum rates of alcohol allowed for drivers, as well as the prohibition of driving with the presence of drugs in the body. In this case, there is an administrative infraction.
For its part, the Chapter IV of Title XVII of the Criminal Code It typifies crimes against traffic safety and establishes the following penalties for driving with excess alcohol or under the influence of drugs.
In addition, the recent reform of the Penal Code establishes that if, imprudently, homicide or serious injuries are committed and a crime against road safety has been committed -as are the cases of driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs or at a speed excessive-, or an infraction of the traffic regulations, this conduct will automatically be considered gross or less serious imprudence, depending on the case, with jail sentences of up to 4 years.