This week we learned the number of victims in traffic accidents that occurred during the summer. We sometimes read the death toll very quickly, but each number is a person who no longer lives. And behind each bouquet of flowers attached to a traffic sign are family and friends who have to learn to live with the memory in their minds and a hole in their soul.
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As usual, the group of motorcyclists is the one with the most deaths. Something unacceptable, as our leaders, especially the Directorate General of Traffic, never tire of repeating. What these public managers never do is explain all the causes of such mortality.
More than 60% of motorcycle accidents with injuries are caused by another vehicle
In March, an instructive study on road accidents involving motorcycles was published. It analyzed 100,000 incidents that occurred between 2020 and 2024. According to this study, more than 60% of motorcycle accidents with injuries are caused by another vehicle. Take that. So much that some like to talk and how little they must like to read. Especially if the report questions a comfortable discourse of doomsayer clichés. That, without even mentioning guardrails or the endless black spots on Spanish roads, which are shameful.
Another issue that those who watch over us never comment on, perhaps even more painful, is the complete unwillingness to study why serious homicide sentences end up amounting to nothing. A woman gets distracted with one hand on the wheel while holding a coffee with the other. She kills three people in Lleida and, since they were on motorcycles, she is sentenced to a 5,400 euro fine. Payable over 18 months, at 10 euros a day. Cheaper than going to the movies. The driver who, a few days ago, fled after taking away 38 years of life from a man who was stopped with his motorcycle at a traffic light on Aribau street will likely receive little more. The Urban Guard managed to detain him and the unfortunate man refused to take the breathalyzer and drug tests.
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Legal experts have warned that it will be a long case, which will favor the murderer. Of this, the DGT, not a word. If they care so much about life, not only of motorcyclists but of anyone who suffers reckless homicide, they should listen to Maria Pilar Rosanes. She has been asking for six years to modify article 142 of the Penal Code, so that the pain of an unjust death like that of her son Josep does not increase when hearing an insulting sentence.
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Meanwhile, palace matters in their orbit. In 2015 the DGT appealed to prevention to raise the minimum age to drive a moped from 14 to 15 years. But it allowed the absurdity that this minor can carry a passenger. From October, it will be mandatory for motorcyclists to wear approved gloves while riding. Which, without a doubt, is something positive. But it is as ambitious as going to Cañete, like a minister, to eat expired yogurt pretending to fight against food waste.
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