“The 2030 Road Safety Strategy is the roadmap to halve road deaths by the end of this decade”

The Minister of the Interior has presented the 2030 Road Safety Strategy at the headquarters of the General Traffic Directorate (DGT), a document that aims to be the national reference framework for road safety policy with the aim of halving the number of deaths and serious injuries caused by traffic incidents by the year 2030.

Grande-Marlaska has highlighted that this new strategy is born from the experience accumulated in the last decade, from the analysis of European policies and the most significant guidelines of different international organisations and from the work of analysis and reflection carried out within the Higher Traffic Council and Road Safety.

“It unites the vision of supranational and national organisations, because I have always defended that road safety policy should not belong to a ministry, not even to a government: it concerns us all, it is everyone’s responsibility and we have to design it together with the globalised world we live in”, added the Minister of the Interior.

The objective of the strategy is aligned with those of international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries in road incidents by 50 percent. “We know what we want, we know where we are going and we know how to do it to maintain the process of progress and improvement that we are all committed to,” continued Grande-Marlaska.

Mobility transformations

In drawing up the strategy, the DGT experts have taken into account factors that are going to cause major transformations in the area of ​​safe mobility in the near future, such as climate change, the aging of the population, the commitment to sustainability of the youngest, the incorporation of technological advances and the consolidation during this decade of the so-called ‘safe system’, a new vision on the origin and prevention of road traffic incidents.

Based on this analysis, the 2030 Road Safety Strategy was born with the necessary flexibility to adapt to the changes that are going to take place in the field of safe and efficient mobility, thanks to its articulation through successive biennial action plans.

To achieve the objective set, to reduce by half the number of deaths and serious injuries, the strategy has nine strategic areas and 62 lines of action that will be defined in the successive biannual plans. Information on the content of the strategy can be found at this link .

Biennial Plan 2022-2023

The Road Safety Action Plan 2022-2023 includes the actions that will be carried out during this period to achieve safe mobility. This first plan is committed to education, training and information so that road users are educated and trained, together with actions to monitor and control traffic regulations and improvements in vehicles and infrastructure.

Some of the actions included in this biennial plan are:

• The next school year begins to gradually teach safe and sustainable mobility education. For the first time in the history of our country, training in safe and sustainable mobility is included in the school curriculum. The royal decrees for Primary, Secondary and Baccalaureate that develop the LOMLOE, and which have already been published, will allow students to leave the educational system with basic training in road safety.
• A new degree in Vocational Training for the 2022-2023 academic year. The Ministry of Education, at the proposal of the General Directorate of Traffic, created the new title of Superior Technician in Safe and Sustainable Mobility that will also begin its journey in the next school year. This new title values ​​mobility and will enable students, future professionals, to be trained to meet the growing demand in this sector. It will also qualify to be a teacher of private driving schools.
• Safe and Efficient Driving Courses for motorcycles and passenger cars. Consolidated as good practice, they have been included in the Traffic Law as an instrument that will allow drivers to recover two points from their balance if they carry them out. The Ministerial Order that develops them is expected to be approved by the end of this year.
• Courses for motorcycle workers subsidized by the FUNDAE. The Foundation for Training in Employment, at the request of the DGT, has included this subject in its catalogue of subsidised courses so that companies can offer it to their motorcycle workers. A booming means of labour displacement due to the increase in e-commerce and its urban distribution.
• New driving license B-1 from the age of 16. This permit, already provided for in the European Driving Permit Directive, will enable you to drive motorised quadricycles with a maximum speed of more than 45km/h. Until now, these vehicles can only be driven with a B permit. This measure is intended to promote electric vehicles and increase mobility options in areas with lower population density.
• Promotion of the airbag through the obligation of its use in traffic tests to obtain a motorcycle driving license and the acquisition of airbags for the agents of the Traffic Group of the Guardia Civil.
• Renewal of permits. Review and update of the renewal periods for driving licences in accordance with the provisions of the European Driving Licence Directive, extending it for young people and reducing it for the elderly.
• Updating of the Medical-Psychological Examination Protocol at Driver Recognition Centres in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the Spanish Society of Traffic Medicine.
• Greater regulation of personal mobility vehicles in coordination with the municipalities to establish parameters such as the minimum age, the use of a helmet, the equipment or compulsory insurance, all of which will be regulated in the Traffic Regulations to protect vulnerable users. The implementation of a compulsory insurance is also foreseen, by means of the corresponding legislative modification.
• Empower the connected vehicle. Since April 2017, the General Directorate of Traffic has been promoting connectivity between vehicles and other mobile elements of traffic, as well as the distribution of data to other Administrations and service providers through the National Traffic and Mobility Access Point. During these two years, the geolocation use cases of the emergency vehicles, the new V-16 signal, the works, the sports events and the special transports will be implemented. In addition, connectivity with municipalities will be enhanced, in order to integrate information on traffic restrictions, incidents, low-emission zones, loading and unloading areas, available parking spaces…
• New Regulation of Historic Vehicles with the objective of preserving the historical heritage and promoting its knowledge as well as promoting an important sector of our economy and with the aim of facilitating the procedure for the classification of these vehicles. This new Regulation will facilitate and simplify the procedure for classifying a historic vehicle, inspired by the legislation of the United Kingdom and France, which are the countries that have the most historic vehicles registered
• Approval of a new catalogue of vertical and horizontal signs (urban and interurban), as well as collaboration with road owners to promote safe infrastructure design solutions (overtaking zones, 2+1 road sections) design of margins and solutions for the reduction of track exits.

Opportune moment

The presentation ceremony of the Road Safety Strategy was opened by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Isabel Goicoechea, who was succeeded in speaking by the General Director of Traffic, Pere Navarro, who recalled that the movement of Long-distance traffic have increased to values ​​higher than those registered in 2019 (2 percent more) and there has been an increase in fatalities. Between January and May, 439 people have died on the roads, 24 more (6 percent) than in 2019.

A few days before the beginning of summer, the time of year when the greatest number of trips take place, Navarro has wished that “the measures of the biannual plan that we are implementing must help us to stop this slight increase in the incident rate, but we are convinced that we cannot achieve it alone. Road safety requires the collaboration of all citizens, because the behaviour of each one on the road has direct consequences on the rest of the actors who share the road. Let us respect the traffic regulations, because together we all contribute road safety and together we add life”.

The presentation ceremony of the 2030 Road Safety Strategy has continued with the intervention, via telematics, by Nhan Tran, head of Safety and Mobility of the World Health Organisation, which can be viewed at this link.

Tran recalled that Spain is one of the European and world countries with the lowest road incident rates and was grateful that this strategy is aligned with the Global Action Plan for Road Safety and with the ‘safe system’ approach.

Next, Matthew Baldwin, former European Coordinator for Road Safety of the Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (MOVE) of the European Commission, congratulated Spain for the comprehensive approach of the strategy, in line with that of the European Union, for the work done that has made Spain one of the leading countries in road safety in Europe and for being mentors of other countries with decisive commitments in road safety. This intervention is available at this link.