Week of intensive surveillance of vans

The celebration of Black Friday will lead to 4.6 million daily shipments of merchandise, the vast majority in vans.

With the aim of checking different aspects related to the road safety of vans, the campaign will establish control points on all types of roads, especially on conventional roads, as well as in areas close to industrial estates, loading and unloading areas, shopping centres, etc.

In 2022, both traffic incidents with victims in which vans were involved increased (7% more) and the number of people killed in them (30% more) compared to the previous year.

In 2022, the number of drivers reported for speeding also increased by 20%, which continues to be the most committed violation, with more than 302,000 complaints.

Vans are, fundamentally, a work tool. Even more so if we take into account the increase in electronic commerce that has taken place in recent years, which mostly transports its goods in this type of vehicle and which this week will experience one of its highest points of activity with the celebration of Black Friday.

Specifically, during this week delivery companies estimate that they can make up to 4.6 million daily shipments, most of which will be made using vans. A vehicle that, although it continues to represent 7% of the national fleet with 2.6 million vehicles, in 2022 was involved in 9,242 traffic incidents with victims in which 221 people died (of which 79 were occupants of vans and 142 occupants of other vehicles or pedestrians involved in said incidents) and 210 van occupants were injured and hospitalised. These figures represent a 7% increase in the number of incidents and a 30% increase in the number of deaths.

Furthermore, if we take into account work-related traffic incidents, we can see that the percentage of vans and trucks present in this type of incident also increases, having gone from 4.6% in 2021 to 5.1% in 2022.

On the other hand, in 2022 the number of drivers reported for speeding also increased by 20%, which continues to be the most committed infraction, with more than 302,000 complaints, followed by others such as not having the ITV in force or not wearing the seat belt.

For all this, the General Directorate of Traffic is launching again, until Sunday, November 26, a special campaign dedicated to the surveillance of vans in which the controls of the agents of the Traffic Group of the Guardia Civil and the Local Police that join it, will be established on all types of roads, especially conventional ones, since these are the ones with the highest accident rate, as well as in areas close to shopping centres, industrial estates and loading and unloading places.

These controls will check, among other aspects related to road safety, the speed at which they were traveling, the documentation of both the vehicle and the driver, the correct placement and weight of the transported load, the presence of alcohol and/or drugs in the drivers’ body or if it is up to date with regard to the Technical Vehicle Inspection

PECULIARITIES OF THESE VEHICLES

It must be taken into account that driving a van is not the same as driving a car, even though both are driven with the same licence. Vans have dynamic and usage characteristics that are different from other vehicles that make them different, not only in terms of driving but also in terms of incident rates, which should be kept in mind.