The councillor for safety and mobility on Madrid city council, Pedro Luis Calvo, took part yesterday in the second symposium in the series of talks on “Different perspectives for integrated action on road safety” organised by the abertis foundation, during which he stated, “We are failing because road safety is not yet an obligatory subject, something to which the state ought to be committed.”

The fourth vice-president of the Spanish parliament, Jordi Jané, expressed the same opinion when he said, “A compulsory subject on road safety should be taught in schools to reduce traffic accidents.” He also recalled that in road safety policy, “Consensus and agreement must come first; if not, we are getting it wrong.”

Pedro Luis Calvo recalled that “indiscipline equals lack of safety”. For this reason Madrid city council offers road safety programmes which have already trained over 117,000 schoolchildren, as well as a pioneering “way to school” scheme involving 21 schools and guaranteeing that parents can take their children to primary school without needing to use the car.

In turn, the public prosecutor responsible for road safety, Bartolomé Vargas, called for the different amounts collected in traffic fines to be made public. Mr. Vargas called for the law to be applied constantly because “It is the guarantee of a democratic system” and concluded that “constant, silent and effective application of the law causes different values to take root in society in the area of road safety.”

The symposium also featured the president of P(A)T, the association of victims of traffic accidents, Maria Eugenia Domènech, who stressed that “There are six deaths every day as a result of traffic accidents,” pointing out that the families of the victims are also “unrecorded victims”.

Maria Eugenia Domènech affirmed that “We are going the right way and, even though we do not have the results we would like, we are making progress towards a reduction in accidents.” She also highlighted the need for a greater commitment on the part of mayors and local authorities to raise awareness of the fact that “Half of traffic accidents occur in town.”

The president of the Spanish foundation for road safety and coordinator of the series of talks, Luis Montoro, also spoke at the session, stating that traffic accidents cost public funds 16,000 million euros a year, which means that “Every Spaniard pays some 400 euros for this reason.”

He also underlined that over the last 60 years more than 50 million people have died in traffic accidents, while the deaths due to terrorist attacks have come to 1,452. 50,000 people have died in the last decade, of whom 16,000 were less than 25 years old, he said.

Luis Montoro highlighted the work of the abertis foundation in the field of road safety, including financing research at universities, organising symposia and other educational activities, campaigns in companies and the publication of leaflets for other groups. He also stressed the prevention programmes in schools, which the abertis foundation has already taken to over 150,000 schoolchildren.

This series of talks is part of the road safety programme run by the abertis foundation, and falls within the celebrations of its tenth anniversary.