Home Office Minister says that limits must be put on volume of traffic in Spanish cities <\/p>\n
The Spanish Home office Minister, Alfredo P\u00e9rez Rubalcaba, said yesterday that mayors have changed their outlook on the subject of road safety because \u2018we are all aware that the volume of traffic in cities cannot continue to rise\u2019 and that \u2018the current situation cannot go on\u2019. He made these statements during a speech at this year\u2019s parliamentary conference on road safety and the prevention of accidents, attended by 16 mayors and experts on road safety. <\/p>\n
Rubalcaba also spoke about the \u2018fundamental question of mobility within cities\u2019 where 75% of Spanish citizens live. He said that now the issue of mobility within cities was focussed more on pedestrians and public transport than cars. He also said that the already high volume of traffic could not be allowed to continue to rise the consequences of which were further pollution, the destruction of urban areas and the deterioration of the landscape. <\/p>\n
Referring to the already high volume of traffic he said that measures needed to be taken \u2018to put a stop to this situation\u2019 and that local authorities had been forced to make radical planning decisions when thinking about mobility within their municipalities. <\/p>\n
Rubalcaba was keen to point out the number of traffic accidents had gone down in cities although not as noticeably as on Spain\u2019s motorways. From 2003 to 2008 the number of road accident victims went down by 45% while the number of road accidents victims in cities only went down by 31%. During this period there were 49,000 road accidents in cities which is equivalent to 53% of the total number of road accidents. <\/p>\n
Rubalcaba stressed that urban road safety would depend on the coexistence of pedestrians, bicycles and cars. He also pointed out that if car drivers respected speed limits of between 30 and 50 kilometres an hour and wore their seat belts then the possibilities of a mortal accident were \u2018extremely limited\u2019.<\/p>\n
See: Driving in Spain<\/a> and Road travel in Spain<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Home Office Minister says that limits must be put on volume of traffic in Spanish cities The Spanish Home office Minister, Alfredo P\u00e9rez Rubalcaba, said yesterday that mayors have changed their outlook on the subject of road safety because \u2018we are all aware that the volume of traffic in cities cannot continue to rise\u2019 and that \u2018the current situation cannot go on\u2019. He made these statements during a speech at this year\u2019s parliamentary conference on road safety and the prevention of accidents, attended by 16 mayors and experts on road safety. Rubalcaba also spoke about the \u2018fundamental question of mobility <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria"],"yoast_head":"\n