Spanish Summer Road Deaths at a 50 Year Low
September 2nd, 2010
Spanish traffic police who are issuing fewer speeding fines to protest a pay cut have been told to cut it out despite there being few deaths on Spanish roads during the summer season since 1962.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba gave no figures, but says the number of fines is definitely down since Civil Guard traffic officers had their wages cut 5 percent along with other civil servants as part of austerity measures imposed in May.
“I hereby ask formally that they please enforce the law, as they always have and have done very well,” Perez Rubalcaba said Wednesday as he presented figures on highway fatalities for this summer vacation season.
Fatalities were down to 364, their lowest level since 1962, despite concerns that the traffic officers’ actions might lead motorists to drive less carefully, thus making roads more dangerous.
Civil Guard traffic officers are livid over the 5 percent wage reduction imposed on them and other government workers as part of austerity measures enacted in May to help reduce Spain’s public deficit.
Perez Rubalcaba insisted his appeal was not about getting revenue flowing back into depleted government coffers, but about guaranteeing motorists’ safety.
In the short term, the officers’ actions have had little effect on safety, he said. But if it continues, drivers would “get the impression that they can run a stop sign or change lanes illegally and nothing will happen to them.”
AUGC, an association of the 10,000-strong Civil Guard traffic department, dismissed the minister’s comments as ignoring other gripes they have been pressing for years. These include salaries lower than those of other police units and unfulfilled government promises to hire more officers.
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