“We won’t get there with campaigns and inspections”. Portugal continues to be the country in Europe with the most road insecurity
The president of the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) regretted this Monday that Portugal continues to be “the country in Europe with the most road insecurity” and called on the Government to approve the National Road Safety Strategy this year.
Rui Ribeiro, who has led ANSR for almost six years, took advantage of the presentation of the 2024/2025 Christmas and New Year campaign “Safer Holidays” to highlight that reducing road accidents cannot be achieved through awareness-raising and inspection campaigns, and that a change in strategy is necessary.
The president of ANSR announced that the National Road Safety Strategy – Vision Zero 2030, which aims to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on the road by 50% by 2030, was delivered to the Government at the end of 2022, appealing to the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco, and the Secretary of State for Civil Protection, Paulo Simões Ribeiro, to approve this document that is “so needed” by the country.
Rui Ribeiro explained that in 2021, ANSR called on a group of international and national experts and defined a strategy that involved “looking at what is being done in Europe and adapting it to the national reality and completely forgetting what had been the paradigm until now”.
“We won’t get there with campaigns and monitoring,” he said, noting that “there has never been so much monitoring and so good monitoring in Portugal as in recent times,” in addition to the fact that there are campaigns.
According to Rui Ribeiro, in the first seven months of 2024, inspections increased by 80% compared to the same period in 2023 and doubled between 2019 and 2023.
“One of the objectives of this inspection was to achieve the inspection rate and the rate of offenders. In terms of inspection, we can say that Portugal is working very well and fulfilling its purpose and being a deterrent. All indicators show that the inspection has been successful,” he said, regretting that a reduction in road accidents had not been achieved.
According to the president of ANSR, it is estimated that from 2017 to today around 5,000 people have died on Portuguese roads and more than 19,000 have been seriously injured.
In this sense, he stressed, it is essential to approve the National Road Safety Strategy, which is based on five principles: “Safe users, safer vehicles, safer infrastructure, safer speed and post-accident intervention.
“Portugal cannot be considered one of the safest countries in the world while it is one of the countries with the greatest road insecurity in Europe,” he added.
Also present at the presentation of the 2024/2025 Christmas and New Year campaign “Safer Celebrations”, the Minister of Internal Administration told journalists that the strategy will be approved and implemented “as quickly as possible”, but did not provide any date.
Speaking at the campaign presentation, Margarida Blasco stated that “the State has a decisive role in this matter” of road safety, and is “responsible for raising awareness, monitoring and discouraging risky behaviour”.
“This is the role we are fulfilling”, he explained, considering that there is also “an individual responsibility for each one of us”.