The Local Police of Arrecife is intensifying surveillance and control over drivers to prevent road accidents and reduce accident rates among drivers when circulating on the streets of the capital of Lanzarote.
This deployment, palpable in many streets of the municipality of Arrecife, will be carried out until October 12 as part of the campaign launched at the state level with the aim of reducing road accidents on the streets of the capitals and raising public awareness about the importance of complying with good habits in driving vehicles.
The objective of this national strategy, which the Arrecife City Council has joined through the Local Police Area, under the direct leadership of Mayor Yonathan de León, is to reduce by half the number of people who die or are seriously injured as a result of a traffic accident by 2030, compared to the values of 2019.
Mobility is changing, and the current scenario is different from what drivers have faced in past decades. Urban environments are increasingly crowded and shared by different forms of mobility, vehicles incorporate more technological and connected elements, an aspect with which drivers coexist daily when driving cars or personal mobility vehicles (PMV).
DGT statistics reflect that there are increasingly more sources of distraction and the adult population is increasingly larger, elements that generate changing circumstances and require that the Local Police forces, as the Local Police of Arrecife is doing, join this strategic initiative that promotes awareness among drivers to avoid distractions at the wheel.
According to DGT data, distractions at the wheel were present in 13,164 traffic accidents last year, representing 18% of the total. In the case of fatal accidents, distraction is also the most frequent factor, with 406 cases (30% of the total), mainly due to the improper use of mobile phones, GPS navigators, or other devices.
For example, using a mobile phone quadruples the risk of an accident, equating it to driving under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, aware that these risks must be reduced and that the city is the primary setting where vehicle drivers can commit infractions due to distractions while driving and cause accidents, the Arrecife Local Police are participating this week in the DGT campaign along with other police forces throughout Spain.