2012! A year without as many of these. We are making steady progress!
The results for 2012 are in and they make stunning reading. The trend continues with less people to lose their lives on our roads in 2012 than in 2011. In fact 180 people are still with us because the total loss was 1,304, down by 12% from the losses of 2011 of 1,484.
We are learning to live! We are less accepting of the assumption that this might very well be our day to die just because we have to go out to get bread. The improvement in driver's attitudes on Spanish roads since the high of 7,877 deaths in one year is just staggering and shows what can be achieved when we all sign onto a good idea. The trend had started before the introduction of the points system, but from it's launch every year has seen a dramatic decline.
The bottom line results are more substantial than at first appears, because while less people are dying prematurely, and less families are having to endure the extreme loss of a sudden death, in many cases of young people, the real story lies in the fact that we are now many more people in so many more vehicles, but still we are conducting ourselves in such a manner as to bring down the death toll. Consider the fact that at the height of the loss there were only about one million vehicles on the roads driven by some two point two million drivers. Today that has changed to be 31.4 million vehicles, some of immense size, driven by 26.2 million drivers.
Our death toll today has returned to 1960 levels when 1300 people lost their lives. Those people are not around today to witness the transformation that Spain has undergone. With all its problems Spain is a whole new wonderful country that I feel certain many of those who lost their lives unnecessarily would have loved to have experienced.
Since the change of the Millennium we are saying goodbye to eight fewer people per day. Instead of eleven each day, we are now losing only three, which is still three too many, but when we add to that fact that Spain's Summer death toll is down to a 50-year low, that is really something to be celebrated.
So, indeed let us celebrate, but somehow I don't think that anyone needs to say that we need to be careful in our celebrations, and choose a designated driver who gets to drink alcohol free beer.
Well done, friends of the road. Keep up the good work!
Copyright (c) 2013 Eugene Carmichael
