Some encouraging statistics to live by

It seems drivers on Spanish roads have some relatively good news to celebrate. Deaths on our road system suffered the lowest number since records began in 1960. A total of 1,126 people lost their lives during 2015. The total for 1960 was 1,300. However there were only One million vehicles in all of Spain's roads during that year. Now there are 31 million, so had there been no improvement in our roads system, and had not there been any appreciable improvement in driver care and attention the figure would have been 40,300.

But there have been improvements. Things got a lot worse before getting better. The turning point came, not because drivers realised that if we didn't perform better we would lose our lives, but because the government introduced the points system. Suddenly no-one wanted to lose any points, so from that point onwards there has been a steady decline, except for one year when the number has fallen to the present level.

The report does not tell us what the percentage of young drivers in the 18-34age bracket were that died, but presumably it was 43%, or 476; because it was 19% or 211 in the bracket 35-44. The next bracket, 45-54 the result was 16% or 184; and in the top age bracket it was 22% or 255. So it appears that the two worst brackets are the young drivers and the old ones.

The Dgt are now considering putting forward suggestions for placing limitations upon older drivers who naturally lose some of their concentration as they age.

It comes as no surprise that male deaths account for 79%, while a pleasant surprise is that female losses actually declined by 14% over the previous year.

An instructive statistic is that fully 22% of persons who died did so because they were not wearing their seatbelts. There can be no excuse for this. It is a reflex action to simply cross over the belt and click it into it's lock. If we don't do this it has to be believed to be a deliberate choice because you have a death complex. Therefore, if you do die the cause must surely be one of suicide.

Drive safely, and buckle up!

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael