Experts harshly criticize the plan to increase the maximum speed in the city to 60 kilometers per hour

On August 4, 2018, the amendment to the traffic law was published in the Official Gazette, regarding the maximum traffic speed limit in urban areas of Chile, reducing the speed from 60 to 50 km/h.

On this occasion, the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Glory Hut, He clarified that “the speed reduction was created with a focus on citizens, to improve their quality of life by democratizing road spaces and generating conditions of equity and greater safety for all”.

Today, this measure appears to be called into question because of a bill that aims to return to the old maximum speed in town.

At the head of the parliamentary motion is a group of opposition senators led by Iván Moreira and supported by Juan Antonio Coloma, chairman of the Transport and Telecommunications Committee, Enrique Van Rysselberghe, Manuel José Ossandón and Alejandro Kusanovic, who seek to replace the old maximum speed because the objectives of reducing fatalities would not have been achieved.

The motion of the senators did not leave the experts indifferent, in fact, for many it was It is striking to think of increasing the speed while in various countries they are working to reduce it even more, always thinking of reducing accidents and injuries caused by impacts.

On this measure, Axel Rimbaud, founder of the MEL (Movement against murderous speeding), looks back on history and recalls that “in August 2018, Chile took a step forward to reduce the number of deaths due to speeding with the publication of Law 21.103 which reduced the maximum speed limit in urban areas.This speed reduction also corrected the mistake made in 2002, when the maximum urban speed limit was increased from 50 to 60 km /h The following year (2003) traffic accidents in urban areas, the cause of which can be attributed to excessive speed, increased by 29%”.

Regarding the senators’ project, Alberto Escobar, responsible for mobility at the Automóvil Club de Chile and specialist in road safety for the institution, did not hesitate to analyze the question and specified that “it is strange that Regulations that help prevent deaths and injuries on the tracks, such as the 50 km/h reduction was a few years ago, continue to be the subject of criticism and discussion. It is inexplicable that the CATI project, which integrates electronic control of streets to save lives, was approved just in January, and now appears this motion which aims to increase speed again in urban areas. This bill only confirms that The devastating consequences speeding has had on the country’s road accident rate has yet to be assessed. which accounts for nearly 30% of annual mortality, and that there is still no real interest in Chile in reducing the rate of deaths and injuries in the streets”.

In the same vein, Claudia Rodríguez, executive director of the NGO “No Chat”, commented that “it is a terrible idea, a very bad project that goes against everything that has been put forward in terms of road safety, starting with It is very clear from the evidence that increasing speed by 10 km/h increases deaths and accidents in direct relation. This group of senators does not know that Chile has signed the second decade of action for road safety and commits to reducing road fatalities, fatalities and serious injuries by 30% by 2030”.

Also considering the importance of the change of 2018, Luis Stuven, road safety manager at Mutual de Seguridad, recalled that “that year, in parallel with the development of the law on road coexistence, speed has been reduced to 50 km/h, and what the country did at that time was put themselves on an equal footing with other OECD countries which have all their speeds in urban areas at 50 km/h maximum We should also remember that many of them, mainly Europeans, have even reduced this speed to 30 km/h in urban areas”.

But the voice of the experts is not based on beliefs held in the air, indeed, Rimbaud brings data to the discussion and underlines that “traffic speed is a key factor in road safety, it increases the probability of occurrence of a traffic accident”. and also aggravates its consequences. It is estimated that a 5% decrease in average speed can lead to a 30% reduction in the number of fatal collisions ”.

Stuven, who was executive secretary of the National Road Safety Commission (Conaset), is also adamant on the subject and points out that “When there is a traffic accident involving pedestrians or cyclists with a vehicle traveling at 60 km/h, in 100% of cases this accident ends up being fatal for the cyclist or the pedestrian , contrary to what happens when this vehicle hits the person at 50 km/h where he has a certain chance of being saved. In this sense, as Mutual de Seguridad, we will always prefer any public policy aimed at protecting workers, many of whom move as pedestrians or cyclists”.

Analyzing another of the points for which the motion is made, related to greater fluidity in the streets by authorizing higher speeds, Alberto Escobar comments that “it is contradictory that today they want to revalidate reckless and irresponsible behavior in the streets. A series of totally decontextualized arguments are taken, such as, it will help improve traffic flow, and that’s a goof. Instead of promoting initiatives that further aggravate the problem of road accidents, it would be good if they accelerated the approval of other projects, such as the driving license with points, which brings multiple advantages to moderate reckless behavior on the roads.

The idea of ​​returning to 60 km / h as the maximum speed in urban areas worries the experts, who unanimously see it as a danger. In addition, they stressed that increased control is urgently needed, which can be supported when the CATI law begins to apply.

“The bill increasing the maximum speed of motorized vehicles in urban areas to 60 km/h will mean an increase in the number of deaths and a serious setback in terms of road safety, which is why we are against this rule”, says- he. Axel Rimbaud.

Luis Stuven does not see any progress in the project either and affirms that “it is a clear setback in terms of road safety, in fact, what we see in other countries and Chile is moving forward in the same logic. , is to reduce the speed for On the one hand there is already strict monitoring, an issue that with the CATI law, which we are also promoting with other civil society organizations and the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications as a Mutual Security Bill that had been in the works for more than nine years Congress, we see how we are following the path of countries more advanced than us, who, through proper oversight, have been able to reduce the deaths on the roads by around 30%.

Claudia Rodríguez goes one step further and hopes the project will be left alone. “It’s not a good project, it’s not a good idea and What we also hope from the COSOC (Civil Society Council) is that it does not enter because it actually goes in a logic totally contrary to what we have been working on for years in Chile on the issue of safe mobility, but also to the commitments that Chile has made at the international level to commit to lowering the number of deaths and serious injuries in transit”, specified the executive director of “No Chat”.

Alberto Escobar also undertakes not to restore the old maximum speed. “If the speed is increased again in urban areas, it will be a huge setback for road safety, and even, it would be shameful for our country especially since the trend in much of the world is to lower speed limits precisely to reduce the rate of fatalities and injuries on the road network,” said the safety specialist.