The Algarve’s mayors group AMAL is to initiate a road safety plan concentrating on the EN125 ‘road of death’ to reduce accidents and fatalities.
As the Via do Infante motorway seems set to remain a tolled road, pushing thousands of cars an hour onto the over-burdened EN125 ‘alternative route,’ the Algarve’s 16 council mayors are to develop an Intermunicipal Plan for Road Safety, which aims to reduce road accidents.
The resulting document will be a collaboration between AMAL and the National Road Safety Authority. Both will sign a protocol on Monday in a ceremony that will be attended by the Secretary of State for Internal Affairs, Jorge Gomes.
In addition to measures to reduce accidents, the plan will include "the identification and analysis of critical points in order to present solutions in order to reduce risk."
"The estimated increase of 10% in deaths and 7.5% in accidents with casualties recorded between 2014 and 2015 is associated with the growth of the road network and the number of vehicles in circulation reflects the urgency for a joint initiative from several entities, as well as a shared responsibility in order to make the roads safe for drivers and for pedestrians,” read today’s announcement.
Currently around 200,000 traffic violation fines are not being processed, giving those drivers displaying scant regard to the rules of the road a good chance of escaping punishment.
The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs Jorge Gomes announced earlier this week that radar speed traps will be fully functional “in the first quarter of next year.”
Gomes admitted that there will only be 50 radar speed trap systems in the entire country with the first of 30 new ones being installed as from this September.
It is not known where in the Algarve, if at all, these cameras will be located but once they are identified, many drivers will slow down when in range and speed off afterwards.
Comments
Portugal showed well its hopelessly unbalanced society in it previous attempts to set up speed camera's around the 2 main cities nearly 10 years ago. Tens of thousands of speeding vehicles identified. Then the idiocy started. Not being able to filter out the high status Portuguese who are implicitly allowed to drive as they like; from the medium status Portuguese who can drive as they like unless they impact on a high status drivers rights. Just leaving the rest, the low life's who, being high on drink or drugs, have no idea they are driving - "I'm flying, man!"
So, if memory serves me right, we had the pantomime of Organisation a who controlled the speed cameras being closed and replacement Organisation b not being licensed to have the data on speeders from a to process prosecutions. Crazily, in a country like Portugal where leaks are everywhere - Data Protection then gets invoked to protect the speeders rights to anonymity !
Has anything moved on - will this be the result again?
Not again. Anyone of intelligence will know that the tolls issue is a "red herring".
How will all these predominantly short journeys on little bits of the 125 (e.g., supermarket to home; restaurant to home; bar to home) magically stop taking place if tolls disappear?
Answer: they won't.
Get real, ******** and concentrate on the true problem - insane drivers who think they own the road just because they own a motor vehicle. God forbid they ever get on to the A22! Carnage will follow!
What has THAT been doing - if anything?
1) Stop the nonsense of blaming it on all A22 tolls.
2) Make it all of the EN125 single carriageway each way with double white centre lines or a partition, as in the Espiche stretch. A minimum of say 80Km/hr and maximum of say 100 Km/hr speed limits sounds about right.
3) Get the GNR of their backsides and have them police the roads instead of staking out roundabouts. When it´s not raining of course.
Since when?
The government has to grasp the nettle with the Spanish companies who set this up and reach a settlement.
People's lives are more important than euros.