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Ok, so my blog’s title is clearly lying, but now I have your attention why not read why I wouldn’t be too surprised if this may actually be headline news in the not too distant future.... ?
Last weekend the Spanish Government announced that they were to apply stiffer penalties for anyone caught driving under the influence of alcohol.
A good thing, obviously, and not something I am about to knock, but I can’t help think that the DGT has gone completely mad and that a collection of men with beards and wearing sandals are completely missing the point.
Even one death caused by a drunk driver is one too many, sure, but as a percentage of all deaths on Spanish roads, drink driving accounts for a relatively low percentage.
Speeding, as a major cause of road-related deaths, accounts for a significant percentage and is also stiffly penalised. Then comes driving whilst using a mobile phone or Sat-Nav.
On the more obscure end of the scale, Men can also be fined for driving whilst not wearing a shirt, and the wearing of footwear such as Crocs can also attract a penalty, although quite how that makes a driver unsafe is beyond me.
If the point is that unsafe acts whilst driving result in deaths, then surely being distracted whilst driving is up there with the worst offenders ?
Driving whilst smoking : Ok, so scrabbling around the glove box for a packet of fags and lighter whilst overtaking on a blind corner is clearly unsafe, as is eating a takeaway Bocadillo and drinking a can of coke whilst attempting to enter the outside lane of the Motorway.
Wearing ‘unsuitable’ footwear whilst driving could also run the risk of the driver getting their shoes stuck under a pedal.... all these things seems to have been pretty well covered by the DGT.
Still not sure about the whole ‘Men wearing shirts’ bit though...
However, in their quest to ensure that they orchestrate a nation where there are no road deaths in any one year, they continue to apply harsher and harsher penalties to infractions that – although only cause a small percentage of accidents – are easy to define.
Driving whilst not taking care, or not concentrating : Surely that has to be the biggest cause of all accidents on the road ? - Speeding whilst busting for a pee ? Taking your eye of road to remonstrate with fighting infants on the back seat ? Careering blindly round corners whilst having a heated argument with the other half ? – all these things I am sure that many would hold their hands up at some point in the past.
The question is how can any of these things be quantified ? Or, who would admit to them ?
In the meantime the beards and sandals employed at the DGT up the penalties for what they Can easily quantify in the hope that one day they will arrive at the much hoped for ‘zero road deaths’ point in time.
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