HEALTHPLAN MAGAZINE

The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) has designed a new ‘blind spot’ sign that is aimed to help reduce the risk of accidents, by improving the visibility for drivers in trucks, buses and vans.

This is just one in a set of actions that are being adopted in the European Union and its objective is to help warn vulnerable drivers of the danger of positioning themselves in any one of the areas where the driver can’t see them. This sign will allow them to re-position themselves in a more visible location, reducing the risk of an accident.

According to the Spanish Government website La Moncloa, the reasons that have led to the DGT creating this new sign are as follows:

• In 2020, 153 pedestrians, 134 motorists, 21 bicycle users and 7 personal mobility vehicle users died on urban roads, of which a high percentage of accidents with fatalities and serious injuries occurred among vulnerable users and commercial and heavy vehicles.
• Change in urban mobility and therefore in road safety:
• Increased mobility for pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles and new forms of mobility such as personal mobility vehicles in cities.
• Increase in the traffic of commercial and heavy vehicles due to the growth of logistics activity, electronic commerce deliveries, which in some cities reaches 25% of the circulating traffic.
• The aging of the population. 70% of the pedestrians who died in the city were over 65 years old.
• It is in line with similar initiatives in the process of being implemented in other European countries such as France, the London Metropolitan Area and various regions of Germany.
• It is a first measure of a set of actions under study that are being analyzed both at the European level, in Spain and in local administrations, to reduce the risk of accidents by improving the space and the quality of the driver's vision in commercial vehicles.

The signs objective is to warn vulnerable users of the danger of being in any of these non-visible areas when they approach these marked vehicles. They can then position themselves where they are more visible, in order to avoid risks.

The signage will be voluntary and will be for vehicles with more than nine seats (including the driver). According to the General Vehicle Regulations, these vehicles are in the M2 and M3 categories. Other targeted vehicles are those in category N1, N2 and N3 and waste transportation vehicles in urban areas.

The Government website states that, “the signs must comply with the design and technical requirements defined in the instruction, to ensure maximum durability and visibility. They must be marketed through authorized establishments that are registered as license plate handlers.”

“They shall be positioned so that they are visible in all circumstances and in such a way that they cannot obstruct the visibility of the regulatory plates and inscriptions on the vehicle, the visibility of the various lights and signaling devices and the driver's field of vision. The instruction details the number of signs to place and the position depending on the vehicle.”

The DGT, from the very start, worked with several municipalities to design the sign, they included Barcelona, Logroño, Madrid, Zaragoza and the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) which is made up of 36 municipalities.

By allowing the municipalities to be involved from the very beginning, the DGT has found that once they are marketed, they are committed to using the protection signs in their fleets of public service vehicles, in order to help reduce their cities' accident rate.

Barcelona City Council will start by implementing the signage in roughly 2,199 of their public service vehicles and the AMB will use them in a further 800 vehicles.

Madrid City Council has said they will place them on 2,600 vehicles, the Logroño City Council on 79 vehicles and the Zaragoza City Council will place more than 600 on their public service vehicles.

Alongside working with the municipalities, the DGT has also been working with the Logistics and Transport Business Organisation (UNO), the Association of Manufacturers and Distributors (AECOC), and the Innovation Center for Logistics (CITET) in the hope of putting the signs into practice on product distribution vehicles in urban areas.

Source and Image

https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/serviciosdeprensa/notasprensa/interior/Paginas/2021/041021-dgt_nueva_senal.aspx