2023-11-30 21:51:54
One in three traffic accidents occurs due to limited visibility or poor lighting. In detail, accidents that occur with artificial road lighting (without natural light) account for a total of 75,537 accidents, 16% of the total; while accidents that occur without lighting (without natural or artificial lighting on the road) reach 58,714 accidents, 12.5% of the total; followed by those produced with adverse weather (heavy rain, hail, snow or fog), which reached 48,817 accidents, 10.2% of the total.
Worrying figures that emerge from the study carried out by Fesvial and Lumileds, ‘Effects of poor lighting on road accidents’, presentation during which the technical director of Fesvial, José Ignacio Lijarciohighlighted that “traffic accidents due to limited visibility or poor lighting occur rarely, but when they occur they are totally fatal and harmful«.
In this regard, the study specifies that, between 2017 and 2021 – a period analyzed based on accident data from the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) – accidents due to poor lighting have accounted for between 35% and 37% of accidents. and the victims. In the case of accidents without lighting (neither natural nor artificial), the percentage of deaths is 2.6%, double that recorded in overall traffic accidents.
In any case, Lijarcio has highlighted how “the behavior of drivers improves greatly when the weather is adverse”, since mortality due to adverse weather phenomena (0.7%) is lower than that caused by lack of lighting. natural or artificial (3.4%) or not using regulatory lighting (4.2%).
The study adds that “four out of ten deaths due to restricted visibility problems are pedestrians.” In particular, “one in three deaths with artificial lighting and one in four with adverse weather,” Lijarcio stated, which proves, in his opinion, that accidents due to poor lighting are especially lethal for pedestrians.
The study by Fesvial and Lumileds also classifies road accidents into six categories: accidents without lighting; accidents with artificial lighting (without natural light but with artificial light); accidents with adverse weather; accidents with restricted visibility; accidents not using regulatory lighting; accidents with lighting violation, a classification that makes up what they have called ‘Accidents with limited visibility due to poor lighting’ (AVLID).
In this regard, passenger cars represent 60.1% of the vehicles involved in the first type of accident; while motorcycles and mopeds are concentrated in the second (27.2%). Passenger cars (46.5%), mopeds and motorcycles (37%) and minibuses and buses (4.2%) are concentrated in the case of accidents with adverse weather, while accidents with restricted visibility account for 73. 9% passenger cars.
Bicycles and personal mobility vehicles (PMV) have a prominent presence in accidents due to non-use of regulatory lighting (20.4%) or due to lighting violations (15%), percentages that fundamentally correspond to bicycles since PMV They have been registered since 2020.
In any case, the technical director of Fesvial has defended that Spain has overcome the “major road safety problems, so the current objective is not to focus on macro data, but to seek solutions for more micro problems, as is the case of the “poor lighting in the national vehicle park.”
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