Folha de Sao Paulo published recently (20 / 9) - and O Globo on Sunday (26) - story about accidents with and unsubstantiated conclusions that deserve a more technical analysis on such delicate matters.
I have written on this subject shows, reasoning that there is a mistake in addressing this issue by making a high correlation between accidents and deaths on roads with roads in poor condition or low investments in construction and maintenance.
The latest scientific study on the subject of the IPEA is in agreement with the DENATRAN, whose results were released in 2006 (data 2004 and 2005). Since then, unfortunately, no systematic study was conducted.
This study aimed to estimate the costs of road accidents, both on highways and in the federal and state data showed the following objectives:
• The better the conditions of roads, the greater the amount and cost of road accidents. This is natural, because the roads where the big volumes of traffic, the greater the likelihood of accidents.
• The state highways are Paul is considered the best in the country. However, lead the rankings of the annual cost of accidents, with $ 3.3 billion. Secondly, is the set of federal highways in the Southeast (SP, MG, RJ and ES), with $ 2.4 billion. Then the state highways of Minas Gerais, with $ 1.9 billion, the federal do Sul (RS, SC, PR), with $ 1.6 billion, and net state of Paraná, with $ 1.2 billion.
• The total annual cost of accidents on county roads, state and federal reach a value of $ 22.0 billion, while municipal and state in the net cost $ 15.5 billion, almost 70% the total cost.
• In federal highways, the flattened pedestrians (pictured) accounted for 19.2% of the fatalities, second only to frontal impact, with 24.6%. The components of human behavior and contributed to 58.3% of accidents. Since the road conditions contributed to only 3.4%.
• 65.5% of the accidents occurred with the good weather conditions. In broad daylight, there were 53.9% of them. The conditions under which tracing was recorded occurred mostly in straight lines, with 72.4%.
• The highest number of incidents occurred on weekends and in the months December, January and July.
• 51% of drivers involved were over 10 years of driver's license.
• 50.4% of the accidents occurred with less than 1 hour away.
• 74.1% of the vehicles involved were cars (48.3%) and trucks (25.8%).
• On state highways in São Paulo were 70,224 accidents, which accounted for 62.4% of 112,457 in all Brazilian highways.
• died on the spot, 2,029 people in state highways in São Paulo in 6119 against all federal highways. To these numbers add up to 66% of deaths outside the accident site. Thus, the São Paulo highways account for about 25% of road fatalities in the country.
As shown, the reckless driving is the main cause of accidents, and especially the deaths. The better the conditions of roads increased the speed and overtaking in situations prohibited, with a large number of collisions. In addition, pedestrians have a great weight on the number of deaths, since people are run over with the vehicle to more than 60 km / h, which does not give much chance of surviving the pedestrians.
All this points to intensive measurements of traffic education, complemented with a more action this Highway Patrol and deployment of radars.
In education, there are actions to primary school, higher quality in the schools; advertise permanent public utility; professional truck drivers, with the inclusion simulator, similar to what is done with airplane pilots, games for children and effective use of the Internet.
In relation to operational improvements in roads, actions are planned routine maintenance of roads and signage, elimination of critical points of accidents, implementation of third lanes on uphill; care of Samu (Mobile Service System Urgency) in the corridors with higher traffic flow, as is done in the Regis Bittencourt highway, renewal of the fleet of trucks, with the exclusion of vehicles with more than twenty five years of manufacturing, and vehicle inspections tightening up.
In the area of \u200b\u200bcontrol and repression, there are actions to report and punish speeding, excess axle load on trucks, drug use by drivers, disregard for traffic signals, among others.
Resources for works, services and educational activities to the accelerated reduction of accidents and their severity, should not be contingent, nor suffer interruption, in relation to cash flow.
The coordinated action of the three spheres of power, with the active participation of the Ministries of Transport, Justice, and Cities, as well as the entities of society can reduce, by 2015, the current numbers to acceptable minimum levels.
José Augusto Valente - Technical Director Portal T1
José Augusto Valente - Technical Director Portal T1
