Pedestrians, the massacre continues: in the year just ended the victims have increased again compared to 2020: according to data from the Asaps observatory, association of traffic police friends, in 2021 (and therefore with a consistent decrease in road traffic in the first months of 2021 and consequently the number of accidents in Italy) 271 pedestrians died in Italy (75 women and 196 men). And they are numbers calculated by default because the data are provisional and do not include deaths that occurred in hospitals after some time. Therefore, to this preliminary estimate it will be necessary to add at least another 30% of seriously injured, who died in the intensive care units of Italian hospitals.
Weak users in short, they are always in a situation of great danger. And already because the numbers speak for themselves: compared to the year 2018, with 612 deaths, the year 2019, 534 deaths, the year 2020 which saw 409 crosses on Italian roads (source Aci-Istat), the phenomenon had a strong reduction only due to the pandemic, with an average of 20 lives lost per month, but 2021 with the first preliminary estimate instead showed an average of 22 pedestrians dead every month. It should be remembered the black year for pedestrians, 2002, before the introduction of the points license, when it was achieved the peak of 1,226 deaths.
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What to do? “The issue of road safety – he explains Giordano Biserni, President Asaps – is a theme lost along the way precisely by politics which in the year just ended did not want to introduce heavier penalties, for example against those who use a mobile phone while driving. How many lives could be saved? An accident out of every 5 is caused by distraction, as confirmed by the many cases and reconstructions of the claims. We then raise the alarm again on “road piracy”. Almost 50 bodies were left to die on Italian roads with the escape of the investor, 4 families a month mourned a corpse abandoned along the roadside, with inhuman cruelty. We have been saying this for years – concludes Biserni – that we are all pedestrians and seeing that the data rise again despite the pandemic worries us a lot. And it should worry everyone too Members of Parliament to which we launch yet another appeal, so that immediately after the appointment of the President of the Republic, there is an extraordinary provision that provides for sanctions and changes to the Highway Code “.
Certainly something could be done easily: analyzing the numbers it turns out that many investor motorists are impaired driving, in the 271 deaths of the preliminary estimate for the year 2021, it was immediately ascertained that in 12 cases the investor driver was drunk, 5 times he had taken drugs , and in 49 accidents the driver fled (compared to 33 cases ascertained in 2020), leaving the victim on the ground lifeless, without providing assistance, with criminal behavior, despite the tightening of criminal sanctions, aggravated by the law on murder road.
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Asaps statistics in fact tell us that every 5 fatal accidents with pedestrians, one is caused by a “hit-and-run driver”. Thanks to technological investigations, enhancement of video surveillance and also to useful testimonies, in 75% of cases these subjects are identified by the traffic police bodies and brought to justice, with processes even faster than in the past. It should be noted that the cases of impaired driving will certainly be in higher numbers, because individual drivers are often subjected to subsequent blood tests by the traffic police bodies, to ascertain their conditions. The strong concern, however, in addition to the increasing piracy is that of accidents caused by distracted driving, the one that makes the driver say “I have not seen it”.
And from this point of view, Asaps has examined this cause in at least 20% of deaths, often caused by “hangover of the third millennium“, Ie the indiscriminate use of mobile phone driving, especially in instant messaging and direct on social networks. Here is a summary of the possible solutions to be adopted.
The analysis of even the most dangerous months is precise: in 2021 the highest number of deaths occurred in August, with as many as 29 deaths, followed by last December with 28 dead pedestrians. In January 2020, the massacre of pedestrians took place in the province of Bolzano, in Lutago, with seven young lives broken, due to a 27-year-old motorist, drunk with an alcohol level 4 times higher than the limit, which has not yet been convicted in court, while the insurance has offered 10 million euros to those involved. The month with the fewest deaths was April with 18 deaths, the month of reopening after the softest lockdown. With the return to normality thanks to vaccinations, in particular between August and December, and the regaining of everyday life and the total reopening of commercial and entrepreneurial activities after the “coronavirus” emergency, we have returned to ordinary numbers that have impacted on road safety, with as many as 103 deaths in the third quarter of 2021.
Finally, from the analysis of Asaps on the age of the deceased, it emerges that 11 were under the age of 18 (the youngest only 18 months, hit by his father’s car). But it is among the over 65s that a real massacre has been counted, with 133 deaths, of which 59 over 80, and an elderly person of 96 years old who died on the pedestrian crossing. Practically anyone who leaves home and is over 65 and goes on foot has a very high risk of being run over compared to younger people, with 50% of cases identified by the Pedestrian Observatory 2021. As many as 12 cases, pedestrians were hit while they were going to throw garbage near their home, especially in the evening and at night. In 5 cases even from the waste collection trucks themselves.
Therefore, a very high risk is confirmed for pedestrians over 65, who have fewer reflexes, slow movements and above all perceive the danger in a limited way compared to a younger person.
And, once again, Lazio is the black sheep of this tragedy given that – in the company of Veneto – leads the ranking with 37 deaths, followed by Lombardy and Emilia Romagna with 29 deaths. Followed by Tuscany with 19 and Campania with 18, Puglia with 16, Piedmont with 13. At the bottom of the ranking with the lowest number of deceased pedestrians, Basilicata with 2, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano and Molise with one death and the Valle d’Aosta without pedestrians who lost their lives on the Valle d’Aosta roads.
Like in a war on the roads, even the most ecological vehicles such as bicycles and scooters can cause victims among pedestrians. In the year 2021, most investors were driving cars, but in 43 cases they drove trucks (of which – we have seen – 5 cases of garbage trucks), in 12 cases driving motorcycles, in 3 cases at driving a bus, but also a bulldozer, a microcar, a bicycle as happened in Scandicci against an 86-year-old and the two cases in Milan and Cesena where two elderly people hit by scooters were killed. In 2021 we had seven deaths between workers who worked on construction sites and two policemen of the Traffic Police who died in the fulfillment of their duty, all hit by vehicles in transit.
In short, the Asaps study must make us reflect. “In Italy – concludes Biserni – pedestrian crossings are not a “sacred” place in the field of road safety as in all European states, and we wonder when it will be possible to automatically sanction with cameras (a sort of Pedovelox) and agents the lack of precedence on pedestrian crossings. We need more repressive activity on the roads, we need more uniforms, given that the rules provide for eight points deducted from the license in case of lack of precedence. In these first days of the year, four pedestrians died, in a new interminable and sad counting of the crosses. “
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