View of the A7 at the Valencia exit, this Wednesday. Biel Aliño (EFE)

"People really wanted to get out."

Pere Navarro, Director General of Traffic, thus summarizes the high volume of travel during the special operation this Easter.

Holy Wednesday is precisely the holiday with the highest number of vehicles on the roads.

And during the first phase of the operation, all expectations were shattered.

The forecast of the DGT was that during these holidays the traffic would be 2% less than that registered in 2019 (before the pandemic).

However, the data accumulated since the beginning of the campaign last Friday, had exceeded by 7.2% that of Holy Wednesday two years ago.

The director of the DGT highlights the "particularly high" increase in the number of trips, compared to 2019. The data is comparable to that of 2017, when 15 million trips were computed.

As in each special operation of Holy Week, the DGT put all the human and technical resources available to work from Friday.

“For us it is high season.

People wanted a Holy Week without restrictions and we wanted to organize an operation like this, "says Navarro by phone.

Yesterday at three in the afternoon the second phase of the special operation began, the most important in terms of volume.

Traffic has planned some 8.5 million journeys between Wednesday and midnight next Monday, an average of more than 1.4 million movements per day.

"Sunday is the day with the highest retentions," specifies the director of the DGT, who warns of the need to "schedule" the return taking this information into account.

The one for Holy Week is the first special operation that the DGT has launched after the approval of the new traffic law, in force since March 21, and which further penalizes the use of mobile phones while driving and introduces changes in the speed allowed to overtake.

"This does not imply changes in the special Traffic operation," Navarro specifies, since the same guidelines are followed as in previous years - except for the pandemic.

“For us it is high season.

People really wanted to go out."

Pere Navarro, director of the DGT

One of the novelties of the traffic law that has generated more debate is the prohibition of exceeding the permitted speed by 20 kilometers per hour to be able to overtake on conventional roads.

There are those who oppose this restriction alleging a "collection desire".

Until now, if a section radar detected vehicles traveling at a speed higher than the permitted speed (always within the margin of 20 kilometers per hour), drivers could claim that they were overtaking in accordance with this exemption.

Forbidden to increase 20 kilometers per hour the speed when overtaking

Navarro denies that the measure has a collection intention: “We have not increased the amount of the fine because there is no time to raise fines.

If you can overtake, you overtake, and if you can't, don't.

The easy thing would have been not to ban it.

But when there is a risk, you have to try to minimize it.”

In 2019, 239 people died on secondary roads.

“Let's not make this [the change in overtaking] 'the big issue.'

There were people who didn't even know what could be done before”, insists the person in charge of Traffic.

04:58

Answers about the new regulations

New traffic law: What can and cannot be done with a mobile phone behind the wheel and what happens with overtaking. Video: EPV

To confirm whether the new law results in a drop in the number of claims, we will have to wait at least a year, says Navarro: "To make an assessment takes time."

Meanwhile, this Holy Week on the Spanish roads a luminous message is repeated: "Six points for using the mobile".

A reminder that affects what remains one of the main offenses while driving.

With the entry into force of the new law, holding the mobile device with your hands while the vehicle is moving is penalized with three more points than using it on the vehicle support.

"Mobile is a social problem with cases that reach dependency," recalls the director of the DGT.

Distractions are the first cause of fatal accidents in the last five years and more than 40% of these offenses are due to the use of mobile phones.

Pere Navarro poses in front of the headquarters of the DGT in Madrid, last July.

andrea commas

Campaign based on 'big data'

The campaign designed by Traffic for this Holy Week, under the slogan "Let's make Big Data wrong", is based on an estimate that analyzes the foreseeable deaths that will be recorded during these holidays on the roads: 36 people.

"It's a strong campaign," says Navarro, who reveals that the idea arose after the feat of tennis player Rafa Nadal at the Australian Open at the end of January.

Midway through the second set, a Nadal win only had a 4% chance, but Nadal blew out that estimate and won.

"

can give a probability, but it is up to us to change it," says the head of the DGT, who appeals to responsibility and precaution during this Holy Week to maintain the downward trend in accidents that marked the pandemic.

Intense traffic in the exit operation

From three in the afternoon on Wednesday, the time at which the second phase of the exit operation began, traffic was intense at the exits of large urban centers, such as Madrid and Barcelona.

In the capital, the points of greatest concentration were located on the A3 and A5 towards Badajoz.

In Barcelona there was a significant delay due to an accident at the height of Subirats in the Tarragona direction.

All the entrances to Valencia were also collapsed, in particular that of the A3.

There were also considerable traffic jams in Castilla-La Mancha, especially in the province of Toledo on the A4 and in various sections of the A5.

Likewise in the Basque Country towards Cantabria and on the A6, in Zamora, due to another incident.

View of the National 5 at the Madrid exit this Wednesday. ZIPI ARAGON ZIPI ARAGON (EFE)

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