The accident rate on Catalan roads has been stagnant for a few years at similar figures and around half of the deaths correspond to frontal collisions. It is a situation that does not improve and that contrasts with what happened on the C-55, the Manresa district, one of the deadliest roads for decades and which has now become a benchmark to be replicated in other places.
Fatal accidents due to frontal collisions in the section between Collbató and Manresa on this highway have been reduced to zero since physical separations were established between the two directions and a third lane was set up at certain points to facilitate overtaking. In the last six years there have only been two fatal accidents (one off the road and one run over), nothing to do with the 26 that had occurred in the previous six years.
Clinging to this example, the Department of Territory has prepared a plan for the next eight years that will involve an investment of 664 million to act on 418 kilometers of two-way regional roads in which there have been frontal collisions.
The system that will be applied is inspired by the Swedish model, known as 2 1, which was brought to Catalonia by the current Director General of Infrastructures of the Ministry of Transport, Xavier Flores, when he worked at the Generalitat and which is precisely now trying to transfer to the rest of Spain. His successor in the position in the Department of Territory, David Prat, points out that the study made from the accident figures of recent years breaks the cliché that the roads with the most curves are the ones with the most serious accidents. According to data from the Generalitat, most of the roads with frontal collisions that leave fatalities occur on relatively modern layouts where higher speeds are reached.
The list covers twenty routes throughout Catalonia, from the C-12, between Amposta and Lleida, to the C-31, between Pals and Figueres. There are also sections of the C-15 (Vilafranca-La Pobla de Claramunt), C-31 (Vilanova bypass), C-37 (Manlleu-La Vall d'en Bas) and C-65 (Girona-Llagostera), among other. "Acting in 7% of the road network of the Generalitat, it is expected to reduce the fatal accident rate between 18% and 22%", remarks Prat, who has made this issue one of the workhorses in the face of the stagnation of the reduction in accidents in recent years.
