The government announced on Thursday that it is making "Surgical changes" to the road code that go through worsening the penalty for the use of the cell phone during driving and reducing the period of notification of fines.
In statements to the agency lusa, the secretary of state for civil protection, José Artur Neves, said that the intention is to approve these changes still in this
"these are changes mainly related to the contraordenações and some penalty that we are proposing to worsen in some areas, namely in the use of mobile", said the secretary of state, without specify what type of worsening
Currently, the use of the phone during driving is a serious contraordenação, losing the driver two points in the license system by points.
José Artur Neves stressed that they are " very surgical changes " those that will be made to the road code, having one of them as " main goal " the cell phone, but the " more structural " Review is related to " the dematerialisation of In other words, to speed up the notification of
The Secretary of state said that, with this amendment, the notification period will be reduced so that "the offender, upon receiving the notification quickly, feels that he has committed a mistake", thus avoiding another immediately after.
" in the current process, being very long, it leads to many times the offender repeat several violations until he receives the notification of the first infringement This process tends to whitewash people and what we want is for everyone to be aware of the obligation to take behaviour that is not at risk ", he stressed.
José Neves said that there are other changes that are also being prepared, "but in this legislature it is no longer possible". asked whether it is through the process sanctions to drivers who can reduce the dead on the roads, the secretary of state said The government is 'acting in various dimensions', especially with schools, but the change in road behaviour "tends to take a long time to internalize by citizens".
"the immediate goal is the sanctions process to be speeded because it will be the best way to alert citizens to the obligation not to have wrong behavior", said.
Data from the National Road Safety Authority (Ansr) show that the number of deaths on Portuguese roads increased in 2018 for the second consecutive year.
According to ansr, 445 people died in 2016, moving to 510 in 2017 and 513 in 2018, although there is still no final report from last year.
The latest data from ansr indicate that between 1 January and 15 July, 242 people died on the roads, the same number as last year.
Until 15 July there were 68.493 accidents, less 63 than in the same period of 2018, but the serious injuries increased by around 11 %, and this year they were seriously injured 1.089 People, while in the same year there were 978.
Source, Observador.
