The Association of Manufacturers of Metallic Traffic Signs (Afasemetra) has highlighted a pending issue in Spain. It is not just that there are inconsistencies in an official catalog that has not been updated for 29 years, it is that there are deteriorated and dangerous signs.
Those of us who have enough memory – and years – remember 1992 like the year of the Barcelona Olympics, the Seville Expo, the inauguration of the Madrid-Seville AVE and the A-4, and many other things. 29 years have passed, and That is how long the official catalog of traffic signs has not been updated.
There is also no real public inventory of vertical signs, as reported by the Association of Manufacturers of Metallic Traffic Signs (Afasemetra). Its president, Francisco Cano, recalled that although they are not susceptible to cause, there are dates from which it is advisable to replace them or check that maintain their basic characteristics.
For example, we talk about them being legible day and night, that they maintain their reflective properties, that they are not covered by vegetation or any artificial element, that they have not suffered vandalism, that they have been there since Franco’s time, etc.
Video published by Ponle Freno in early 2010
Since the $ 30 billion that we motorists pay in taxes is not enough to keep the vertical signage properly maintained, because it is spent on almost anything but that, a problem has accumulated that is going to.
Back in 2010, the non-profit organization Ponle Freno began to collect citizen complaints to convey problems in signaling to the holders of the roads. Throughout the six editions of this campaign prior to 2021, more than 2,100 complaints have been transferred. This year, in the seventh call, 300 complaints were processed.
Afasemetra denounced in July that the Spanish regulations on signals have been patched, but they are still not correctly collected. Besides that, going from theory to practice, is that nobody seems to know how many vertical signs there are in Spain, how many are in poor condition, and how many even comply with the applicable regulations.
Source: Association of Manufacturers of Metallic Traffic Signs (Afasemetra)
It is quite shocking that, when interested, yes you can. We only have to remember when thousands of signs were changed from “120” on highways and highways to others from “110” when the Government told us Spaniards that we had to save fuel. Then a sticker was put on so that the “110” became a “120”. A botch.
In another wave, all ‘100’ signs on single-lane secondary roads were replaced by direction of travel to replace ’90’ discs. When you want, you can, but laziness in this regard reaches local, regional and state administrations.
Since 1992, 20 traffic signs have been canceled because they are outdated. Another 125 signs and posters are still not in the official catalog – in which there are 400 -. In addition, there are also more modern signs that are neither in the catalog nor in the General Traffic Regulations, only in drafts of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA).
And it would be convenient to put an end to this mess before a problem explodes in the face of the Administration: autonomous cars. A human driver can deduce some things even if there is no signal to tell him anything, but precise artificial intelligence of clear, legible and standardized signage.
For example, there are signs such as those that tell a cyclist to cross by pushing the bicycle at a crossroads or street, or the warning of older people in the vicinity. Neither one nor the other is standardized and some municipalities have been creative. There are even uncoded signs such as “low emission zone”, “dangerous section” (with radars) or “2 + 1 road”.
Citizens need from time to time to be reminded that we are getting 30,000 million in automobile taxes, if something as simple as having a theoretical and practical inventory of signs has been done in a sloppy way for almost 30 years. In 2022 the figure will be rounded to three decades. It is a shame.