Asaps on the warpath against the abandonment of the policy of the summer reform of the Highway Code. It is the same President of the Association of Friends and Supporters of the Highway Police Jordan Biserni to launch an appeal to the Quirinale, asking the Head of State to “sensitize Parliament to seriously address the issues of road safety”.
Road safety has disappeared from radars
“We have arrived at the hottest and most intense weeks of summer 2024,” says Bisemi. “On the roads, millions of vehicles moving from the north to the south of Italy and vice versa, with the infamous red and black stickers. Millions of foreigners visit our country. Parliament, on the other hand, stops for the usual month-long break. We start again in mid-September. Road safety, which should have had a turning point with a bill presented in June 2023, has disappeared from the radar. approved by the Chamber of Deputies in March 2024, but drowned in the Senate by many decree-laws. In practice “disappeared” from the radar. It did not fall into a ditch. It was simply put in the queue of other parliamentary work, or it was not even put on the agenda of the eighth Commission. Over 400 amendments presented, the illustration and voting has not even begun. Nothing. We will not have to carry the new handbooks under the umbrella or to the mountain tops to study the new rules. Now we rest. With the times of the Senate and with the changes to some articles or the introduction of new rules that are expected – as ASAPS had foreseen – we will go to the third passage in the Chamber. The introduction of road homicide had 5 parliamentary passages. And the approval? Certainly on a date closer to Christmas, than to Ferragosto”.
232 pedestrians and 114 cyclists killed since the beginning of the year
“How can we not think about our real-time data from the beginning of the year, to the 232 pedestrians and 114 cyclists who have died since the beginning of the year, to the 41 victims of the last weekend, to the 13 children who have died to date in 2024, little ones who will never see the age of majority? We think about it, and we also think about all the police forces that even in these “hot” days face aggressive drivers, streets full of individuals dedicated to street crime, guardians of the law who are committed to governing the most dangerous road behaviors, with the ever few “legal weapons” available, between a “war” on speed cameras and breathalyzers, and an impossibility to be everywhere, with the limited numbers of agents and the Highway Patrol, of all the Police Forces and Local Police. We also think about the bells that are rung to warn the families of a death in a road accident. We think about it and we would like politics, made of announcements and controversies, to think that giving more road safety to our country, also means reducing social costs, means saving human lives, means being a modern country, like others in Europe. At this moment we are not able to win an Olympic medal, but not even to qualify for a serious final for road safety”.
The appeal to the President of the Republic
“We appeal to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, in order to sensitize Parliament to seriously address the issues of road safety, he had already done so punctually in his 2023 New Year’s speech, talking about young people who tragically lose their lives on the roads. Otherwise it will be a game of snakes and ladders again. Starting from scratch every time simply to pass a law. We wrote it 5 years ago, and we reiterate it today. Let’s try not to play any more jokes. Happy Ferragosto”.
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