The establishment of the Low Emission Zones It is causing a headache for millions of drivers. of application in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants for this year, although some localities have postponed its entry into force, the LEZs impose access restrictions for those considered the most polluting vehicles, without a DGT badge or with a B badge (yellow in color ).
A study carried out by the Círculo Neutral in Motion (NIM) association, which includes the most important automotive and vehicle associations in Spain (Aedive, Anesdor, Anfac, Faconauto, Ganvam, Sernauto, among others), indicates that more than 7.5 million vehicles park Spanish automobiles do not have a DGT label, which represents almost 30 percent of the total number of vehicles that circulate daily on the streets and highways of our country.
According to the RACE The creation of the Low Emission Zones has affected or will affect the displacements of 52% of the inhabitants (or workers) of cities with more than 50,000 registered residents. 32% will not be affected in their day to day since their usual form of travel will be allowed, while 11% affirm that they are left out of their daily trips.
But progressively over time, restrictions will come into force for vehicles with B and C labels. It is estimated that the sum of the vehicles that do not have a label and those with distinctive Bresults in just over 60 percent of the total number of vehicles that make up the car fleet in Spain.
Therefore, it is urgent that realistic economic aid be implemented by the Administrations so that there is a renewal of the Spanish automobile fleet in order to implement progressively, and with measures that are considered proportional, the Low Emission Zones in municipalities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, as explained to ABC vincent ynzengahead of the Legal Department of Pyramid Consulting.
At the same time, driver and consumer associations are calling for a moratorium on the application of restrictive measures that allow the most polluting vehicles to be withdrawn in an orderly manner, making way for those with lower emissions.
From Associated European MotoristsMario Arnaldo He explains that “effective measures are needed that do not only contemplate the switch to electric cars, since there are other alternatives.” In this way, he refers to the need for incentives so that the owners of older vehicles “can buy, for example, a pre-owned car, which also manages to significantly reduce emissions.” The president of AEA recognizes the need to fight against pollution and “protect air quality, but a moratorium is necessary so that the most polluting cars are gradually withdrawn from circulation and make way for the cleanest ones.”
According to Arnaldo, “the town halls have rushed to tender contracts for the installation of cameras to control access to LEZs without having previously studied which areas really need their implementation”.
Arnaldo also explains that after the acceptance by the European Union of Germany’s allegations, allowing the sale and circulation of combustion vehicles that use synthetic fuels beyond 2035 “it will be necessary to modify the legislation, because any car that uses these new fuels will be neutral in CO2 emissions, so no constraint could be set to its circulation. This opens the door to both new vehicles and older cars, both diesel and gasoline, that run exclusively on e-fuel.
According to Mario Arnaldo “the aim is to go from nothing to everything. The limit of inhabitants has been set at 50,000 because it has been said so. There are a large number of vehicles that have not been able to make the transition. As the economic situation is, many people who have an old car are not going to buy an electric one.
According to the RACE Observatory for Drivers, after asking more than 1,500 people about how they see Low Emission Zones and how they can affect them, more than half, specifically 54%, attribute the creation of these zones to “political agenda and interests”, while only 35% of those surveyed think that the real motivation is due to the improvement of the environment. The rest, 11%, either do not have a clear answer or attribute it to other reasons.
From Pyramid Consulting Vicente Ynzenga also denounces the irregularities that the administrations are committing in the application of the LEZs. “The setbacks to the Administrations They are happening, both by the Contentious Administrative Courts, and by the Superior Courts of Justice, since the administrations are applying the Low Emission Zones, incurring procedural and signaling errors“.
Madrid, Barcelona or Gijón are some of the most questioned localities. Among the resources won by those affected after being fined, those stand out in which “the administrations limit themselves to attaching a photograph of the denounced vehicle circulating at the scene, without incorporating any photo of the sign, or sketch of the zone, which accredits the arrival at the point where the photograph is captured, or that a signaling prohibiting access has been exceeded because it is a low-emission zone. Therefore, the administrations are not properly accrediting the complaints, explains Ynzenga.
In specific cases processed against drivers, since the entry into force of the Low Emission Zone of Central Madrid (now the Low Emissions Zone of the Central District), numerous rulings were obtained from the Contentious Administrative Courts of Madrid, considering that the Madrid City Council did not comply with the notice period established in the Sustainable Mobility Ordinance, and that it required inform drivers of the final entry into force and the start of the period in which sanctions would begin.
“Such informative letters were not sent. Likewise, we obtained positive judgments, considering, also, as we defended, that complaints against the same driver for each of the accesses could not be notified en masse, indiscriminately, without taking into account the provisions of article 63.3 of Law 39/ 2015 Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations. In these cases we are faced with a single continuous infringement over time and, therefore, given the driver’s ignorance, it must be processed as a single sanction and not take advantage of the Administration to start the maximum number of files possible (for clearly collection purposes), notifying all the fines at the same time driver,” he explains.
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