Road safety in Chile is very complex to address due to its multi-causal components. The growth of the automotive fleet of over 6 million vehicles, coupled with the addition of new modes of transport, coupled with risky behavior, inadequate road infrastructure and lax controls, means that we need to move forward on successful concrete actions. respond to this scenario.

According to the World Health Organization, speeding claims 400,000 lives each year on roads worldwide, accounting for 50% of traffic accidents in low-income countries and 30% in high-income countries. It is in this scenario that the application of technology becomes the key to reducing statistics.

The first speed cameras, used in the UK since 1964, became an efficient tool for calming traffic, combining a mechanism to accurately measure speed and a function that collects evidence of infringing vehicles, to change risky and completely preventable behavior.

It is this logic that was included in Project CATI, a motion that went to the National Congress for processing in 2014, with the aim of strengthening the control of the Traffic Act, in particular speeding, which is the leading cause of death on Chile’s roads. The idea is to build a system that supports exclusive monitoring of Carabineros in this aspect, knowing that currently this kind of monitoring method detects only 3 out of 10,000 violations for this reason.

This column does not intend to discuss the elements of process control, fines or the misguided logic of collecting old photoradars, which only raised arguments against and did not help process the CATI Project for almost 10 years. But it is important to clarify that the purpose of the funds raised by this Automated Center for Dealing with Offenses will, unlike the above, be divided into 85% for tax allowances and 15% for the Municipal Shared Fund.

After a long time, today we have almost finished this project. However, we need a cross commitment from our legislators to pass it. From civil society organizations we are convinced that working together for the purpose of saving lives, we will be able to achieve the proposed goals in road safety and achieve safe roads for people.