Road safety experts in “What hides behind a road accident” by Fraternidad-Muprespa
Fraternidad-Muprespa this year, in its V Workplace Road Safety Week, it focuses on the reality experienced after a traffic accident. For this reason, the conference held this Monday the 14th brought together five speakers who, from their professional and experiential background, conveyed the message of what lies behind an accident.
Mar Morales, director of the Department of Prevention and Development of Health Culture of Fraternidad-Muprespa, was in charge of opening the day focused on the analysis of the consequences, causes and key points for better workplace road safety. Morales explained that “a good driver is only someone who maintains collaborative driving with the rest of the users and takes into account situations of vulnerability.”
Morales gave way to Álvaro Gómez, director of the National Road Safety Observatory of the General Directorate of Traffic, who stated that in 2021 1,533 people died and almost 7,800 ended up hospitalized due to traffic accidents. Gómez highlighted that so far in 2022, mortality in road accidents has increased by 4%, something that requires “a wake-up call.” Finally, he also pointed out alcohol and speed as two of the most present causes of accidents, together with new forms of mobility “that together, including companies, we must make safer and more sustainable”
David Revillo, prevention consultant at Fraternidad-Muprespa, gave way to the collaborators who participated in the day. Eduardo Llano, trainer at AESLEME and president of ASPAYM Asturias, detailed how his life changed as a result of a motorcycle accident when he was 19 years old and working delivering pizzas,___how we should keep in mind that it is something that can happen to anyone, hence “the importance of adopting safe behavior patterns for everyone”.
The keys to rehabilitation after a serious accident focused the intervention of Joan Vidal Samsó doctor specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Guttmann Institute of Neurorehabilitation. Samsó stressed the importance of prevention to avoid accidents whose rehabilitation takes a very long time, sometimes, for life. He also stated that along with the purely medical aspect after an accident, the psychological and economic aspects must also be taken care of. “These patients are going to need very expensive specialized treatments, hence the importance of prevention.”
María Collado, psychologist specializing in road safety and professor of the Master in Road Crime at UDIMA, discussed the mental health of victims of an accident, both direct and indirect: depression, anxiety, anguish, fear, insomnia or memory lapses, among others. He also stressed that behind road accidents there are psychosocial factors since "an altered state of mind alters our driving."
Miryam Moya, university professor and forensic expert in the reconstruction of traffic accidents, explained that judicial experts and forensic experts already act as 'preventionists' that sharing the conclusions they obtain “helps prove that things are not always what they seem.90% is attributed to the human factor but there is always a multicausality to study.”
The last speaker was María Seguí, Road Safety consultant in entities such as the WHO, the World Bank or the FIA. The former director of the DGT stated that the global accident data “are overwhelming.” “In 2021 there were 1.35 million fatalities from road accidents around the world. If road accidents have been the leading cause of death worldwide for decades, that means that in the last 20 years there have been more than 20 million deaths." He recalled that up to the age of 35, the main cause of death is traffic accidents.
Natalia Fdez. by Fraternidad-Muprespa, was in charge of closing the day, summarizing in headlines the most important contribution of each participant, adding that the work can never be the end of the journey with a result of death or disability.
This is the V Work Road Safety Week of Fraternidad-Muprespa
This is an event organized by the Mutual Collaborator with Social Security with the aim of raising awareness among mutual companies in order to reduce the accident rate work roads. Along with this virtual event, other in-person events are taking place, such as those held in A Coruña and Zaragoza, which will be followed by two more in Oviedo and Murcia. On Friday the 18th Bartolomé Vargas, who was the first chief prosecutor of Road Safety of the State Attorney General's Office, is the guest on Fratertalks. Likewise,
