The death of a tow-truck operator last Friday in Alhaurín de la Torre (Málaga) has spurred the Roadside Assistance Companies Network (REAC) to take this initiative.
No more deaths of professionals on the road. That, in short, is what the #NIUNOMÁS! (“Not one more!”) campaign means. It will be the basis of a future platform and was launched this week by the Roadside Assistance Companies Network (REAC), in response to the successive deaths of roadside assistance professionals in the line of duty. The latest was a tow-truck operator working on the A-7 last Friday, 19 November. The 38-year-old worker was reportedly hit by a lorry while attending to a vehicle on the road, reported the newspaper Málaga Hoy.
“At REAC we deeply regret the fatal accident that has caused the death of a roadside assistance operator while carrying out roadside assistance and rescue duties. We stand in solidarity with the family of our colleague and join the call from all stakeholders in our sector to demand road safety improvements for our professionals.” This is one of the messages the organisation has published on its social media profiles.
Black solidarity ribbons on tow trucks
REAC members were quick to place a black ribbon as a symbol of mourning on the vehicles in their fleets to draw attention to accidents involving professionals working on Spanish roads. The message they are sending in this respect is clear: “We call for road safety for the roadside assistance sector. For our colleagues, not one more!”.
Photographs of tow trucks with black ribbons have spread across social media (Facebook, Instagram) as well as along the roads of the whole country -REAC has more than 70 members across Spain-, to raise awareness not only among the Authorities but also among society itself of the seriousness of deaths that clearly could have been avoided.
Avoidable road accidents
The Roadside Assistance Companies Network (REAC) thereby aims to raise the alarm about the deaths that regularly occur among road workers. In the case of roadside assistance operators, within the sector, the number of deaths is shamefully high. In early November, REAC’s own website warned of accidents in roadside assistance, with disturbing figures:
- Between 2013 and 2014, at least 20 tow-truck operators lost their lives at work, according to the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT).
- 20% of deaths on motorways and dual carriageways (303 in 2018 alone) were caused by people being hit, “people who got out of the vehicle or who were working” (in the words of the director of the DGT, Pere Navarro).
- The National Road Safety Observatory’s figures on accidents related to assistance activity -following the prior immobilisation of a vehicle due to an accident or breakdown- for 2015 to 2016 are terrible: 50 deaths, 113 people injured and hospitalised and 768 injured but not hospitalised.