Staff Reporter
THE Guardia Civil have released a new reminder of how deadly hitting someone with a car can be at different speeds.
When driving at 30kmh (19mph) – the speed limit in residential areas – just 5% of impact victims die, and 30% walk away unhurt.
Whereas hitting someone at 40kmh (25mph) – the speed most people actually drive at – will kill almost half the time (45%), and only 4% get up unscathed.
And it’s not a linear scale. Knocking a pedestrian down while driving at 64kmh (40mph) is fatal 85% of the time.
Last year, 109 pedestrians were killed after being run over by cars.
In total 1,145 people died in 1,048 traffic accidents in Spain, while another 4,495 people were hospitalised with serious injuries.
On average, 3.1 people died every day on Spain’s roads, with the longest stretch of time without a death was 25 days in 2023. This was four more days than in 2022.
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