All the surveys on citizen security insist on crimes against property and against life as the main concerns of the population. However, these are not the criminal offenses that cause the majority of final convictions in Spain, that is, with sentences accepted by the perpetrators or ratified by a higher court. The first position corresponds to crimes behind the wheel.
This is clear from the data collected in the central registry of prisoners, the file that unifies the information on all the sentences handed down by Spanish courts and tribunals. The latest data is from 2019, when 282,210 adults were convicted. Almost 24% of the total went to trial for crimes against road safety. This trend is confirmed in the latest report from the State Attorney General’s Office.
According to the report from the public ministry, during 2022, 105,078 indictments for traffic offenses were filed. Almost all the requests were settled with firm convictions, 104,660. This is the highest volume of accusations and convictions since records were kept. The accusations surpassed the 2009 record (103,853) and the convictions, the psychological bar of the figure of 100,000.
The most frequent infraction (and most punished) is speeding, which can lead to three to six months in prison, a fine or work for the benefit of the community, in addition to the withdrawal of up to six points from the driver’s license or deprivation. of the permit from one to four years. The second most common infraction can be explained with a piece of information: alcohol and other drugs are behind one in three fatal accidents.
Among other punishments, up to six months in prison can be received by those who drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs (with an expired alcohol level equal to or greater than 0.60 mg/l: any other presence of narcotic substances in the body is grounds for sanction ). The next most repeated offenses are reckless driving, refusing a breathalyzer test, driving without a permit, and reckless driving.
Here the sanctions that these behaviors deserve are explained in a very graphic way, which dominate all the statistical summaries. The central registry of criminals received in 2021 the sentences related to more than 410,000 crimes: 97,431 were against road safety. The silver and bronze of this sad podium fell on injuries (70,678 cases) and thefts (57,535), a long way from crimes such as fraud, threats, robberies…
Another fact to reflect on: traffic offenders are aware of the crime and assume the consequences. 90% of the sentences are dictated by conformity: accuser and defendant reach an agreement. This has allowed the almost immediate execution of more than 66,000 driving license withdrawals, 76,000 fines and more than 25,000 sentences that imposed work for the benefit of the community.
If you drink, don’t drive, said a very famous slogan from the first Traffic awareness campaigns. If you drink, don’t drive because you’re also going to get caught, I could add. Three out of four legal proceedings for crimes against road safety, in which alcohol and drugs play a determining role, end in convictions. This represents a positive resolution rate of 76%.