What will Malaga do with 22 so-called educational radars and 22 pedestrian crossings with lights that will be installed on the streets?

In some world capitals such as London or Berlin, it is common to see pedestrian crossings light up at night ... and even when visibility conditions, due to weather, prevent both pedestrians and vehicles from seeing the ground paint or the vertical sign indicating a pedestrian crossing from a certain distance. Malaga is gradually adopting this system, which is more common in northern cities where there are not as many sunny days, and visibility is often poor, but it represents an advancement in traffic signals that serve the citizenry. The Mobility Councilor, Trinidad Hernández, presented these intelligent traffic lights and the educational radars that will soon be launched in the city, in a press conference alongside the popular spokesperson, Elisa Pérez de Siles.

Specifically, the local government board has approved the contract for the maintenance, renewal, and modification service, supply, and new traffic and signaling installations in the city, which has been awarded to the company PROSEÑAL for a term of four years (with an additional year extendable). This company has included the installation and maintenance of 22 so-called educational radars. What exactly does this mean? According to the Mobility Councilor, Trinidad Hernández, they will serve to alert drivers at what speed they are traveling through the streets of Malaga, reminding them that the maximum speed on all roads is 30 km/h and on two-lane roads is 50 km/h.

But, the big question is: Will they issue fines? The Mobility Councilor indicates that, indeed, they are educational because they do not fine, but they help drivers be aware of their speed and what the maximum allowed speed on that road is. The 22 educational radars will be distributed across the 11 districts of the city, with two of them going to each district, and will be installed at those black spots where speeding by drivers has already been detected.

In Spain, 1,047 deaths have been recorded between 2014 and 2023 due to pedestrian crossing accidents, according to the DGT

Regarding the 22 luminous pedestrian crossings with pedestrian detection, an improvement that already exists in major European capitals, Hernández indicated that they would also be distributed equally across the city districts, with two of them going to each district, and will be installed in areas where there is already low visibility.

The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) is particularly concerned with pedestrian crossing accidents in Spain. According to figures from the National Road Safety Observatory (ONSV) of the DGT, there have been 1,047 deaths between 2014 and 2023, and 8,353 people seriously injured, many with lifelong consequences.

The vast majority of pedestrian crossing fatalities (87%) occur on urban roads, and notably, in 86.9% of the accidents with fatalities at these crossings, the pedestrian was not committing any infraction but was crossing correctly.

According to DGT data, the concurrent factors are speeding, along with distractions (in one fifth of urban accidents and almost half of interurban ones). The data also show that older people over 65 years (7 out of 10 fatalities at pedestrian crossings) are the most affected.

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The conflict continues. 46 days of strike by FCC and Aqualia employees

The employees of the Emasa contractor, FCC and Aqualia, have already been on strike for 46 uninterrupted days, and many days under the sun at the doors of the Malaga City Hall calling for a resolution to this crisis and an improvement in their working conditions.

They have ceased to be the soundtrack of municipal mornings because they have been urged not to make noise, so that this Tuesday, through the registry of the Malaga City Hall, they urgently requested the noise dispensation to be able to carry out their right to a "peaceful protest" that they perform at this location. On this day, they also received props from the Malaga Carnival and displayed two dolls with the face of the mayor of Malaga, Paco de la Torre. The flesh and blood one greeted them as he does every morning when passing by.

This Wednesday will only leave one day for the hunger strike they announced for this Thursday. These two days they have had meetings with company members, and everything seems to indicate that positions could be nearing alignment, and as they have stated, "the company is again asking for time to study the flexible proposals delivered by the CGT workers," as they explain.

In a press release, they complain that they are "exploited and precarized in their employment" while showing their frustration at seeing that despite a month and a half of strike, Emasa seems not yet to have sanctioned the concessionary company of part of the sanitation in the city despite the fact that the Councilor for the Environment, Penélope Gómez, indicated in the full commission of the Environment that an infraction file had been opened to the mentioned UTE for not meeting the minimum services.