“You don’t know who you warn.” With these words, the DGT warned of the danger of giving the alarm of a traffic control through our mobile phone. It is no accident that The article It will be published in November 2024.
The article clarifies the entire phenomenon seen with the one known as “Galician Method”. Last year, a person was denounced for alert 15,000 drivers through messages in a WhatsApp group of Civil Guard controls on the road. The problem is that There is no rule in the circulation code that prevents it.
In the last decade, drivers have been perfecting the notices. The DGT points out that in 2012 some applications were already alerted to radars or controls but that the first boom came in 2014 with SocialDrive and Waze. Users had, in real time, information about fixed radars (That the public DGT itself) but also of mobile phones and controls.
The second boom came with the Coronavirus pandemic. With the increase in road controls, users multiplied and since then many have climbed into a car from which they no longer get off. Who aspires to skip a Civil Guard control has the tools for it in Google Maps, Waze and even WhatsApp. And that is a real problem if we talk about alcohol and drug controls but also if, for a reason for general security, a device has been mounted to stop the suspect of a crime.
Trying to put containment barriers, the Citizen Security Law to try to stop those WhatsApp groups with thousands of users. It is something that the DGT itself recognizes that states that in article 36.23 it is expressly prohibited “the unauthorized use of personal or professional data or professionals of authorities or members of the security forces and bodies that may endanger personal security.”
However, they recognize that it is not enough and has been pressed to carry out a modification in the Traffic Law. At the moment, all that there is a proposal for the proposition of the Law born in the Commission on Road Safety of the Congress of Deputies at the proposal of the PSOE. It requested that the text reflect the obligation to “sanction those who provide information that hinders or prevents the control work of breaches of circulation standards”.
In France it already applies
This new wording would serve to end current doubts. The closest thing to receive a sanction for notifying the Civil Guard control is found in article 100 of the Civil Guard GENERAL CIRCULATION REGULATIONwhere the following is exposed:
The use of long -range or road light is prohibited as long as the vehicle is stopped or parked, as well as alternative employment, in the form of flashes of long -range or road light and light or crossing light, with purposes other than those provided in these regulations
The problem, obviously, is that this analog acting has been disused. This has led to the DGT has press and emphasize in the last five years that their intention is to chase those who use these applications to notify the controls.
In 2020, Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, already put the focus on applications during mobility week in A Coruña where he pointed out his will to “Prevent, hinder or limit” Applications like Waze.
The referent can have it in France. There, the famous traffic application cannot show mobile radars to users. It is an anomaly in Europe, as they collect in the Gauling country media. They point out that there the decree No. 2012-3 of January 3, 2012, which modified its circulation code more than a decade prohibits “Possession, transport and use of radar detectors”. However, this application extends to mobile applications, something that does not happen in Spain.
Here, The law was modified in 2022 To punish the single presence of a radar detector. Until then the use of radar inhibitors and detectors was punished. For three years, the single presence of these devices is also punished with Fines of 200 euros and three points of the driving card for detectors and six points and up to 6,000 euros in the case of inhibitors.
What the DGT wants to get is that the notices in mobile applications are also punished and the first step would be the modification in the traffic law that would allow copying the French model.
What applications like Waze do is alert “danger zones”. To skip the restriction, the application allows you to add this notice on road sections, never in a specific position. With this notice, the driver already knows that a mobile radar or traffic control will be found later but is not specified in any case to stick or where it is installed.
Photo | Waze on Instagram and Pricob ioan
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