“It is one of the priorities that Portugal has to assume”, the director general of Road Prevention, Alain Areal, told Lusa agency, expressing concern about the reality demonstrated in the 2022 National Internal Security Report (RASI): “This is scary”.

The report highlights an increase in drug driving (+48%) and driving under the influence of alcohol (+43.4%).

According to the head of Road Prevention, issues of road accidents must be seen in the light of the new rules adopted by companies, which removed traffic from the roads, not only in the pandemic years, but also with the maintenance of teleworking, even if in just a few days of the week, which may “have some impact on the loss ratio”.

“I think we need another two years to see if the numbers confirm a trend”, he said when commenting on the document, according to which in comparison with 2019 the results are “manifestly positive”, with a decrease in the number of accidents (-8.3 %).

In relation to 2021, last year there was a generalized increase in all parameters: 130,120 accidents (+12.9%), which resulted in 474 fatalities (+18.2%), 2,429 seriously injured (+5, 7%) and 40,110 lightly injured (+11.8%).