Dr. Francisco Alonso, Director of INTRAS, has been interviewed by Cadena Cope about road responsibility, accident rate and the use of personal mobility vehicles (PMV), for its program "La Tarde COPE" on November 5, 2021.

On January 2, 2021, the Council of Ministers approved the modification of the General Vehicle Regulation and the General Traffic Regulation that obliges PMVs to comply with a series of general rules that are regulated differently by each City Council in which the established speed, the use of helmets or the minimum age to be able to drive them varies.

According to Dr. Alonso, there is a serious problem both because of the proliferation of these vehicles and because the regulation through municipal ordinances is different. It makes sense, to a certain degree, because not all cities have the same infrastructures, but other variants such as age or helmet use should be regulated at a state level. An effort should be made by the municipalities to try to homogenize these regulations beyond the differences in infrastructure and other variables.

As for the most common reasons for accidents, Dr. Alonso points out that accidents caused by PMVs are due to distractions, failure to respect traffic lights or inappropriate speed on roads that are shared by other types of users. In the case of accidents in front of other heavier vehicles, they are usually related to intersections as they may not be visible to this other type of vehicles.

In another order of things, the Director of INTRAS advises the owners of a PMV to take out liability insurance because, the fact that it is not compulsory at the moment, does not exempt from liability for an incident caused by this vehicle and the user will have to comply with his own assets.

Above all, the importance of training and information for the users of this type of vehicle, which has proliferated so much and which during the Covid pandemic reached almost one and a half million Spaniards who used this means of transport, has been emphasized.