Carlos Barbosa was reacting to the figures of the latest report by the National Road Safety Authority reported by Público, indicating that there were 73 more fatalities, the highest since 2012.

The ACP President considers that the State is not investing in this area, using the auto insurance fund money for other purposes.

“With this money that doesn't belong to them, they end up buying radars, cars and radars when they should do more road safety campaigns” he said, considering that “the state is more concerned with fires today than with people killed on the roads.”

Approved about two years ago by the Government, the National Strategic Road Safety Plan (PENSE 2020) aims to reduce the number of fatalities by 56% and the serious injuries by 22% by 2020, compared to 2010 when 937 people died on the Portuguese roads and 2,475 were seriously injured.

According to the now released MRSR report, the number of road fatalities increased by 12% in 2018 and last year alone 675 people died within 30 days of the accident in which they were involved.

In July of this year, the MRSR had already published the report with the data on the victims at the scene of the accident reporting the death of 508 people, two fewer than in 2017.