Los delitos de tránsito en Iberoamérica hacia una norma común y un sistema alternativo de pruebas de embriaguez
- Rodríguez León, Luis Carlos
- María Dolores Pérez Cárceles Director
- Julio Sigüenza López Director
Defence university: Universidad de Murcia
Fecha de defensa: 04 May 2023
- Jose de los Santos Martín Ostos Chair
- José Francisco Sánchez Lucerga Secretary
- Manuel López-Rivadulla Lamas Committee member
Type: Thesis
Abstract
The report of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) with regards to traffic accidents in 2016, being this one the last year with available data, exceeded 150,000 deaths, remaining practically stable at 15-16 per 100,000 inhabitants. Approximately double than Europe. The warnings and recommendations of the WHO, through the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020), motivated many countries in the area to enact or modify road safety regulations to alleviate those consequences. However, the evaluation of the development of the plan revealed the problem of irregular or ineffective compliance with the rules. Among other factors, the quality of the standard and the scarcity of means to enforce it stood out. This paper aims to respond to these deficiencies in two ways of action: One of a legal nature through the analysis of the regulations in force in the countries of the region under study, in three fundamental aspects such as the regulation of homicide and reckless injuries committed in the use of vehicles, alcohol and / or drug controls, because this is one of the causes with the highest prevalence in the origin of road accidents, and the third the analysis of the police organization in matters of traffic as an essential instrument for the control of the same. The result of the compilation of these data has served to elaborate a proposal for a common standard acceptable to the states of the area, included in this study: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The proposed rule contains criminal precepts, in that they describe conduct that directly threatens the life or physical integrity of people. In some cases, taking into account the harmful result caused, in others describing risky behaviors, following the most modern theses in international criminal law, which involve advancing the barriers of protection through the prosecution of dangerous attitudes in the use of vehicles, as the most effective method to reduce the accident rate that bases the principles of the Decade of Action agreed within the WHO. But, as is well stated in the aforementioned report, the issue is not only the existence of regulatory standards, but to remove the obstacles for their effective application, which is why procedural rules are included in this work regarding the tests to be carried out, and police organization and training. The other way of action is of a technical nature. Taking into account the limited resources imposed by the economic situation of some countries in the area, which requires priority to be given to investments, for obvious reasons of meeting the most basic needs of certain sectors of the population, as well as the high cost of creating the elementary structures of developing countries, it is necessary to offer alternatives for the solution of the problems generated by traffic, minimizing costs in order not to postpone the safety of citizens in their displacements for economic reasons. A second proposal of this work is the development of an alternative system of alcohol and/or drug testing when the appropriate technical devices are lacking. The test, which is based on the observation and assessment of the external signs of a driver affected by toxics, must suppress the subjective assessments of the police officers in charge of surveillance, for which they will need adequate and specific prior training. And a reinforcement of the guarantees by requirement of the principle of legal certainty, making a correct use of the new technologies. The legislation used in this work is the one in force on September 1, 2021.