Controversy over DGT campaign: Peatones Mallorca criticizes that it blames victims

PalmThe General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) campaign for Easter Week, under the slogan 'You look at your phone so you don't miss anything and end up missing everything', has generated controversy among active mobility groups. The association Vianants Mallorca has joined the petition of the Iberian Coordinator of Pedestrian Associations, which demands the immediate withdrawal or rectification of the promotional video, which depicts a hit-and-run at a pedestrian crossing and which they consider "blames the victims".

According to the Coordinator Andando, which brings together 21 entities in Spain and Portugal, the video's narrative shifts responsibility to the person crossing the street and invisibilizes the determining role of the driver. “This approach aligns with a worrying institutional drift in which pedestrian accidents are attributed to distraction or mobile phone use, without addressing the structural causes that truly provoke them,” they state.

The groups urge the DGT to abandon the discourse that blames victims of "road violence" and to focus campaigns on the differential responsibility for risk, emphasizing motorized vehicles and reinforcing effective respect for pedestrian priority, especially at pedestrian crossings. They also call for the incorporation of the principles of Vision Zero and Safe System in all communication policies and the formal participation of active mobility associations in the Superior Council of Traffic.

For the Coordinator, holding pedestrians responsible for hit-and-runs, even in areas where they have priority, “is incompatible with the basic principles of contemporary road safety”. “This is not an isolated incident; pedestrians are tired of this dynamic in which responsibilities are reversed,” they state, insisting that who really generates the risk is ignored.