In Campo Grande, the two associations created a "human walkway", with people under white sheets, in memory of the lives that are unjustly lost every year on Portuguese roads.
"There is no sustainable mobility without road safety, nor road safety without sustainable mobility." It was with this motto that, this Saturday morning, the associations MUBi and Estrada Viva disrupted traffic in Campo Grande and created, for a few minutes, a memorial to the human lives that are unjustly lost every year.
O memorial consisted of a "human walkway": several volunteers lay down on the tarmac, spaced apart and covered in white sheets, simulating the zebra of a walkway. The action lasted around five minutes and involved the Public Security Police (PSP), who stopped the traffic. The associations took photographs and videos and later shared the moment on their social networks.
"The figures are dramatic: road accidents cause around 600 fatalities in Portugal every year"the two associations wrote in a joint statement sent to the media. "In the last decade, an average of 40 children have died every year. Faced with this calamity, which is there for all to see, but which Portuguese society continues to ignore or accept as natural, it is imperative not only to draw attention to the problem, but also to call for concrete measures to put an end to road accidents and the tragic loss of human lives. Dying on the road is anything but natural.”
The crosswalk chosen to commemorate the victims of road accidents was no coincidence: it was the same one where, in 2020, a 16-year-old girl died hit by a driver who didn't respect a red light. At the time, several hundred people took to the streets calling for a calmer city and, in particular, calming measures in that area, but Lisbon City Council, then led by Fernando Medina, did nothing about it.
"Cities that continue to favor and encourage car use, that allow ever larger and more powerful cars to circulate, that maintain roads that encourage murderous speeds and that do not systematically combat speeding with traffic calming measures, cannot ignore the victims and shirk their responsibility"add the two associations. "When society is calling for environmental sustainability and the humanization of cities, the car continues to be king and master and to kill those who, out of necessity or choice, use more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable modes of travel."
The memorial held on Saturday in Lisbon was held to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road VictimsThe event is held every year on the third Sunday in November, which this year fell on the 19th. On the 19th, two similar actions took place in Porto and Matosinhos, on crosswalks near the town halls of both cities.
