“Promoting a Christian culture of the highway to prevent accidents”. That is the objective of the awareness-raising campaign “Drive!” ( Condùcete) called by the Spanish Episcopal Conference’s office for the pastoral ministry of the highways for this summer. A total of 4,026 people were killed in road accidents in Spain in 2002 alone. The bishop in charge of the apostolate of the roads, Msgr. Carmelo Echenagusía Uribe, auxiliary bishop of Bilbao, has appealed to people’s responsibility, recalling that anyone who drives a car or any other vehicle must first “know how to control himself, and be responsible”. The national Day of responsibility in traffic will be celebrated on 6 July. The campaign will run till September. In their message this year, the bishops point out the curious change of personality that comes over those who drive: “Persons who are kind, polite and educated in ordinary life, become nervous, intolerant or downright aggressive in word and gesture when they drive a car”. But, “the good driver, on the contrary, is the person who dominates the vehicle and does not let himself be dominated by it”, says Bishop Uribe. “Neither society nor the Church can remain indifferent to the tragedy of road accidents”, says the Spanish bishops in a message in which they express the wish that the roads be “places of personal encounter, meeting places for a new civilization”. The Spanish Catholic Church, in its message for the national Day, also expresses its gratitude to the professionals in the business, the drivers of buses, trucks and taxis. There are some 20 million people with driving licences in Spain, half of the population. It is calculated that 35 million people lost their lives on the roads, and 1,500 million others were injured in car accidents, in the course of the twentieth century.
