Edition 289
www.thecourier.es
Friday 16th September 2016
JAIL FREE YEAR
BY ALEX TRELINSKI
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licante Province has one of the worst records in Spain for drink and drugaffected drivers according to figures published this week in the Attorney General's annual report for 2016. Despite in some cases drivers being massively over the limit, and other motoring offences
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being committed that posed a danger to life, not one driver in the region was put behind bars last year. There were 3,042 cases of drivers in 2015 being pulled over and found to be over the prescribed level of alcohol or drugs in their blood, which is a significant rise for the area in recent
years. There is no indication whether this is down to greater vigilance from the Guardia Civil and Local Police, or whether more motorists are trying to take more risks by driving when they shouldn't. The figures put Alicante Province fourth in the country, behind Madrid,
Barcelona, and Valencia, all of whom have greater population densities. In last year's three thousand local cases, none of those eventually convicted ended up with a prison term, with the law saying that a jail sentence should only be handed out in "exceptional cases". Instead, penalties of six points docked on a license were given out, plus fines and community service orders ranging between one and two months. In addition, authorities stopped 1,179 people who were driving without a license, plus 133 motorists were prosecuted for reckless driving and three for driving with a "disregard" for life. As in the drink/drug driving cases, nobody was jailed either, with perhaps authorities having half an eye on the overcrowded state of local prisons.
FLYING HIGH
licante-Elche airport passenger numbers are continuing to set records month by month with the August figures showing a 14.8 percent rise on travellers compared to a year ago. Close to one and a half million passengers used the facility at El Altet last month, an August best, with eight point four million people using the airport so far this year, a hike of 16 percent on 2015, which in turn was a record-breaking year. The highest number of
users last month at AlicanteElche airport were from the United Kingdom at 621 thousand, accounting for 45 percent of all journeys, followed by internal domestic travellers at 136 thousand, followed by Germany on 103 thousand, and the Netherlands on 82 thousand. As in previous months, airport owner AENA puts down the rises to tourists shunning trouble spots like Turkey and Tunisia, and that the rises will continue with more new services being
scheduled outside the traditional summer season. The returns from AlicanteElche are in sharp contrast to figures for San Javier airport where August’s figures showed a seven point two
percent drop in passenger numbers compared to a year earlier with carriers opting for Alicante-Elche fuelled by the uncertainty of the impending and muchdelayed move to Corvera.
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