NT/YR/N.Ch. / gg | Tenerife has chilling data regarding the number of registered vehicles, given that there is already almost one for every inhabitant of the Island. those who live daily Northern highway (TF-5), the main tourist areas of the South or the metropolitan area at peak times. However, the abundant vehicle fleet also generates another inconvenience: vehicles that are abandoned to their fate by their owners. This is an old problem that affects the Island and that has grown in crescendo, especially as a result of the pandemic and confinement, where this phenomenon has increased notably.
NOTICE DIARY has wanted to scrutinize this situation in the most populated municipalities of the Island (those with more than 20,000 inhabitants), where until last November the existence of more than 2,200 abandoned vehicles in public spaces has been verified, according to the addition of the figures provided by the councils themselves, and what this implies for the urban and peri-urban landscape: dirt, junk, sources of unsanitary conditions, and also insecurity. The consistories emphasize that the legal procedure to get rid of a vehicle is free: for this purpose, ownership is transferred to the city council, via communication prior to the Local police. The problem lies when the owner of the car does not appear or cannot be located. Here the ordinances that regulate this section enter the scene, with the opening of a file that establishes a legal term to remove it, declaring it urban solid waste and then sending it to an authorized treatment center for its destruction, a protocol that all institutions apply. municipal.
they ask for MORE CAMPAIGNS
Although the occasional city council has carried out various information campaigns, environmental organizations such as the Telesforo Bravo-Juan Coello Foundation believe that more should be done on a continuous basis, as well as impose more sanctions – proportional to the damage caused to the environment environment-, and an agile coordination of the public administrations to face the problem.
The south of Tenerife is one of the places where the problem of abandoning vehicles is most evident. Among the affected areas, the Las Chafiras industrial estate in San Miguel de Abona stands out, where there are more than 200 abandoned cars, according to data from the Local Police. Another fifty units wait to be withdrawn in the surroundings of Guargacho, a few kilometers from there. “We have detected that in the places close to the repair shops the problem is getting worse, more and more cases are being seen, perhaps because they cannot pay for the repairs,” adds Antonio Manuel Rodríguez, councilor for Traffic in San Miguel de Abona, who does not explains how so many citizens resort to this “bad habit”, when “the solution is as simple as going to the Local Police and filling out a form authorizing the removal of the vehicle, at no cost”.
Arona has come to accommodate more than 400 useless cars withdrawn from the streets in its municipal deposit. Now, the figure is around 200. When a vehicle with obvious signs of abandonment is detected, such as tires on the ground, broken glass or the ITV expired a long time ago, it is taken to the deposit and the mandatory file is started, they remark from the Consistory.
The Granadilla de Abona City Council launched a campaign to remove abandoned vehicles on August 1, the third, after getting rid of “hundreds” in the previous two. So far this year, more than 200 abandoned cars have been registered. The mayor of Security, María Candelaria Rodríguez, insists on asking for citizen collaboration to communicate the cases. In Güímar, the number of abandoned cars registered by the Local Police reaches 81, without ITV, parked longer than due and in a state of deterioration, while in Candelaria, until last November, there were 20 files open and six were in process, once the established deadlines have expired as they have not been withdrawn by their owners. Since 2020, 20 vehicles have been removed from public roads by this procedure.
Adeje has evacuated 33 cars from January to November and there are currently open files to remove another 34. For its part, in Guía de Isora, from January to October, the number of vehicle withdrawals has increased, with 39 cars, when In all of 2021 the total number was 26. “When a car is on the road for a long time without changing location, due to a breakdown, etc., the warning system is established through stickers so that they are removed immediately, if not , it acts according to the municipal ordinance ”, they emphasize from the Consistory.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife removes an average of 100 abandoned vehicles a year, but opens a thousand files for it. This means that only 10% of all the cases filed are closed with the removal of the vehicle, which becomes abandoned.
In La Laguna, for example, from August to November more than 40 vehicles have been removed from public roads, mainly in the La Cuesta-Taco area. In the Northern region, the figures also suggest that the problem is cumbersome. Puerto de la Cruz is the municipality with the highest number of abandoned vehicles, reaching 108 as of November, for which an investigation has been opened by the Local Police unit dedicated to it and created in January of this year. . Of this total, 59 have continued their corresponding file as their owner cannot be found.
From the City Council of La Orotava, through the Security Area, work is done “forcefully” against those who leave their vehicle abandoned on the roads of the municipality, due to the environmental and landscape impact they cause. Until last month they had 61 cars, a much lower number than the previous year, in which 198 abandoned vehicles were intervened in the streets of the Villa. However, from the Local Police they point out that many of them do not have ownership in La Orotava, being from other municipalities, islands, even the Peninsula, and the odd European country.
Los Realejos is the municipality that has verified the fewest abandoned cars of those consulted in this region, controlling a total of 27 until November (14 of them have already been withdrawn, and the rest are processing their file), followed by Icod de los Wines, with 55 vehicles removed from the streets of Ciudad del Drago and taken to scrapping, an amount barely higher than that of 2021, the year in which 49 cars were registered, compared to 61 in 2020.
Starting the procedure to remove an abandoned car is “too burdensome”, in the opinion of the mayor of Tacoronte, José Daniel Díaz, and for this reason, he remembers, authorization is requested from the owner to be able to remove the vehicle, process the deregistration and take it to the scrapyard For this reason, almost all the Local Police forces have agents assigned to locate the owners. Díaz assures that since the pandemic there has been an increase in abandoned cars, especially from families with limited economic resources, who could not even pass the ITV. Thus, the figure until November amounts to 97 abandoned cars on the streets. In this locality, vehicle collection is carried out through the Commonwealth of the Northeast.
THE WITHDRAWAL PROCESS
But how do the municipalities, the public administration empowered for this purpose, act when they come across this situation? If the person who owns the vehicle does not notify the town hall where it is registered that they want to remove it, thereby facilitating the work, the path is marked by the corresponding municipal ordinance, which regulates the fee for vehicle removal services. In this case, the procedure begins with the initiation of a file.
As Israel Galán, one of the three local police officers who make up the Santa Cruz Abandoned Vehicles Group (Gruva), explains, “the administrative process to close a file of this type is very complicated.” The first thing agents need to make sure is that it is an abandoned car. The way to make sure is by carrying out inspections, which they carry out in plain clothes. “It is much easier to do the job without interference from third parties when they see us in uniform next to a car” explains Galán. “The notices reach us either by colleagues who see a vehicle that has been on public roads for a long time, or through a citizen who alerts us. After that first notice, we go to the place and, if we have the license plate, we get the traffic information ”, he adds.
There are signs that indicate that a car may be abandoned and that are checked by agents, such as “if the brake discs are rusty; This implies that it has not circulated in a long time, or the lack of pressure in the tires, the rubbish accumulated around it or the general dirt, ”says the Gruva agent. After these checks, the file for the removal of the car begins, which, Galán recalls, “is still private property.” “So we have to make sure that all the necessary steps are taken to ensure that everything is done in accordance with the legal framework.”
Under normal conditions, it takes four to six months to complete the file. A procedure that begins by placing a red sticker, “which, in addition to attracting the owner’s attention, reflects that an abandonment file has been initiated, in which a telephone number appears in case he wants to give an explanation.” Thus, each step that is taken is documented and accredited with a photographic report. “After 10 days -continues Galán-, if it continues in the same place, it is denounced for infringement of an article of the ordinance. After a month, a green sticker is placed to indicate that the file is in the process of being notified, which means sending it to the tax address that appears in the traffic documentation. With this sticker a photo report is made again. And if that notification by mail is not possible on two occasions, the next step is to publish in the BOE, a communication that is considered effective after a month.
A month later, another photographic report is made to verify that it is still in the same place, and then a decree is requested to be able to remove it, something that the municipal towing service takes care of, which leads it to be compacted and recycled, to finally , deregister the vehicle. But, if in all this procedure, the owner moves the car by even two meters, “the file is closed and we have to start over,” he clarifies. In the period of confinement, Galán recalls, they encountered unusual situations: “People who were teleworking and did not move the car, also, many times, the owner had died, for example, and the car never moved again ”. Precisely, one of the most complicated situations is hereditary issues. “As long as there is no acceptance, there is no distribution, the car remains on the street, it can end up being vandalized…”. Another formula that they often use is that of immediate assignment. “If we manage to locate the owners, we inform them that they can transfer ownership to the City Council and then we do not have to exhaust the entire file, since as the Consistory is the owner, we already withdraw it directly,” concludes Galán.
From the Local Police it is clarified that burned cars are considered waste, so such management does not correspond to them.
