The Traffic Police issued a total of 7,371 tickets and responded to 1,523 traffic accidents between March 29 and April 5 during Holy Week, according to an April 6 announcement.
The increased enforcement took place over eight days as part of special operations related to the holiday break. Authorities said that on average, one driver was sanctioned every minute and a half.
Of the tickets issued, 474 were for speeding violations. Speeding remains a particular concern for the Traffic Police because it is the leading cause of road deaths this year and has been since 2022. Martín Sánchez Agüero, director of the Traffic Police, said: “Previo a Semana Santa insistimos mucho en bajar las revoluciones, literal y metafóricamente, de tal manera que pasaran de las prisas del día a día laboral a tomar las cosas con calma en sus paseos, pero, lamentablemente, algunas personas insisten en querer llegar a abrir los restaurantes o creen que la playa dejará de estar en su lugar si se desplazan a una velocidad prudente.”
Sánchez also addressed cases involving alcohol consumption among drivers. He noted there were 69 positive cases—29 resulting in fines and another 40 referred to the Prosecutor’s Office—representing less than seven percent of the total 1,040 tests administered. “Eso sí, aunque el funcionario lamentó los 69 casos positivos de alcohol al volante (29 vía multa y 40 presentados a la Fiscalía), porque siempre será reprochable, representaron menos del 7% del total de 1040 pruebas realizadas,” Sánchez said. He added that this figure is lower than recent annual averages of between fifteen and eighteen percent.
In addition to issuing citations and conducting alcohol checks during their preventive operations, officers also attended accident scenes at an average rate of eight per hour or roughly one every seven-and-a-half minutes.
Other enforcement actions included removing license plates from more than one thousand vehicles (1,114), confiscating two hundred five motorcycles as well as twenty-three other types of vehicles due to various violations.
