New Canary Islands rules face questions over enforcement

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New traffic regulations are in force in Tenerife, designed to better protect pedestrians and cyclists.
Our reader reporter doubts that anyone is monitoring the minimum distances or the behaviour of cyclists and scooter riders.
She also criticises the fact that untreated sewage is flowing into the sea, putting tourists at risk of diseases such as salmonella or hepatitis.

By Marlis Zoschke

New rules are back in force on Tenerife. But are they actually being followed? When I read that pedestrians and cyclists are supposed to be better protected when vehicles overtake them and that the prescribed minimum distances must be observed, I had to laugh.

Who is keeping an eye on reckless cyclists and speeding motorists? Even now, the minimum distances are rarely observed, even though this can sometimes be difficult.

The danger posed by sewage in the sea off the Canary Islands

Cyclists will probably continue to do no more than ring their bells to warn pedestrians to move aside. E-scooters will continue to speed along pavements and roads, or travel on pavements against the flow of traffic. The one-year transition period is a joke.

Or has it now been possible to remove the floating faecal matter from the streets and put a stop to the scandalous, unauthorised sewage discharges? It is a disgrace that untreated sewage is allowed to enter the sea. Changes have been announced for years, yet nothing has happened.

Rather, Mount Teide is showing its unpleasant side before anything happens with the wastewater. The numerous and increasingly frequent earthquakes are certainly a cause for concern.

However, tourists should also be mindful of their own health if they rely on the blue flags on the beach every day. Contact with water contaminated with faecal matter leads to many cases of illness each year, including salmonella, typhoid, cholera and hepatitis. Salmonella poisoning is a notifiable disease in Germany; it is highly contagious.

But people in the Canary Islands may not have heard about it yet. Or perhaps they don’t take it seriously. In any case, bad news doesn’t go down particularly well at Canary Islands Tourism.