The criminal law of risk. Notes on its application in the field of road safety

Abstract

The subjective right to drive safety emerged strongly throughout the twentieth century within the framework of the socalled risk society, characterized by the impulse of technological development and the appearance of new social uses, with an increase in traffic on Spanish roads and the consequent increase in road accidents. And this new social reality will promote a modernization of current criminal law in order to adapt it to the new social demands for greater control of these dangerous activities, to the creation of new supra-individual legal assets and to the legislative technique of dangerous crimes. However, this extension of the criminal law cannot suppose an infringement of the principles that limit the ius puniendi of the State, nor can it admit the inclusion of any conduct as deserving of criminal liability, being able to find currently some types included in the Penal Code that can hardly be justified as offences against road safety.