145 Road Deaths in 14 Weeks: Portugal to Reactivate GNR Traffic Brigade Nearly Two Decades After It Was Scrapped

Portugal will reactivate the GNR's Brigada de Trânsito (Traffic Brigade), a specialised road-policing unit that was dismantled in 2007 under the Sócrates government and whose absence the Ministry of Internal Administration now explicitly blames for a surge in fatal accidents on the country's roads.

The announcement came on 15 April from the Minister of Internal Administration, Luís Neves, alongside the newly appointed president of the Autoridade Nacional de Segurança Rodoviária (ANSR), Pedro Clemente. It is paired with a new Highway Code, tougher enforcement rules and a sharp change in tone from a government that has watched road-death numbers climb for more than three months.

The numbers behind the U-turn

From 1 January to 14 April 2026, 145 people died on Portuguese roads — 42 more than in the same period of 2025, an increase of roughly 40 per cent. The Easter operation alone accounted for 20 of those deaths. 'It is as if a small village in our Portugal had disappeared in a matter of months,' Neves told reporters, describing the trajectory as incompatible with Portugal's commitments under Europe's Vision Zero targets.

The ANSR's most recent 'black spots' map, drawn from 2023 data, identifies 40 stretches of road where accidents cluster repeatedly. The A5 between Lisbon and Cascais tops the list with five black spots, followed by the IC17 (Lisbon's CRIL ring road) and the IC20 to Costa da Caparica with four each. The A20 around Porto, the EN206 between Famalicão and Guimarães, the IC19 Lisbon–Sintra and the IP7 entering Lisbon each carry three.

Why the Traffic Brigade was lost

The Brigada de Trânsito was dissolved at the start of 2009 as part of the 2007 GNR reform, its 2,000-plus officers redistributed into a new Unidade Nacional de Trânsito (UNT) and the territorial commands. In theory, road enforcement simply moved elsewhere in the structure. In practice, specialised traffic officers were gradually redeployed to general patrol work; the GNR's traffic-dedicated headcount has fallen by around 43 per cent since 2009, according to internal figures reported by Público and RTP.

Neves framed the decision as a course correction: 'The essence of continuous and specialised road supervision was lost when the brigade was disbanded.' The intention is to rebuild a standalone command with its own recruitment, training pipeline and career progression.

What else is changing

Alongside the brigade's return, the government unveiled several concrete enforcement shifts. STOP operations will no longer be announced in advance — a practice which critics argued effectively warned high-risk drivers away from checkpoints. More average-speed radars of the type installed on the A1 between Santarém and Cartaxo will be rolled out on other motorways, measuring speed over a distance rather than at a single point.

A new Código da Estrada (Highway Code) is being drafted, with heavier penalties for pedestrian-crossing violations and urban speeding. Fines and contraordenações will also be digitalised end-to-end, in an attempt to close an administrative loophole which has seen thousands of fines prescribed by sheer delay over the past few years.

What it means for drivers in Portugal

For residents who use the A5, IC17, IC19 or the IP7 every day, the near-term change will be visible: more marked GNR vehicles on known black-spot sections, more average-speed cameras, and STOP operations that can appear anywhere without public notice. For the government, the political bet is that the surge in road deaths in the first four months of 2026 is severe enough to make reversing an almost twenty-year-old reform politically survivable.

Sources: ECO; Público; Correio da Manhã; ANSR; RTP Notícias.