The control over road safety is to be increased in the wake of two tragic accidents in Russia and Ukraine

18 July 2013

As reported by RIA Novosti, first deputy prime minister of Ukraine, Sergei Arbuzov, has said that control over road safety is to be increased in the wake of two tragic accidents in Russia and Ukraine.

Opening a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday, Mr Arbuzov said, “The two tragic bus accidents last week in Ukraine and Russia demand a more exacting approach to road safety in our country. I am instructing the Ministries for Internal Affairs and Infrastructure to increase control over road traffic and monitoring of compliance with traffic regulations and the rules on carrying passengers.”

The NGO Road Safety Russia supports Mr Arbuzov’s initiative and is calling for a concerted effort in the fight for safe roads. “We are willing to work together with our Ukrainian colleagues on road safety,” said Road Safety Russia’s general director, Vadim Melnikov. “Having run projects for many years now, we are seeing changes in society, and, consequently, on our roads too. Our observations are borne out by opinion polls: people have started using their seat belts more often, letting pedestrians cross, buying child car seats, and so on.”

However, Mr Melnikov stresses that despite the positive trends, a number of systemic problems remain to be tackled, and these were exposed once again by the crash in Podolsk. Without a systematic approach to resolving the infrastructure, legislative and law-enforcement aspects to road safety, it will be impossible to significantly reduce the number of road traffic deaths.

Just recently, Natalia Agre, the president of Road Safety Russia, said that rather than trying to resolve the problem with ill-considered initiatives, work on road safety should be conducted on an ongoing, systematic basis.

It will be recalled that on Saturday a lorry carrying gravel crashed into a commuter bus travelling from Podolsk in Moscow Region to Kurilovo. Sixty-four people were injured, among them four children. Eighteen people were killed, including a Ukrainian citizen. In Ukraine there have already been several large crashes involving buses this summer. 

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