The “Road Safety: Effective Steps to Zero Mortality” conference was held at the “Road 2022” fair forum, which will be held in Kazan from October 12 to 14. The head of the main road safety directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Police Lieutenant General Mikhail Chernikov, spoke at the event.
He recalled that in 2018, when the national project “Safe Quality Roads” and the Road Safety Strategy were adopted, the achievement of 4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants and the desire for “zero mortality” by 2030 were discussed. To achieve these goals, a wide variety of tools are already being used, and they have given a good result, but unfortunately all of them are already exhausted. Meanwhile, unresolved problems remain.
Mikhail Chernikov, Head of the Main Directorate for Road Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Lieutenant General of Police:
— The road network is the largest and most funded part of the entire national Safe Quality Roads project. In addition, 15% of the funding is specifically aimed at road safety. However, such work should be described in detail in the regulations: timely markings, lighting, layout of pedestrian crossings, sidewalks and power separation, which also entail additional lanes.
It is necessary to pool efforts and identify such elements of road safety.
Mikhail Chernikov believes that in any road project starting from 2023, all these elements should be clearly described and you should not accept any document where they are not given attention or they are “blurred”.
In addition, new projects must take into account the concept of ‘accident hotbed’. According to the State Traffic Inspectorate, in accident places alone, about 500 billion rubles is needed to reduce the number of accidents.
Speed limit and cameras everywhere
The head of the traffic inspectorate of the Russian state also reflected on the proposal to lower the speed limit:
– The country is huge, one and a half million kilometers of roads. We cannot allow a reduction in the speed limit, the National Traffic Inspectorate is categorically against that! We must speed up the roads.
after vnedIn 2021, the number of cameras in the Republic of Tatarstan fell slightly, since not all complexes were technically possible to connect to such a system. However, the region still leads the way in the number of cameras for photo and video recording of traffic violations. The widespread installation of cameras, of course, has a noticeable effect on accident reduction. However, this is a good experience, according to Mikhail Chernikov, “Penalty should not be at the heart of the work to improve road safety. Drivers need to change their mind. In other words, the emphasis should be on preventing offenses and promoting safe behavior on the road.
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Summarizing what has been said, the head of the traffic inspectorate of the Russian state suggested that the relevant departments work together to achieve good results in reducing accidents and deaths on the roads by 2030.
A picture: Depositphotos, Eric Romanenko/TASS photo agency