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    News    14 November 2016, 17:41
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Road Safety Week has started in Ukraine, - Volodymyr Omelyan

14 November 2016, 17:41

Today, on 14 November 2016, the Road Safety Week has started. Volodymyr Omelyan, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine said during the press-conference at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine. Konstantin Bushuev, a Deputy Chairman of  National Police of Ukraine, Eric Hoyrup, Head of EIB Technical Assistance "Modernization and Safety Improvements of the Road Network in Ukraine” and Barbara Krol, a key expert, among others, attended the briefing.

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine noted that the Road Safety Week has begun with a meeting of the interagency working group, co-chaired by V.Omelyan and I.Didenko, an Ukranian MP. "It was a proposal of the Prime Minister and we have supported it. The meeting was attended by representatives of all Ukrainian ministries and departments that have been involved in this area.  We agreed that during this week we will prepare proposals on how to reduce road traffic death rate, what we have to do in order to improve road, rail and maritime safety”, - said Volodymyr Omelyan.

"We also agreed to establish a unified database. Currently, we have situation, where each Ministry operates its own figures of injuries and road traffic deaths. This should not be the case, if we are talking about coordination of all public authorities. In the future, experts from each ministry will be undergoing special traineeships abroad.  I hope, we will develop an effective strategy for improving the road safety, effectively implement it, and save lives of thousands of Ukrainians ", - the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine stressed.

He also noted that on 15 November, 2016, with the support of the European Investment Bank and the European Commission an international round table “International Rules and Standards in Transport Security. Challenges and Best Practices.” "This is very important. We don’t need to reinvent something new or unique, but use the European experience and practice.”,- Volodymyr Omelyan.

The international round table will be attended by national and international experts, representatives of the European Commission, international organizations, IFOs, EU States public authorities, technical and financial aid projects, ministries and other central and local executive bodies of Ukraine.

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine noted that funding of the road safety should be enshrined in law, «A particular decision of the Ministry was to set up guaranteed financing of road safety. »

The Minister also announced that today a social campaign has launched, the purpose of which is to draw social attention to the problem of non-compliance with speed limits. "This is a serious problem. We have situation, where on new-good roads, cars move with the speed of 150-200 km/h. We must stop this practice by introducing strict legal regulations, active enforcement by national police staff and other public authorities, and appropriate social campaign.  Such social campaign starts in a few regions of Ukraine.”

Konstantin Bushuev, the Deputy Chairman of National Police noted, that the traffic safety is highly important nowadays, particularly due to complicated weather conditions:  “Traffic safety is one of our priority. The National Police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have elaborated a strategy that includes several directions: the first one is to ensure good work of the police. This project starts in Lviv region. We have special police units operating on highways (roads of national significance), ensuring traffic safety.  Secondly, it’s necessary to record violations of traffic rules in order to ensure preliminary compliance with speed limits.”

Eric Hoyrup, the Head of EIB Technical Assistance "Modernization and Safety Improvements of the Road Network in Ukraine” said that the project would include: introduction of new road standards; analyzing road crashes, black spots management; the infrastructure safety management procedures; enhancing and developing Ukravtodor capacity.

"The effective RS Policy consists of: educational and awareness campaigns; enforcement; engineering; emergency; evaluation. Failure to comply speed limits is the main reason for road accidents in the world. Of course, other causes and factors are important and have their place, but we focus specifically on the speed limits. Severity of accidents directly depends on the traffic speed limits”- said Eric Hoyrup.

The project’s key expert Barbara Krol presented in detail the social Road safety campaign on speed ‘face to face’. “We have been developing and preparing this campaign for 11 months. First of all we conducted a profound research. According to the findings of the sociological research, we determined that all traffic participants in Ukraine realize the importance of traffic safety. Therefore, it is the key issue of this campaign. Our purpose is to draw attention of society to our campaign and save lives".



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