North Ossetia: MPs highlight main problems of road safety

On November 29, within the session of the "Government's Hour", the North-Ossetian Parliament addresses the state of road safety. Before that, a commission set up from among MPs, raided the streets of Vladikavkaz and republic's districts and examined the work of drivers' schools, safety of passenger transportation, work of traffic militiamen and drivers' medical examination centres.

The discussion of the agenda point was conducted by MPs, local executive officials, law enforcement agencies and broad public.

Let us note here that within the last three years about 400 persons perished in the roads of North Ossetia, and about 2000 were injured. According to Vladimir Rubaev, head of the parliamentary group, the official statistics and multiple appeals of concerned voters also confirm the seriousness of the problem.

In the course of the raids, carried out together with the Prosecutor's Office, it became clear that the STSI (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, know in Russia as "GAI") failed to adequately respond to dangerous road sections, where road accidents are frequent.

"Particular concern was caused by the issues of passenger traffic; and in few days review of selected regular routes revealed negative facts," the head of the parliamentary group has emphasized. "Some drivers of buses en route were without driver's licenses and appropriate labour agreements; they had no route prescriptions and any marks of pre-work technical and medical examination. Absence of license cards and driver's admission certificates to transport passengers was established there."

According to his story, a subject of a serious investigation was the situation, when the parliamentarians and prosecutors identified four taxi drivers, registered at the drug treatment clinic; now it is necessary to figure out how they could get driver's licenses and generally admitted to service passengers.

The head of the group has added that there is a need of additional law-making aimed to address the issues, in particular, related to car parks and parking areas, evacuation of the cars, whose owners commit gross violations of norms and rules, and improving the quality of drivers' training.

According to the information presented by Khasanbek Bekuzarov, head of the Republic's STSI, in North Ossetia the road infrastructure fails to match the volume of traffic - the increment of the car fleet makes about 8000 units per year; now, the republic has more than 202,000 motor vehicles. While in 2000 there were 183 cars per 1000 of population, in 2010 the figure is 288, while the road infrastructure is fit for some 60-100 cars per 1000 of population.

Among other issues that also require urgent addressing, Mr Bekuzarov noted the insufficient level of STSI funding - road militiamen lack special cars, equipment fuel and lubricants; salaries of road inspectors are very low.