advertisement
Sat, May 26 2012
Brake time
Photo: Nadezhda Chipeva
Photo: Tsvetelina Angelova
The rate of road deaths in Bulgaria has dropped in recent years, but is still close to double the European Union average, and among the worst in the bloc.
Summer 2010 sees the Bulgarian Government become the latest to come up with plans to discourage lemming-like driving, just as the European Commission is putting forward proposals to halve road deaths in the EU by 2020.
In the EU in 2001, the rate of fatalities per million of population was 113; in 2009 it was 69, a reduction of 36 per cent – an interesting figure in itself, especially if one considers that the EU expanded twice during this time, in 2004 and 2007.
Bulgaria had 128 road deaths per million population in 2001, dropping by 11 per cent to 118 in 2009, according to EU statistics.
Separate to these figures, Bulgarian media reported that by early July, 372 people had died on Bulgarian roads since the beginning of 2010, 14 per cent less than the same period of 2009.
Staying alive
According to Bulgarian media reports, the Government intends a tougher line against speeding, drink driving and driving without a licence.
These offences are the most frequent reasons for fatal road accidents in Bulgaria.
Mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa said that amendments to the Road Traffic Act would, if approved, see speeding fines start at 500 leva and pass the 2000 leva mark for those, as nervous passengers on this country’s roads might put it, know nothing other than how to press down the accelerator.
Bulgarian National Radio said that the Interior Ministry’s strategy for improving traffic safety from 2011 to 2010 had the goal of reducing road deaths by 40 per cent and serious injuries by 20 per cent.
More than half the accidents in Bulgaria are caused by speeding, which is why fines for those exceeding the limits will be among those increased the most.
The amendments also provide for restrictions on those who have had a driving licence for less than six months, requiring that during this time they will not be allowed to drive alone and must be accompanied by a motorist of at least four years’ experience.
Among other measures, the Interior Ministry said that it intended asking the Road Infrastructure Agency to repair Bulgaria’s roads – and in particular, to fix potholes.
Around Europe
On July 20, the European Commission also adopted a 2011-2020 plan, aimed at halving road deaths by the end of the programme.
A hundred people die on Europe’s roads every day, according to Siim Kallas, European Commission Vice President responsible for transport.
In 2009, more than 35 000 people died on the roads of the EU. For every death, there were about four permanently disabling injuries such as damage to the brain or spinal cord; 10 serious injuries; and 40 minor injuries.
"We have made good progress since 2001 and we have succeeded in saving nearly 80 000 lives," Kallas said. "But the number of fatalities and injuries on our roads is still unacceptable. We are looking at what kind of cars motorists drive, where they drive and how they drive."
A Eurobarometer survey outlined Europeans’ concerns about road safety. Ninety-four per cent saw drink driving as the most serious safety problem, 78 per cent named speeding, 52 per cent wanted road infrastructure improved, 42 per cent said that traffic laws should be better enforced – and 36 per cent called for dealing "equally forcefully" with resident and foreign traffic offenders.
The EC programme has seven "strategic objectives".
One is improved safety measures for vehicles, including mandatory electronic stability control for cars, buses and trucks, mandatory lane departure warning systems for trucks and buses, mandatory automatic emergency braking systems for trucks and buses, and mandatory seat belt reminders for cars and trucks.
Other measures include strengthening of EU legislation on roadworthiness tests, building safer road infrastructure (European funds will be granted only to infrastructure compliant with road safety and tunnel safety directives) and boosting of "smart technology".
Strengthening education and training for road users will include the EC working with member states on issues such as the minimum criteria for driving instructors, and probation periods for drivers after passing licence tests.
The EC also envisages EU-wide awareness campaigns.
For drink driving, the EC said, penalties should be accompanied by preventative measures.
"For example, the Commission will consider legislative measures to require mandatory use of alco-locks for specific professional cases, such as school buses, or in the framework of rehabilitation programmes (for professional and non-professional drivers) after drink driving offences."
The biggest cross-border driving offence is still speeding, the EC said. It said that it would prioritise the adoption of legally binding measures on the cross border exchange of information in the field of road safety to allow for the identification and sanctioning of foreign offenders for seatbelts, speed, alcohol and traffic light offences.
The EC said that there would be a "special focus on motorcyclists".
While other vehicle transport modes have shown significant decreases in fatalities and serious injuries over time, those for PTW (powered two-wheelers) riders have exhibited much lower decreases or remained even static, the EC said.
These measures would include introducing a number of safety measures such as mandatory fitting of Advanced Brake Systems, Automatic Headlamp On and measures so that speed controls on some categories of two-wheelers cannot be removed. Further, technical standards for protective equipment – even including the possibility of airbags for motorcycles "or including the airbag in the protective clothing".
Summer 2010 sees the Bulgarian Government become the latest to come up with plans to discourage lemming-like driving, just as the European Commission is putting forward proposals to halve road deaths in the EU by 2020.
In the EU in 2001, the rate of fatalities per million of population was 113; in 2009 it was 69, a reduction of 36 per cent – an interesting figure in itself, especially if one considers that the EU expanded twice during this time, in 2004 and 2007.
Bulgaria had 128 road deaths per million population in 2001, dropping by 11 per cent to 118 in 2009, according to EU statistics.
Separate to these figures, Bulgarian media reported that by early July, 372 people had died on Bulgarian roads since the beginning of 2010, 14 per cent less than the same period of 2009.
Staying alive
According to Bulgarian media reports, the Government intends a tougher line against speeding, drink driving and driving without a licence.
These offences are the most frequent reasons for fatal road accidents in Bulgaria.
Mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa said that amendments to the Road Traffic Act would, if approved, see speeding fines start at 500 leva and pass the 2000 leva mark for those, as nervous passengers on this country’s roads might put it, know nothing other than how to press down the accelerator.
Bulgarian National Radio said that the Interior Ministry’s strategy for improving traffic safety from 2011 to 2010 had the goal of reducing road deaths by 40 per cent and serious injuries by 20 per cent.
More than half the accidents in Bulgaria are caused by speeding, which is why fines for those exceeding the limits will be among those increased the most.
The amendments also provide for restrictions on those who have had a driving licence for less than six months, requiring that during this time they will not be allowed to drive alone and must be accompanied by a motorist of at least four years’ experience.
Among other measures, the Interior Ministry said that it intended asking the Road Infrastructure Agency to repair Bulgaria’s roads – and in particular, to fix potholes.
Around Europe
On July 20, the European Commission also adopted a 2011-2020 plan, aimed at halving road deaths by the end of the programme.
A hundred people die on Europe’s roads every day, according to Siim Kallas, European Commission Vice President responsible for transport.
In 2009, more than 35 000 people died on the roads of the EU. For every death, there were about four permanently disabling injuries such as damage to the brain or spinal cord; 10 serious injuries; and 40 minor injuries.
"We have made good progress since 2001 and we have succeeded in saving nearly 80 000 lives," Kallas said. "But the number of fatalities and injuries on our roads is still unacceptable. We are looking at what kind of cars motorists drive, where they drive and how they drive."
A Eurobarometer survey outlined Europeans’ concerns about road safety. Ninety-four per cent saw drink driving as the most serious safety problem, 78 per cent named speeding, 52 per cent wanted road infrastructure improved, 42 per cent said that traffic laws should be better enforced – and 36 per cent called for dealing "equally forcefully" with resident and foreign traffic offenders.
The EC programme has seven "strategic objectives".
One is improved safety measures for vehicles, including mandatory electronic stability control for cars, buses and trucks, mandatory lane departure warning systems for trucks and buses, mandatory automatic emergency braking systems for trucks and buses, and mandatory seat belt reminders for cars and trucks.
Other measures include strengthening of EU legislation on roadworthiness tests, building safer road infrastructure (European funds will be granted only to infrastructure compliant with road safety and tunnel safety directives) and boosting of "smart technology".
Strengthening education and training for road users will include the EC working with member states on issues such as the minimum criteria for driving instructors, and probation periods for drivers after passing licence tests.
The EC also envisages EU-wide awareness campaigns.
For drink driving, the EC said, penalties should be accompanied by preventative measures.
"For example, the Commission will consider legislative measures to require mandatory use of alco-locks for specific professional cases, such as school buses, or in the framework of rehabilitation programmes (for professional and non-professional drivers) after drink driving offences."
The biggest cross-border driving offence is still speeding, the EC said. It said that it would prioritise the adoption of legally binding measures on the cross border exchange of information in the field of road safety to allow for the identification and sanctioning of foreign offenders for seatbelts, speed, alcohol and traffic light offences.
The EC said that there would be a "special focus on motorcyclists".
While other vehicle transport modes have shown significant decreases in fatalities and serious injuries over time, those for PTW (powered two-wheelers) riders have exhibited much lower decreases or remained even static, the EC said.
These measures would include introducing a number of safety measures such as mandatory fitting of Advanced Brake Systems, Automatic Headlamp On and measures so that speed controls on some categories of two-wheelers cannot be removed. Further, technical standards for protective equipment – even including the possibility of airbags for motorcycles "or including the airbag in the protective clothing".
-
Print
-
Send via email
- Translate to
-
Share:
Comments
To post comments, please, Login or Register.
Please read the The Sofia Echo forum comments policy.
Sofia to spend 26M leva on road repairs in 2012
Of this sum, two million leva will be spent on repairing pavements, Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova says.
Belt up! Bulgaria's traffic police join in EU seatbelt crackdown
Motorists and passengers to be checked during campaign lasting until September 18
Bulgarian road deaths mount further after final summer fatality tally
During Bulgaria's summer season, 196 people died in road accidents. The 2010 figure was 260 while in 2009 there were 263 road deaths.
Bulgarian traffic police to crack down on failure to wear seat belts
Individuals - whether drivers or passengers - face fines of 50 leva for not wearing a seat belt.
Sofia has highest road accident death rate among European cities - report
The Bulgarian capital city has a traffic accident death rate of 72 out of a million residents, while for Vienna and Prague, the rate is 13, according to BTV.
Woman dies in Sofia after car crashes into bus stop
Eyewitnesses say motorist was attempting an illegal turn.
More in this category
Saab awarded $2.4M military training equipment contract in Bulgaria
The funding is provided under the foreign military sales programme of the US army's Program Executive Office of Simulation, Training and Instrumentation.
Two Brits fined for hooliganism in Bulgaria’s Veliko Turnovo
The UK nationals were arrested after throwing beer bottles at people after being refused entry to a restaurant that had closed for the night.
Tourism: Bulgaria to spend 300M leva on restoring castles, ancient sites
Restoration and development projects include Madara Horseman, Arbanassi fortress, Magura cave.
Sovereign Order of Malta assists hospital in Bulgaria’s Iskrets
Simeon Saxe-Coburg and his spouse Margarita opened a new heating and insulation system at the Tsar Ferdinand Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases in Iskrets, a project implemented thanks to the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Sofia and the Nando Peretti Foundation.
Bulgarian Parliament passes confiscation act
According to the law's provisions, the commission will have the power to investigate individuals without prior notification and would not require a criminal conviction in order to launch an investigation.
© 2000-2012, Sofia Echo Media Ltd.
Web Design by RIZN
Sofia Echo Media is part of the Economedia Group.
The news and information content on this website is provided by our editorial team and is copyrighted.
Any unauthorised reproduction or use of it is strictly forbidden. Reproduction of this website's content is permitted only
with prior written permission from the Editor-in-Chief, should be propertly acredited and provide an active link back to our site.
Comments posted by the website's visitors are independent of the editorial materials and do not represent the views of sofiaecho.com.
Sofia Echo Media cannot be held responsible for the statements contained in visitor comments.
The percentаge change in the shares' prices are based on the price of the last transaction of the current session compared to the
price of the last transaction of the previous session. Bulgarian Stock Exchange data is not real-time, but updated every 15 minutes,
and should not be used as a basis for decisions about buying or selling stock options.
- Economedia Group portfolio:
- In Bulgarian:
-
Business:
Капитал,
Кариери,
Пазари,
Ho Re Mag,
Регал,
Градът.bg,
Одит,
Foton.bg,
Online shop
- News: Дневник, Европа, Foreign Policy - България
- IT: IDG.BG, Computerworld, PC World, CIO, Networkworld
- Entertainment: Бакхус
-
In English:
The Sofia Echo
.. The important thing is that you rushed to show your colors by insulting my "communist" whatever before you gave yourself the chance to understand that you were the one confusing the debate.
Some "Eropeans" those Dutch...
Lesson # 1 over, come back any time...
Monologue of the deaf...
So yeah next time if you are not so sure how statistics work, don't use "rate"!
Just say that: our perfect country has double the population and half the DEATHS of your worthless one...
Are all Dutch that dense?
With other words, if say BG has 100 per million, and Holland has 25, why would you say "half the death rate" of BG?
It's a 1/4 of the death rate of BG. Since BG is double the EU average, that means that Holland has half the death rate of the EU.
I believe you - why would I be informed on such a minor country like Holland?
I was quoting you when you said " twice the population and half the death RATE"
"Rate" means per # of population or "per one million" as in this study.
The only time the size of population is relevant is if you were saying that more crowded streets are Morris dangerous, which is what I thought you were saying.
Half the death rate is just that - how many per 100 or a million or whatever you choose to use.
Valeri, twice the absolute number on half of the population means four times per capaita. In other words: a Bulgarian has four times the chance to be roadkill a Dutchman has - and taking accounts of bikes, maybe five in the case of cars.
But this probably is Bulgarian maths - looks like they think that when you go twice as fast, you also need just twice the braking distance - and safety distance when you are on someone´s tail.
Besides, so fat stats have fallen.
7 months = 378
Llast year that number was almost twice.
Looky here:
dokkpbdp.mvr.bg
Culture shmultcher...
It ain't got nuthin to do with no darn cultur, but with road infrastructure.
We do not get what we are given because BG administration is bound to one and only one culture - that one of theft.
That's why the eU money for the roads have stopped for almost an year.
And because of the pensions that are funded by the excise on fuels, nothing from the over 1 lev in taxes of a liter of gasoline goes into road infrastructure.
Besides traffic police only wants to [...]
Read the full comment get the darn 20BGN and keep eyes shut and listen to "Hear no evil, see no evil"
" ... looks like you learned statistics the communist way."
No prejudice here at all is there.... I said: "I am amazed that with only 2 decades, the first of which wasted in many ways, of attempting to build a lawful society, BG's road deaths are only double (and closing) that of NL," meaning just that - double per capita. Who's talking about absolute numbers?
Doel:
".. but for once this has nothing to do with behavior on the road."
Who told you that? [...]
Read the full comment Everything has to do with common culture that's product of our past. That IS related to Communism, not math or statistics - we're all literate...
Valeri, before you comment on statistics, better take a course - looks like you learned statistics the communist way. The population in Holland is twice that in Bulgaria, so twice as many deaths absolute mean four times as many per million.
I absolutely agree that Bulgarians wasted two decennia before they cleared out the communist-era crooks (even not completely, as the son of Dimitri Stanisjev, secretary to the central committe of the BKP is still in the job his father prepared for him, and all kind of Komsomol cadres, party-appointed judges and other opportunists are still [...]
Read the full comment in positions of power), but for once this has nothing to do with behaviour on the road. Twenty-year old boys in baseball caps behave just as madly as fat baldheads in pimped SUV´s. The only difference is that they will die in the crash themselves, whereas the mutri in his tank will survive but kill the father of two in his 1990 Golf.
"Wonderfully speculative discussion. I rather stick to statistics and hard observations."
So other's observations are "wonderfully speculative" and yours are "hard"? Statistics are like bikini - show a lot but cover the essential.
I am amazed that with only 2 decades, the first of which wasted in many ways, of attempting to build a lawful society, BG's road deaths are only double (and closing) that of NL, which has been at it for how long?
Like I said - reality please...
Wonderfully speculative discussion. I rather stick to statistics and hard observations. Statistics: the Netherlands have twice the population and half the death rate compared to BG. That makes factor four. And then, among the fatalities are many cyclists who stand little chance in confrontations with cars and lorries, and motorcyclists, of wich there are far more. And since the country is far smaller, traffic density often is breathtaking (although you can´t make an accident in a traffic jam).
Observations on BG roads: tailgating, overtaking on the right (even if the guy in the left-hand lane is there because [...]
Read the full comment some fool, sometimes even a policeman, is standing in the right hand lane), overtaking in blind corners, cutting corners....
And I don´t care wheter the cause is incompetence or just an egoistic mentality. Don´t just concentrate on speeding, but send out plainclothes-plain car patrols who can observe behaviour - flash up a ¨stop - police¨ panel if you are driving 10 meters behind them at 100. But that would need policeman who can talk about behaviour, instead of loitering in a car and blurting out ¨you drive too fast¨. And for once follow the Serbs ant take the driving licence if someone overtakes where it´s forbidden.
Oh, and make ¨The accident of the day¨ the first item on TV news. With all the gory details. If that won´t scare the drivers, it will scare their passengers.
btw Milen there is no data to suggest that the new drivers are the problem - that's just bulgarian thinking on your part - it's every one else. Blame the newbe's...
Older drivers with many years experience are the problem in my observations.
You see, it not the lack of experience but the presents of bad habits that's the issue.
Younger (presumably less experiences) are more cordial by far.
@Milen
It says "... the rate of fatalities per million of population..." which means that, now that you bring Sweden up, unless bicycles habitually travel with 100, including Scandinavia, distorts the picture. Have you been to Scandinavia? There are very few privately owned cars there compared to BG. They tax autos to the point that Copenhagen reminds me of Sofia of my childhood - clean and carless...
@ ? the EU average is 69, so for every Bulgaria (118) there is Sweden with 20.
@ all the others - I agree, Bulgarian drivers are not taught appropriately and there is no learner period - once you get your licence, you are considered a qualified driver with all the rights
Still though, Bulgaria's roads are the biggest reason, besides the other problems
@ David
Are you saying that the western EU countries in 2001 had no "road sense" didn't know "mechanics of driving the vehical the driving" and the roads were full of "pot holes"?
Because the EU had 113 fatalities per mill in 2001, and BG had 118 fatalities per mill in 2010.
Stop projecting whatever issues torment you personally - we are behind, which is to be expected. Things are getting better but there is no point of drama here - a little realism would be nice...
You can bring in a whole raft of legislation and it will not have anywhere near the effect and actually teaching drivers well in first place. Until Bulgarian learners are taught road sense as well as the mechanics of driving the vehical the driving standards will not increase. Police with speed guns, powers to arrest or fine for bad driving will only be effective at the moment of time it is acted, good tuition stay for life and saves lives. Oh, and so do good road surfaces so as not to take too much of the drivers attention up watching [...]
Read the full comment for potholes.
@George
If you have your papers and don't drive too fast, how crazy are you George?
Typical provincial narcissism... traffic deaths are obviously one of the areas BG is doing better with - we are at EUs average of 2001 - don't you wish that the other indicators were at the EU 2001?
If you have the car papers with you and you do not drive with too high speed, you are allowed to drive as a crazy idiot in this country.
I never noticed that the police is doing anything!
Moreover each year 20.000 drivers buy their licence, according to the Minister of Internal Affairs.
So, I think there are other measures necessary than speed and drink control in order to create a normal traffic behaviour.
@
They are saying that BG is roughly where the EU was in 2001.
Better than I would've guessed...
the so called road-worthiness test in Bulgaria is a complete scam, it does not happen no test is dun jest the money is paid there are thousands of cars that haven't been tested for years.
In the EU in 2009, the rate of vehicle fatalities per million of population was 69, but also in 2009 in Bulgaria the figure was 118 fatalities per million.... umm, am I missing something?
Its not just speed and drink, its also the people in fast cars how seem to think they can overtake anywhere, bends, double white lines etc. Without a care for outher road users