Reduce the speed and deprive the rights for the phone: what Russia can learn from Britain in the fight against road accidents.
The story of a girl who knocked down three children at a pedestrian crossing in Moscow, two of whom were killed, sparked discussions about how to make Russian roads safer and prevent a repeat of this tragedy.
In Britain, the death rate as a result of road accidents is one of the lowest in Europe and in the world, but this was not always the case: half a century ago, this figure was five times higher.
The BBC asked three experts how the mortality rate on British roads was reduced and what Russia can learn from this experience.
Fighting against mortality
In 2020, there were 24.4 deaths as a result of road accidents per million inhabitants in Britain, a total of 1,472 deaths - in Europe, this figure is lower only in Norway, Sweden and Malta, according to the non-governmental organization “European Transport Safety Council”.
But in the 1960s and 70s, the death rate on British roads was 4-5 times higher. However, after a number of reforms, this indicator began to fall regularly, reaching the current figures for decades.
In Russia, the goal to sharply reduce the death rate from road accidents by 2030 was set by President Putin last year - within the framework of the national project "Safe and High-quality Highways".
” The task is ambitious, “the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta noted.
Now the death rate on Russian roads is several times higher than in most European countries - last year 13,706 people died in road accidents in Russia.
Work on all fronts and education
How did Britain achieve one of the lowest road death rates in Europe? It's all about a comprehensive approach, says Nick Reed, a British expert on transport and road safety.
He says that in Britain, an approach based on four factors was developed-Four Es (the name comes from the fact that all four factors in English begin with the letter "e"):
Enforcement – that is, control over the implementation of traffic rules, from fines based on recordings from surveillance cameras to police actions;
Engineering – technical activity - road design, traffic management, barriers and fences, safety inside cars;
Education – driving training, taking exams, issuing licenses, public campaigns for drivers and pedestrians;
Ambulance – timely access of doctors and other services to the scene of an accident.
In recent years, the British authorities have also been actively fighting against the use of mobile phones by drivers while driving a car.
Both in Russia and in Britain, it is forbidden to hold a phone in your hands while driving a moving car.
However, if the Russian law provides for a fine of 1.5 thousand rubles, then the British law provides for a fine of 200 to 1 thousand pounds (20 thousand-100 thousand rubles), as well as 6 penalty points, which for novice drivers with less than two years of driving experience means deprivation of rights.
Nick Reed adds that using a phone in some cases can be even more dangerous than driving drunk. He is sure that the law is only a step towards solving the problem, but the key is to inform about the dangers of sending messages and calls while driving.
Slow down the speed and shame the phone
” There can't be one solution - you can't focus only on the design of roads or safety in the car, you also need to educate drivers and improve the work of ambulances and other services, “agreed Matthew Niblett, director of the Independent Transport Commission, a leading industry research organization in Britain.
Among the success factors of the British road policy, he stressed the fact that the authorities were able to enforce the safety measures built into every car, such as the use of seat belts, as well as make drunk driving unacceptable.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the alcohol limit for drivers is set at 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, and in Scotland-50 milligrams. Excess is punishable by a prison term.
"Drunk driving used to lead to more deaths. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, very tough measures were introduced, the punishment was increased, and now, according to my estimate, 90% of drivers strongly condemn such behavior.”
Niblett also points to a new approach to the construction of roads.
"A lot of research has been conducted in the field of traffic management and road design to improve safety. Part of this approach is paying special attention to dangerous places, such as blind intersections, as well as improving visibility, slowing down traffic and providing a place on the road for traffic to see and be seen,” the expert says.
As a result, unregulated pedestrian crossings over broadband roads were excluded in Britain. Most often, the pedestrian flow is completely separated from the expressway, and you can cross it through a bridge or tunnel.
But the speed on the streets of British cities is much lower than in Russian ones. In most cities and towns, the maximum speed has been reduced to 30 mph (48 km/h) in recent decades, and in many areas - to 20 m/h (32 km/h).
In those areas where, according to local residents, the speed limit is not low enough, for example, for the safety of schoolchildren, parents often take the initiative and write a petition to the local council with a request to take measures - such appeals are always considered seriously, speed cameras are installed on the roads, and its limit can be lowered.
At the same time, the non - fined speed threshold is also significantly lower-it is 10% of the maximum permissible speed: for example, 22 m/h at the allowed 20 or 55 m/h at the allowed 50.
The execution of this is ensured not only by cameras and artificial bumps, known as” speed bumps", but also by chicanes - artificial bends on the roads that create sections with one lane of traffic on roads with two lanes to slow it down.
Niblett also believes that calls and messages behind the wheel should be dealt with not only with fines and deprivation of rights, but also to conduct an information struggle.
"The police take the use of a phone behind the wheel very seriously. But this is not enough. People need to be shamed so that they understand that such behavior is extremely dangerous and selfish, and that your own children can suffer, " the expert says.
“We need to make people feel that it is impossible to do this. It is necessary to talk about specific cases of accidents that led to the use of a phone while driving, when people were killed or injured, and show it in the media”"
"The phone is a system problem”
Alexander Shumsky, Project Manager probok.net, considers mobile devices one of the main problems of driving around the world.
"People who are sitting in messengers, in phones - they have distracted attention, they do not control the traffic situation and thus shoot down, fly into oncoming traffic. There are more deaths from this than due to drunkenness or for any other reasons”"
"The phone as a means of communication in the car is a systemic problem, it is not connected with Russia, but with the world in general," the expert says.
He said that he requested data from the traffic police, but received information only about a few people who died as a result of an accident where the driver used a phone. Shumsky is sure that official Russian statistics simply do not have data on the real scale of the problem.
“The girl who hit the children admitted that she was sitting on the phone, so the statistics will include two people who died as a result of using the phone while driving. But usually people do not admit, and the drivers who died will not tell that they were sitting on the phone. Therefore, there are really no such figures, " Shumsky believes.
Recently, cameras have been introduced in Moscow that record the phone in the hands of the driver and an unbuckled seat belt. On Monday, the TASS news agency reported with reference to the Ministry of Internal Affairs that since the beginning of the year, more than 3 thousand fines have already been issued for such violations, confirmed by recordings from video cameras.
Shumsky welcomes this measure , but notes that it cannot change habits by itself: "Talking on the phone is not the biggest problem, the worst thing is when a person sits and looks at the phone, writes something. Will the camera be able to track this? The camera catches very well when the phone is at your ear. But this is not the most dangerous."
He also agrees with English experts that, in addition to fines and other measures, broad public campaigns are also required.
“There is not enough publicity in this matter. We don't have a problem in the public consciousness,” Shumsky says.
He also called for reducing the non-fined threshold for speeding: "The peak speed when people can go 80 km/h on Tverskaya, and perhaps even more, because there are no cameras, so you can go 120 km/h, and no one will fine you for it - it's really dangerous, because it leads to an accident.”
However, he believes that the Moscow authorities are already taking the necessary measures to improve road safety - and that the Russian capital is gradually becoming designed for pedestrians again, and not for cars.
"Competent organization, traffic calming, creation of pedestrian crossings. Let's see - in 10 years, the death rate [from road accidents in Moscow] has fallen by half. It's a crazy pace. Despite the fact that the population was smaller... We have the right trend, I would like, of course, even faster”"
Now the Russian government is considering reducing the non-fined speed limit from 20 to 10 km/h.
bbc.com
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