"As a result of the struggle for democracy on the road ... we now have drivers who commit as many as 20-30 serious traffic offences a year," General-Major Kiryanov told a press conference marking the beginning of the Safe Driving Week.
He underscored that in many countries the fines imposed on careless drivers amount to substantial sums and the offenders are subject to other harsh penalties.
"The presumption of innocence does not extend to drivers in these countries. A traffic inspector does not run after offenders there, the offence is registered by a video camera and nobody cares about who was driving the car involved. A traffic offence automatically entails a serious penalty in these countries," Viktor Kiryanov said.
He complained that the new Russian Administrative Code adopted in 2002 does not provide such penalty as revocation of a driving license for repeated serious violation of traffic rulss. Moreover, legislators struck out a number of vital provisions, which had proved their efficiency in the previous Code.
According to Major General Kiryanov, the threat caused by the current road accident rate is tantamount to the threat posed by use of weapons of mass destruction. "The 58th session of the United Nations referred to the current road accident situation as a global crisis and appealed to governments of all states to show a strong political will in addressing the challenge. Annually, about 1.2 million people die in road accidents all over the world," Viktor Kiryanov said.
According to the Russian Interior Ministry, 35,600 people died and 224,000 were injured in over 204,000 road accidents registered in Russia last year.
As compared to 2003, the number of those died and injured in traffic accident rose by 7 and 12.7 percent respectively, with the overall road accident rate growing by 10.8 percent.
According to experts, the social and economic damages incurred by road accidents amounted to 321.6 billion rubles (over $1.1 billion), with the loss of life and health accounting for 208.3 billion rubles.
