Civic activists held an event entitled “Don’t turn official motorcades into funeral corteges” in connection with the National Volunteer Week. These submitted a petition to Parliament, transmitting the authorities the message that the Moldovans do not want to become victims of road accidents caused by official convoys.

Antonița Fonari, director of the Platform for Active Citizenship, said public functionaries caused a series of road accidents in time. Most of the times the official processions stress out the participants in traffic as these appear suddenly from over the corner or at stoplights. “The people cannot always react immediately and accidents thus occur,” she stated.

Journalist Vitalie Călugăreanu told about his own experience. “I had to stick to the parapet to avoid an accident with a car from an official convoy,” he stated. “Those from the State Guard and Protection Service should understand that they put you in the situation to choose: you either go yourself into the parapet and die or you enter directly into the procession. In such situations, the drivers do not have solutions as the roads in Moldova have only two lanes and those from the State Guard Service should understand his. If their regulations provide that they can travel on a lane and a half, these are bad regulations as the lives of those from the first car of the motorcade and of the other traffic participants are endangered.”

Veaceslav Gribincea, director of the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, transmitted a message to the authorities. “No one is above the law and your life is not more valuable than that of the other people,” he stated, calling on those from the State Guard and Protection Service to change their attitude and be more attentive to traffic and not to speed.

Deputy Speaker of Parliament Valeriu Giletski took the petition and assured the participants that this will be passed on to the MPs for examination. He said that the legislature during the past few years devoted special attention to road safety. The road traffic regulations and the penalties for those who violate traffic rules were toughened up.

In time, the official motorcades were involved in a number of road accidents. In 2003, on Low Sunday, the convoy of the then Premier Vasile Tarlev was involved in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of seven persons, three of whom were children. In 2014, as a result of a road accident that involved the motorcade of the then Prime Minister Vlad Filat, two agents of the State Guard and Protection Service were hospitalized and placed under intensive care. This September, two cars of the motorcade of President Igor Dodon were involved in a road accident on the Strășeni-Călărași road. The President’s mother and several security agents were hospitalized.