Tougher sanctions may reduce number of traffic accidents

Although the statistics of the Traffic Police attest a large number of road accidents involving young or inexperienced drivers, the sources from the Ministry of Informational Development (MID) sees the main cause of this phenomenon in the too small fines applied by the traffic officers. Requested by Info-Prim Neo to comment on the created situation, head of the Vehicle Registration Division of the Ministry of Informational Technologies, Ilie Bricicaru, stated that the large number of road accidents is not determined by the level of drivers’ instruction or by their age, but by the fact that the Traffic Police do not apply sanctions for all breaches of the Traffic Regulations and Code on Administrative Contraventions. Bricicaru asserts that the human factor is not always decisive in causing accidents, even in case of drivers that have one-year-experience, and a thorough investigation into causes and factors generating accidents has not been carried out to date. Nowadays, the Traffic Police have no statistics that would elucidate the quality of instruction of the holders of driver’s licence, number of drivers without experience that are causing severe road accidents, as well as number of withdrawals of driver’s licence. According to the quoted source, the situation as concerns the grave accidents attested in Moldova denotes the fact that the Traffic Police do not perform its tasks fully. In Bricicaru’s opinion, the Traffic Police has to promote a more drastic policy towards the drivers, especially towards those having a poor driving experience. They must, first of all, place on the wind-screen the sign “Attention!” and not drive faster than the legal limit (70 km/hour). MID representative says that the traffic officers do not reveal all the breaches of the Traffic Regulations, taking into consideration only the grave ones. “Only by applying tougher sanctions, will the drivers become more responsible”, Bricicaru stated. Requested by Info-Prim Neo, the head of organization and information Division within the IM, Iuri Untilov stated that the Traffic Police do not take actions in the absence of a tougher legal framework in this field. According to the same source, the small fines, applied at the moment, allows violating the traffic legislation by the drivers. According to the source, the Traffic Police trust that the situation could be redressed only after the Parliament’s approval of the project for the new traffic Code that would include, following the example of the European countries, tough sanctions for violations, inclusively the withdrawal of the driver’s licence after gathering 15 points of penalties.