Three in four people killed in road accidents in Chisinau are pedestrians, according to a survey presented by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE), which recommends that authorities speed up the process of lighting pedestrian crossings and making them safer structurally, among others.
Presenting the survey – titled “Why invest in road safety?”, its author Tudor Arnăut, fellow of the program “Public Policies for Development”, mentioned the need to develop a mechanism for collecting complex data on road accidents. The young man believes that the City Hall should create a new section within the General Directorate of Public Transport and Communications which would be directly responsible for road safety in Chisinau.
“Both central and local authorities need to see road safety as a strategic area of administration, establish a separate budget line for the financing of road safety actions and regard the money allocated in this area as an investment, not as an additional budget expense. By giving due consideration to this, the authorities would raise awareness and make the citizens more aware of road safety”, the scholarship holder remarked, quoted in a press release issued by IPRE.
Ana Corețchi, program coordinator at the Soros Foundation-Moldova, said that, in addition to the author’s recommendations, it’s also a good idea to focus on the educational side. “If we contribute to increasing the responsibility of our citizens beginning with school, this will be a major contribution to solving such problems in the future,” added the program coordinator.
Stanislav Ghilețchi, mentor in the “Public Policy for Development” program, highlighted some difficulties encountered in addressing the issue. “There is currently no systematic mechanism at the level of local public authorities to actually understand the causes of accidents at certain intersections and no effort is being made to improve the quality of road infrastructure. I think that more effort should be made here, and the study presented today offers more solutions in this regard”, remarked the mentor.
Ilie Bricicaru, road safety specialist and director of the Road Safety Observatory at the Technical University of Moldova, stressed that in road safety it is important to address both the situation before and after the accident. “When we talk about prevention, it is important to mention what happens to the infrastructure, because if we design bad roads, then it is difficult to maintain these roads. So, it is important to design a safe infrastructure before the accident, which will ensure all the necessary elements for the person to feel safe”.
“Legally and otherwise, everything encompassed by the notion of road, pedestrian or transport infrastructure is the responsibility of the municipal administration. We no longer have a traffic police and the government no longer has a privilege over local traffic management policy. If a local administration decides that from now on we will drive on this street at 30 km per hour or we do a pedestrian or a parking lot, then no one can forbid the City Hall to do so. Unfortunately, many specialists or officials in charge have remained with the old perception, and when such policy proposals are put forward, they have a lot of excuses why this is not possible. So, we should change the mechanism so that those in charge start to work for a change”, said Victor Chironda, expert in urban mobility and former deputy mayor.
The study was developed within the project "Public policies for development", implemented by IPRE, in cooperation and with the financial support of the Soros Foundation Moldova.
