In an attempt to end the daily carnage on Ukraine’s notoriously dangerous roads, a new law calls for stricter rules and steeper fines for unsafe or drunken drivers.
Either the lawless streets will become safer, or bribe-seeking traffic police richer, or both. But drivers and pedestrians alike hope that lives will be saved.
“[The new law will] sober all those who are behind the wheel and threaten all with their crude actions as well as the pedestrians,” Deputy Interior Minister Oleksandr Savchenko told the Kyiv Post.
The law officially came into effect on Oct. 4, but the State Automotive Inspection, known as DAI by its Ukrainian acronym, said new fines are unlikely to be levied before November.
Changes to road rules are badly needed because Ukraine has one the highest rates of traffic accidents in the world, and its number is growing every year. Rates are seven to eight times higher than in Austria, Germany, Portugal, and four times higher than in France, Hungary, Finland and Denmark. The number of deaths on the road has grown from 5,900 in 2002 to 9,500 in 2007, according to DAI statistics.
This is only a small sampling of the regular bloodshed:
On Sept. 16, Vitaliy Faingold, the son of Simferopol City Council deputy Yosyp Faingold and one of the richest people in Crimea, killed a 25-year-old female biker. He struck and killed the woman while driving his Bentley at a speed one witness estimated at more than 200 kilometers per hour.
The same day, a speeding Audi driver struck and killed a traffic police inspector, who had stopped to investigate another traffic accident. The driver escaped.
On Oct. 2, a drunk driver struck a bus and two cars, injuring three people.
The tragedies play out several times a day in Ukraine. No wonder pedestrians are afraid to walk and careful drivers are afraid to drive.
“I feel very uncomfortable on the road regarding the number of traffic rules violators and number of accidents I see every day,” said Volodymyr Alimov, a driver with 20 years of experience behind the wheel.
The most common causes of accidents are drunk driving, ignoring pedestrian crossing points and traffic lights, speeding and driving on the wrong side of the road. These behaviors are all singled out for more severe punishment under the new law.
Drivers caught drunk or on drugs behind the wheel may lose their license for up to 10 years, and will be fined Hr 2,250 to 3,400 – up from the current Hr 255 to 340. Ukraine has a zero tolerance policy, which means drivers cannot drink at all behind the wheel.
The speeding fine was raised from Hr 17 to Hr 510-680, depending on the case, but it will only be charged if the driver is 50 kilometers per hour over the speed limit. Up until now, the driver was fined if the speed was 20 kilometers over the limit.
The law also introduced a new fine for talking on the phone without a hand-free device while driving. Offenders can be charged between Hr 425 and 510.
All fines will be issued by the a judge. DAI inspectors are not allowed to accept money from drivers. Their job is to fill out the paperwork when they catch an offender.
Some drivers feared that higher fines may mean higher bribes to inspectors, however.
Nearly 60 percent of Ukrainians consider road inspectors to be the most corrupt officials in Ukraine, according to a poll of 10,580 people by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The poll was conducted in Jan.-April 2007. DAI inspectors were perceived as more corrupt than politicians, customs officials, other police units and doctors.
Interior Ministry officials said they are trying to fight corruption by rotating supervisors between regions, and establishing hot lines that drivers can dial to report extorting inspectors. As of next year, all DAI inspectors will also have to sign a contract that says they will lose their job if they accept bribes.
Nina Khmilevska, DAI spokeswomen, said drivers often initiate corruption by offering bribes.
“Paying a bribe is easier than [going through] the procedure of paying fines,” explained Valentyn Demchuk, deputy head of Drivers Union, a non-profit organization.
Whether they have to pay a bribe or a fine, drivers say they will offend less because it’s becoming expensive.
“I don’t care how to pay, whether it’s a high fine paid to the state or a high bribe paid to the police inspector,” said Olga Baiborodina, a driving instructor, who heads Autolady driving school. “In both cases, I am punished. I lose my money, so I would rather not break the rules.”
One DAI inspector who wanted to go nameless said that even the prospect of new, higher fines was enough to improve behavior on Kyiv’s roads. “Many of them are trying harder than ever since the Rada approved the law,” he said.
The new law gives traffic inspectors a right to confiscate driver’s licenses in case of serious offenses, such as speeding and drunk driving. Pending a court ruling, the driver will be able to continue driving using a temporary license issued by the inspector on the spot.
Another welcome measure in the new law is the issue of a copy of the offense protocol for the driver. Drivers often complain that inspectors added non-existing offenses to the protocol once the driver had signed it and driven away.
Other facets of the new law: introduction of compulsory social work for drunk driving, fleeing the scene of an accident or refusing to stop on demand for road inspectors.
Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko told Korrespondent, a Russian-language sister publication of the Kyiv Post, that high-ranking officials who often cause accidents will easily wriggle out of this rule by presenting a paper to the ministry that they have done their share of social work.
“It will be interesting to see how [Kyiv mayor Leonid] Chernovetskiy paints the railroad station for illegal driving with his flasher on, but I am afraid that his deputy will give him a paper showing that he has already done it,” Lutsenko said.Demchuk, the deputy head of the Drivers Union, said the new law gives inspectors the right to confiscate vehicles on the spot, which contradicts Ukraine’s property laws. “I think there will be many court cases on this issue,” he s
