Two people were killed and three injured in two car accidents in Ukraine’s capital on July 24.
The first deadly car accident happened near Dorohozhychi metro station in the western part of the city as two vehicles – a Renault and Nissan vans– crashed into each other at the crossroads.
One of the cars bounced onto the pedestrian crossing, where three people were waiting for the green light. The car hit two of them. It killed one, an elderly man, and injured a woman. She was hospitalized along with one of the drivers and a passenger who was thrown out of the car during the crash.
The second incident occurred in the evening on Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard, a lively street in Pechersk District close to the center of Kyiv. A Hummer vehicle hit and killed a 10-year-old girl at a crosswalk. The driver, Kirill Ostrovsky, 23, tried to escape from the scene. Ostrovsky is the director and owner of Fit & Sweet, a dietary foods company, and a former boxer, according to the Ukrainian media.
The two deadly car incidents highlighted a larger problem with Ukraine’s unsafe roads.
According to Ukraine’s National Police, on average eight people are killed in road incidents in Ukraine daily.
Most of the deadly road incidents are caused by intoxicated drivers, according to the police.
In one of the best know recent accidents, a 20-year-old woman plowed into a crowd of pedestrians on a sidewalk in Kharkiv in October, killing five and injuring six people, including a pregnant woman.
During January-June, more than 2,000 accidents occurred in Ukraine due to drivers being under the influence of alcohol, resulting in 42 deaths and 446 people with injuries.
After analyzing the six-month data, Ukraine’s patrol police decided to add 54 patrol teams and 114 response groups to patrol the country’s roads, according to Olexii Biloshytskyj, first deputy chief of Ukraine’s patrol police.
But such measures are clearly not enough to improve the situation, says Volodymyr Naumov, chairman of the board at the Ukrainian Center for Transport Infrastructure Reforms.
“There are no statistics on the number of deadly traffic accidents as well as where the incidents are concentrated… During the past two years, there has been no control at all,” Naumov told the Kyiv Post. “Instead of controlling, police officers, local authorities and the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety often take bribes.”
