Current Affairs Politicians concede defeat in making Czech roads safer
A year after the introduction of a strict new road law that was meant to make Czech roads safer the authorities have had to admit defeat. The situation is as bad as ever and the number of road-related deaths has actually increased. Transport Minister Ales Rebicek says it is time to consider new measures.
Two weeks after the new law went into effect it was hailed as a revolution
on Czech roads. The traffic police were out in force and drivers were on
their best behavior. In that first week the police reported the lowest
number of accidents in ten years and the lowest number of deaths in
eighteen. Politicians jostled to take credit for what appeared to be
nothing short of a miracle. But, within two months drivers had gone back to
their old habits. Between January and August of last year 556 people were
killed in road accidents. In the same period this year the number of
casualties has risen to 735. The transport and interior ministers have
agreed it is high time to introduce new changes.
Firstly, a third of all accidents involve trucks and the ministry wants to
restrict their movement on Friday afternoons, Saturday mornings and Sunday
afternoons, when Czech roads are at their busiest. Secondly, a vast number
of speeding and drink driving accidents are caused by young people, fresh
out of driving school. The ministry has suggested that inexperienced young
drivers should get tougher sanctions than experienced drivers who have gone
for years without causing an accident.
The system should be more benevolent to drivers who repeatedly make trivial offenses such as bad parking and much harder on those who repeatedly make serious ones, such as overtaking on dangerous stretches of the road, speeding and drink-driving, which are the most frequent causes of death on the road. Fines for such transgressions would also be much higher.
Originally politicians had promised to assess and revise the law with the
intent of making it slightly more benevolent. But under the circumstances
it may get even tougher. Plans to amend it have divided experts in the
field. Some are pushing for change others say it is a complete waste of
effort because the problem is not in the law but in the lack of law
enforcement. The fact that the permanently understaffed traffic police has
had to commission "plastic" police officers to place along the
road as re-enforcements says it all. And the bad news is that the massive
drain from the police force, following the enforcement of a new civil
service law, is expected to continue. Until that unfortunate trend can be
reversed Czech roads are likely to remain as dangerous as ever.
