site.btaMinisters of Interior, Regional Development Attend Road Safety International Conference

Sofia, June 29 (BTA) - Interior Minister Mladen Marinov and Regional Development and Public Works Minister Petya Avramova attended here Saturday an international conference, titled "Effective Models and Tools for Enchancing Safety of the Transport System". The forum was held on June 29, which the Bulgarian government declared as annual Road Safety Day.

In 2018, there were a total of 6,684 road accidents, in which 611 people died and about 8,500 were injured. "These figures are really worrying, although compared to 2017 there is a decrease in both deaths and accidents," Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said at the conference.

The Interior Ministry's data for 2018 shows that 96 per cent of all traffic accidents in Bulgaria were a result driver errors. "Only a small percentage of car crashes have occurred due to road conditions, but 593 people have died on the roads in Bulgaria, which is not good news," said Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Petya Avramova at conference.

She cited data from the 2018 Annual Road Safety Performance Index, according to which 93 per cent of road fatalities are due to human mistakes, with speeding being the most widespread risk factor among Bulgarian drivers. "In order to improve road safety, it is necessary to pay close attention to both the road infrastructure and the behaviour of the drivers themselves," noted Avramova.

Minister Marinov said that in 2018 there have been over 1,300,000 traffic offenses, which shows that drivers do not have the necessary level of discipline and tolerance towards other participants in traffic. "We are working on changing the Road Traffic Act, and with these changes we hope to achieve better control and better prevention from all institutions," the Interior Minister said.

Marinov spoke about practical measures regarding the issue, including the creation of an operational center, which aims to reduce the response time to traffic accidents and their prevention, the installment of new cameras, which automatically register not only speeding but also other traffic violations, and the purchase of other technical equipment. He emphasized that setting up a single road violation data processing centre is crucial, as it will increase the traffic police's efficiency by 50 per cent, especially when it comes to handling violations.

Avramova said that experts from the Road Infrastructure Agency together with the Interior Ministry have carried out an investigation of sections with a high concentration of traffic accidents. Intelligent road traffic management systems are to be installed on the republican road network to provide real-time traffic information for travelers. A National Road Safety Coordination Centre is also being set up in order to reduce the response time for serious traffic accidents or the occurrence of temporary obstacles on the roads as a result of severe weather conditions or other force majeure circumstances, Minister Avramova said. MY/DT